North-South had done well to maneuver themselves out of three no-trump or five diamonds, but four spades was hardly a bed of roses.

At the table declarer won the first heart lead and led a diamond to the king. East ducked, won the second diamond, and had a real problem. Did his partner have a possible trump trick or four small spades? Eventually he gave his partner a diamond ruff (the correct defense, since if West had jack-fourth of spades and no club jack, he could revert to hearts and eventually build a second trump trick for himself). When West took the diamond ruff he also took his time before finding the best defense, a trump exit. Now declarer had eight top winners, but no way to take a heart ruff and draw trump, or to set up clubs without losing two tricks in the process.

Declarer’s safest play would have been to duck the heart ace and let the defenders win the first trick. He needs to knock out the diamond ace while keeping hearts under control, and if the adverse trumps are split 4-2, a heart force of South’s hand would be embarrassing. The simplest plan is to invest a heart trick, letting North, the hand with the shorter trumps, take care of subsequent rounds of hearts, if need be. Then trumps can be drawn, if necessary in four rounds, and diamonds established. Four trumps, four diamonds, and two side aces would make the game without any need for heart ruffs or club finesses.

Consider in abstract how to play today’s diamond suit of J-98-6-3 facing A-K-4 to give yourself the best chance of four tricks? Best is to cash the ace, in case an honor falls, then cross back to the other hand in a second suit, and lead the nine, letting it run unless the next opponent shows out.

Now look at today’s deal, where South ended in six no-trump and West led the heart three. Declarer needed to generate two extra tricks from diamonds, so he played low from the table and won East’s queen with the king. A top diamond saw both opponents follow suit, but only now did declarer realize he was short of the entries to hand that he needed for the safety play in diamonds.

He was therefore reduced to playing off the second top diamond, hoping for the suit to break. However, when East showed out, the contract was doomed.

Declarer had exactly the right idea, but had miscalculated the entries needed to the South hand. Try the effect of the heart jack from dummy at the first trick. Whether East can cover or not, declarer has ensured an extra entry to hand when he needs it.

He now cashes a top diamond, comes to hand with a heart, and leads the diamond nine. West plays low and, as planned, declarer follows low from dummy. If it loses, he can claim the balance. When the nine wins, he can cash dummy’s diamond winner, return to hand with the spade queen, and force out the diamond queen to claim 12 tricks.

Goldilocks has now completed her training at bridge, and has advanced to competing at the duplicate. Papa Bear expansively invited her to partner him, “So she could see how the experts play.” Keeping her doubts under firm check, Goldilocks accepted with as much grace as she could, and was privileged to watch him get his paws on the dummy, often with singular lack of success. In four hearts, he won the opening club lead in dummy, led a club to the ace, and tried to ruff a club in dummy. East over-ruffed and led a spade to his partner. A fourth club sank the contract without trace, when East could over-ruff.

Mama Bear improved on that line at her table. She won the club lead in dummy to lead a club to her hand, then ducked a spade to cut the defenders’ communications for immediate ruffs. Now when a third club came through she ruffed in dummy and was over-ruffed, but she was still in decent shape. She would have survived had trumps broken, or had East held a singleton. But not today.

Baby Bear showed how it should be done. The club queen went to the king, and he next led to the club ace. Now came a third club, throwing a diamond from dummy. When West led a fourth club, declarer threw a second diamond, rather than ruff.

West shifted to a diamond, and declarer won in hand, drew two rounds of trump then ruffed his diamond loser in dummy for his 10th trick.

Congratulations if you managed to bid today’s hand to three no-trump. This is not at all easy to do, though maybe South should probe with three hearts over two spades, and now if North guesses to bid three no-trump South has an easy pass.

When West leads the heart eight against four spades, East cannot tell for sure whether his partner has one or two cards in the suit. But since it rates to be very difficult to beat the hand unless his partner has a singleton, he wins the ace and returns the suit, hoping for the best. South should follow with the heart 10 at the first trick in an attempt to confuse East, but it should not work. If South does follow with his low heart at his first turn, it makes East’s life easier, as now he can be sure that his partner does not have the doubleton eight-three.

Anyway, East gives his partner a ruff, West returns a diamond to his partner’s ace, gets a second ruff….. Whoa! How did West know to play back a diamond? There is an answer, but it is not obvious. The question of which minor suit ace East has is determined by the size of the heart East returns to give his partner the ruff. His play of the nine calls for the higher suit.

This suit preference signal (also known as Lavinthal, or as McKenney in England) would allow East to show the club ace instead by returning a low heart.

When Bobby Goldman died suddenly, 20 years ago, he and Paul Soloway had been one of the dominant partnerships in the US for many years. Today’s deal exemplifies his talents.

At the Macallan Invitation Pairs tournament in the United Kingdom you would expect the top 16 pairs in the world to generate the occasional spectacular play, but in its own way I think the following example is outstanding. The play is typical of the brilliancies that the analysts might suggest in the post mortem, but on this occasion Goldman found the play at the table.

When Christian Mari of France reached three no-trump as South, he ducked the opening heart lead and continuation, and won the third round. Since he assumed that East was favorite to hold the diamond ace, he decided he needed to try to play the club suit for five tricks. This would require finding West with the singleton jack. So he went over to dummy with a spade and led the club queen, covered by the club king and ace, under which Bobby Goldman obediently contributed the club jack!

You can hardly blame Mari for crossing to dummy with a second spade to repeat the club finesse, can you? When Goldman produced the nine and played a third round of spades, he had succeeded in setting up the 13th spade as the defense’s fifth winner, before declarer had established the diamond suit for his own ninth trick.

The false-card had gained the critical tempo to set the game.

At the world championships 20 years ago Nafiz Zorlu of Turkey put in a claim for the best played hand of the event, using an incisive BOLS tip to help him on his way. The tip was that a man who preempts and leads his suit rates to be short, if anywhere, in trumps.

Playing against the Turks’ traditional rivals, Greece, Zorlu reached four hearts after passing up the chance for a considerable penalty, since the auction had started with West opening three clubs in third seat, and East had incautiously raised his partner’s preempt over the take-out double. However though East appeared to have manipulated his opponents into exactly his favorite spot, the move backfired when West trustingly led a club to the first trick. Zorlu won it cheaply in hand and played a diamond to dummy, then led a low heart to the jack. He had inferred that West’s decision to lead his tenuous club suit suggested he had a singleton trump. Now declarer led a second round of diamonds and ducked a spade to West, who exited with a club (a diamond would have been no better).

Zorlu decided to take East’s diamond jack in good faith, so played him for his precise actual shape. He cashed the spade ace, then without playing any more trumps tried the spade jack and a spade ruff. That was his eighth trick, and when he exited with the diamond ace, East could ruff. However, he then had to lead a trump into dummy’s tenace and concede the contract.

Two-suited openers and overcalls can jam the works, but they are a double-edged sword. If you become declarer they can help you to find the way home by drawing a road-map of the opponents’ hands.

East’s two-spade opening showed at least five spades plus a five card minor, and less than opening-bid strength. When South overcalled three hearts, North raised to game and East decided that at the vulnerability he could do no more.

Not knowing which minor his partner held, West led the spade 10 against four hearts. South took the ace and king, pitching one of the losing clubs from hand and now looked well placed, but the possibility of bad breaks in the red suits was a live one.

In an attempt to score his small trumps, South led a club from dummy at trick three. East rose with the ace and accurately switched to his singleton diamond. South played the ace, and followed with a successful finesse of the heart nine to maximize his entries to dummy. He ruffed a club in hand, re-entered dummy with the heart king as East pitched a spade, and ruffed North’s last club in hand, stripping West of all his black-suit cards in the process.

Declarer now cashed the diamond king, and when East failed to follow suit, South exited with a diamond. Although West could collect two diamond tricks, he was then forced to lead away from his heart queen into the trump tenace, and concede the rest.

In Shanghai at the Bermuda Bowl of 2007 I was very disappointed in the final position of the Irish team. They had come into the Round Robin as Silver Medalists in the European Championships, and were therefore among the favorites to advance to the Knock-Out phase. This did not happen, but they were nonetheless fighting right to the end – as witness this deal from their very final match.

John Carroll and Tommy Garvey play a light opening bid system whereby they frequently open 10-counts, as here. Carroll, West guessed well to lead the ace and another club. Garvey continued with a third round of clubs as Carroll pitched a heart.

Declarer ruffed and cashed two rounds of trumps then played the diamond king, which Carroll ducked, following with the 10. The contract can, of course, still be made easily by leading the diamond queen or playing a spade to the South hand and a diamond towards the queen. However, the sight of the diamond 10 was enough to convince South that his play didn’t matter – that is to say that West’s card had to be from the ace-10 or ace-jack-10. He continued with a small diamond, letting East win his diamond jack.

Now Garvey made no mistake, continuing with his remaining top club, on which West threw the diamond ace! Declarer had to ruff in the North hand, and at this point could not get off dummy to draw the last trump without promoting West’s spade 10 for the setting trick.

With his values concentrated in his long suits, and fine heart intermediates, South has a far more promising opening bid than most balanced 12-counts.

North can force to game with a two-over-one response, then raise hearts and try for slam. South will put the brakes on firmly, and unless North suffers a severe rush of blood to the head, South will finish in four hearts. Against this contract, West has a straightforward lead of a top spade. South ducks the first two spades in dummy, but when a third spade is played (a trump shift was essential) he must ruff. Declarer can now see that if the club ace is offside, and diamonds do not break, he may need to plan what he will do with his fourth diamond.

When declarer plays a club to the king, East wins (though ducking might make declarer’s task a little harder). East returns a club, and dummy wins. It is far more likely that trumps are breaking 3-2 than that diamonds are 3-3, or that the same hand has long diamonds and long clubs, so South changes tack. He ruffs a club in hand, crosses to dummy with a diamond, and ruffs another club. By this time, South has ruffed three times in his hand. This leaves him with only two trumps in hand compared to dummy’s three.

South can draw trump in three rounds, discarding his last diamond on dummy’s long trump, and come to 10 tricks in the form of one club, three ruffs, three trumps, and three diamonds: a perfect dummy reversal.