In today’s deal from last year’s world championships in Chennai, Ifti Baqai was playing with Mirza Hussein on the Pakistani team. It was the penultimate round of the Transnational Teams qualifier, and he first reached a thin game, then threaded the needle to bring it home.

The raise to game was on the sporting side, but the final contract had decent play. West led the club king and East followed to show an even number. West then shifted to the heart seven, covered with the ten, East playing low. Baqai now played the club six to the 10 and ace. Back came a low spade, and declarer won the ace and ruffed a spade, West producing the 10. Next he trumped a club, with West contributing the queen.

When Baqai led a spade off dummy and saw East follow low, he judged very well to pitch a small diamond. West had to win and was forced to return a diamond. Baqai won the queen in hand, and could ruff his winning club in dummy, to take the trump finesse for 10 tricks.

If on the third spade East had risen with the king, crashing his partner’s queen, Baqai would still have pitched a small diamond. Now when East shifted to a diamond, declarer could have gone up with the ace, trumped his winning club in dummy, then pitched the diamond queen on the spade jack. He would thus have remained in dummy to take the trump finesse for his 10th trick.

The French were one of the teams who were invited at very short notice to fill the gaps in the Bermuda Bowl in Chennai last October, after the cheating scandals broke. They not only played well to reach the knockout phase, they very nearly defeated the eventual winners in the quarter-finals.

On this deal from the round robin Godefroy de Tessieres as South had made 11 tricks in three no-trump on the lead of the diamond 10. Declarer had plenty of time to set up hearts for three tricks, and when he cashed out the clubs from the top he could drop the club queen, and lose just the two hearts.

The fireworks went off in the other room though. Here West, Thomas Bessis obediently led his partner’s suit, which went to Frederick Volcker’s 10, as declarer played low. Declarer won the next spade with his queen, crossed to dummy with the diamond jack and played a low heart to his queen. When Bessis followed low without a quiver, declarer ducked a heart to East, who now cleared the spades.

At this point can you blame declarer — who was convinced that East still had the heart ace as an entry for his spades, for falling back on Plan B? When he finessed the club jack, looking for his ninth trick from that suit, this proved to be the entry to East for the spades. Three no-trump was two down, and Bessis’s brilliant maneuver was good for a huge pick-up for France.

At The Venice Cup in Chennai last October the pulsating final of the women’s match between France and USA was decided on the very final deal, with USA needing a big swing to win the match.

Against the contract of four spades both Easts led the club queen, and Benedicte Cronier of France took this with the ace to lead a spade to the jack. Disaster! The defense won and led the club jack, and dummy’s king was ruffed away. Now a heart came through, placing declarer on the horns of a dilemma. A heart finesse would restrict her heart losers to one but allow West to cash a club winner for down one. If declarer rose with the heart ace she could avoid immediate defeat but would eventually be left with two hearts to lose. Either way, the contract had to fail.

That left the USA in with a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but a few moments later Tobi Sokolow followed the same line of play and France held on to win.

In retrospect one might argue that declarer should either have played trumps from the top to avoid the ruff. Or she could have taken two diamond winners at once in order to dispose of her slow club loser. Either line would have avoided the disaster that took place at the table – but there again, it was only the six-one club break that proved fatal to the line chosen. Had clubs broken in more friendly fashion, declarer’s play would have been the best one.

Today’s deal has something of a contrived air to it, but it is entirely logical, so long as you apply yourself in the right way.

After West opens one heart, South has a choice of balancing actions. It is standard expert practice (not that this means too much these days!) to use a call of two no-trump in protective seat as natural and strong not the minors. So South balances with two no-trump and North raises to game.

On the lead of the heart king, South knows both missing kings are on the left and that West has five hearts. It looks easy to strip out his clubs and endplay him to lead one of those suits for you, but one more trick is not sufficient. The problem is that the run of the hearts will squeeze your own hand. Even if you only cash two clubs, you will find that on the run of the hearts dummy has to come down to two cards in each of spades and diamonds, and you must also come down to a doubleton in one of those suits, letting West exit in that suit.

The winning line is to play West for a singleton club. Win the second heart, cash just one club then exit in hearts, planning to pitch two clubs from hand, while letting go a diamond and a spade from dummy. On West’s forced exit in either diamonds or spades win dummy’s jack, then take your ace in the other suit, (the Vienna Coup) and now run the clubs to squeeze West.

Put yourself in the shoes of East, defending three no-trump. Your partner leads the club jack, which goes to the two, seven and king. After a diamond to dummy, South plays a spade to his jack and West’rsquo;s queen. West continues with the club 10, which goes to dummy’s queen, and your ace. Plan the defense.

Your first reaction might well be to try to cash out the clubs, but if your partner started with a club holding such as J-10-9-x in clubs, there is no hurry to return a club right now, because you know that you will have a second chance. You can always cash out when you get on lead with your spade trick. But what if your partner started with a club holding such as J-10-x? If so, you need to switch to a heart now. And you should shift to the heart nine, so that if declarer finesses your partner can win and revert to clubs, setting up your long club for you, when you get in with your spade winner.

There is a good reason to play for this second position. First of all it covers far more possibilities than the chance that the clubs are blocked, when partner has precisely J-10-9. More importantly, if your partner’s original club holding included both the club nine and 10, he should surely have shifted to the nine not the 10 at the previous trick. After all, he knows you are aware he has the 10 – but you do not know about the nine.

South is full value for his overcall of one spade. He has excellent intermediates and three sure spade tricks, no matter how the suit may break. Additionally, the strong hearts should provide two or more tricks on any but the most unlucky day. Since North would want to reach game opposite an opening bid but has no real slam interest, he should simply bid game and not give the opponents a chance to come back in.

After the lead of the diamond 10 the defenders take their top diamonds and ruff a diamond before South can get started. At this point South needs the rest of the tricks. At first glance it seems that the contract will depend on the heart finesse. If South looks no further he will draw trump and lead the heart jack from dummy. That will prove unlucky – but not that unlucky since South will have overlooked his extra chance.

Consider that West may have started out with only two trumps. South can lose nothing by trying for this possibility. At trick four South comes to hand with a trump to lead the established diamond nine. If West can ruff in, dummy will over-ruff; then declarer will draw another round of trump and fall back on the heart finesse.

But fortunately for South, today West will be unable to ruff his diamond winner. Now declarer can discard a heart from the dummy on the diamond nine, then cash the heart ace, and cross-ruff the hand in peace and quiet.

In three no-trump after a spade lead East won with the ace and returned the nine, won by South with the king. As it happened that false card fooled nobody except perhaps dummy – since both defenders, from the carding to date, knew exactly who held the spade queen.

Declarer continued with the club king, catering for a possible singleton queen, then played a second club, to the jack and queen. Appreciating that South was now cut off from his own hand, East returned his last club – a good choice rather than the more superficially attractive option of a diamond. Stuck on the table, declarer cashed the rest of his clubs, but then was forced to lead hearts, losing three tricks in the suit and ending one light.

Can you see where South went wrong? It was by cashing the club king at trick three. The best play here is to take a first-round finesse, by leading the four to dummy’s jack. If East wins with the queen, no return can harm declarer. He still has the club king in place as an entry to his diamond ace and spade queen. After that, a heart to dummy will allow him to be reunited with his established clubs.

Ducking the first round of clubs will not help the defense; it makes it easier for South to come to 10 tricks. Just for the record though, it might be a different story if West held queen-fourth of clubs. But that would be somewhat against the odds, of course.

At the Dyspeptics Club East has often disparagingly referred to his task on defense as being like Hercules fighting Cerberus, the three-headed dog. Except in this case he considers the third opposing head to be that of his partner.

After East-West had competed accurately to five hearts, then let North play five spades, one can hardly blame West for leading a top heart rather than a club. East thoughtfully overtook with his ace and shifted to a club to South’s jack and West’s king.

South had little option but to win the ace, draw the trump, then ruff his heart in hand and exit with a club. As it turned out, West could have won the club nine, but he saw no reason to waste such a valuable commodity, and so East was forced to take the trick.

When he exited with a diamond, declarer played low. Now West went from penny-wise to pound-foolish, wasting his jack and letting declarer bring in the diamonds for no loser. Contract made.

No stranger to the world of hostile post-mortems, South expansively informed the world how lucky he had been. Perhaps he was hoping to get a rise out of East – but that player remained curiously silent. Can you see why?

While West’s defense was clearly inferior, if East had counted out the hand he would have given declarer a ruff-sluff after winning the second club, and taken his partner off the hook. Declarer can ruff the third club in either hand, but he will still be left with a diamond loser whatever he does.

How should the defense go against four spades in today’s deal?

When West leads the diamond king, East can see that it is possible that if declarer has the heart jack in addition to his other assets, but a 5-4-3-1 pattern, then the defenders must cash their three diamond winners on the go, or the third diamond gets away on dummy’s winning club. In that case he would need to overtake the diamond king and return the suit.

But the actual lie of the cards looks slightly more likely. Here East must duck the first diamond, and West must not continue the suit. Instead he can see from his own hand that the defenders must prevent heart ruffs, so he must shift to a trump, leaving his partner with a re-entry for a second trump play.

Declarer wins the trump shift on table and leads a heart to the queen. West takes his king and plays a low diamond to East’s ace. Now a second trump from East leaves South a trick short; he has eight winners, and a ninth will comes from a heart ruff, but there is no possibility of another trick against sound defense.

It is always challenging to shift to trump in this sort of position. The risk exists that you are chopping up partner’s trump holding, whereas if left to his own devices declarer would lose an additional trick. However, the knowledge that declarer needs heart ruffs in dummy means that the trick will be favorite to come back one way or another.