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All things considered, there is practically no such thing as a blind guess in bridge, for there is nearly always some clue a zealous player can uncover. Some of the clues he might lean on are, admittedly, very thin, but they are better than no clue at all.
Take this deal from the Canada-France match in the 1968 World Bridge Olympiad. When the French held the North-South cards, they reached three notrump as shown, and West led the six of hearts. East took the ace and returned the jack, South (Gerard Bourchtoff) contributing the four and West the eight. East continued with the five, West dropping his queen under South's king in order to unblock the suit.
Had Bourchtoff now led a low club to the king -- which seems the normal thing to do -- he would have gone down one because of the 4-0 club division. But having observed how purposefully the defenders had played their hearts, he concluded that West had fewer hearts than East and was therefore more likely to have all four missing clubs than East — if indeed there was a 4-0 club division.
Accordingly, at trick four Bourchtoff played the queen of clubs rather than dummy's king. This proved to be an inspired move when East showed out.
Bourchtoff was then able to trap West's J-9-4 by successive club leads toward dummy to finish with 10 tricks -- an outcome attributable solely to the delicate inference he drew from the manner in which the Canadian East-West pair had played their hearts.
Tomorrow: Make haste slowly.