Last week I got an email from one of my readers — the other one is possibly away for the summer. His name was Paddy and he wrote as follows: ‘Dear Janet, I love your column [I warmed to him immediately] but I have been rather confused lately. I’m not a good player, and I have spent most of my life trying to win tricks as cheaply as possible, but recently you have featured several hands where you advocate playing an unnecessarily high card.