Do you always tell the truth at the bridge table? It may not be as much of a virtue as you imagine. Consider the following deal from a world pairs event at Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1994, in which giving partner the natural signal would have cost you blood.

It seems natural for West to lead a top club against four spades, but how should East signal? Although it may not be obvious, a little reflection will suggest that it can do no harm to discourage the suit, because you know that at best getting a ruff will break even, since you are ruffing with a trump trick.

As you can see, if West goes ahead and gives his partner a ruff, it will allow South to discard his heart loser on this trick. That allows him to escape for just down one — and minus 100 would represent a very fine score, since it beats all the East-West pairs making game or part-score in hearts, whereas minus 300 would not be nearly as good.

Of course, West might cash his second top club at trick two, in case East has a singleton club, though he probably should not do so. But in any event, the position at the end of the second round of the suit should be clear to West. If partner has a doubleton (which you now know to be the case) and has told you unequivocally that he does not want a ruff, he has his reasons — don’t try to overrule him. Just play a heart as directed!

At the Dyspeptics Club, everyone wisely mistrusts everybody else’s declarer play. Even so, when South showed a spade suit, North had some hope of slam. However, when South denied interest, North wisely did not go past game.

As he put down dummy, North remarked caustically that even South would find it difficult to go down here. Not so; West found the intelligent opening lead of a low trump, imagining his club strength would be over declarer’s and that partner would have hearts over the dummy. East liked the idea of playing a trump, but realized that if he won the ace and returned a trump, he would not be able to get in to play a third round of the suit. Accordingly, he ducked the opening lead. Declarer won in hand and crossed to dummy with a top heart to take a club finesse. But West won and fired back a second trump. Now when East won his ace and drew a third round of trumps, the vile club split meant there was nothing declarer could do; nine tricks were the limit.

South complained about his bad luck, but had only himself to blame. He should have won the spade 10, then played three rounds of hearts, ruffing high in hand. He could then play a diamond to the ace and ruff a second heart high. At this point, he would have the first seven tricks in the bag and be able to play the ace, king and a third diamond, ruffing low. He would have the club ace and two more sure trump tricks in dummy for 11 winners.

‘The five-level belongs to the opponents” was one of Terence Reese’s mottoes. On today’s deal, South violated that principle successfully, but a more inspired defense would have produced a different result.

West led a heart against five spades. It might have been right for South to lead clubs right away, but declarer won in hand and crossed to dummy’s spade king, finding the bad news. Now declarer had to take the diamond finesse to discard his heart loser, at which point he exited with a club. East allowed West’s 10 to hold the trick, so West played another diamond. This allowed declarer to ruff in dummy, then cross-ruff clubs and hearts. East could eventually over-ruff the fourth round of diamonds with his trump trick, but that was the defense’s second and last trick.

When East sees South lead a low club from hand, he can more or less count 11 tricks for declarer if this is a singleton, unless he can seize the lead himself in order to switch to a trump. But if he shifts to a low trump, he is simply exchanging one trick for another — the outcome will not be affected. What East must do is switch to the spade queen, sacrificing his honor in battle to win the war. Declarer can win with the ace, but he does not have the entry to set up dummy’s clubs and can only take two ruffs in the dummy. One of those ruffs will be with the spade jack, and that repromotes East’s trump 10 back into the setting trick.

Today’s slam was played originally by the late Terence Reese. Put yourself in South’s seat and see if you can match his line.

When West leads the trump jack against six spades, declarer can count 11 tricks, assuming the trumps break no worse than 3-1. The extra trick needed can come only from the heart suit, and for this, hearts must break no worse than 4-2.

Yet there is still a problem if West began with three spades and a doubleton heart. If, before trumps are drawn, the two top hearts are cashed and a third is ruffed in hand, West will over-ruff and will later come into a club trick.

Should trumps be drawn before hearts are set up, declarer must rely on a 3-3 heart break, unless spades are 2-2. The point is that with spades 3-1 and a 4-2 heart break, the fifth heart can be established, but there is no entry to cash it.

So, to preserve entries to dummy, declarer must win the opening lead in hand with the queen, then cash the diamond ace and heart king. He enters dummy with a spade, then plays the diamond king, on which his own small heart is discarded — the key play.

Declarer then trumps a heart, West impotently following; then a spade to the king draws the last trump. Only now does declarer cash the heart ace, for a club discard; another heart ruff establishes dummy’s long heart, for a further club discard, to which the club ace is the entry.

It is often good strategy for declarer to surrender a critical trick as early as possible in a deal so as to put the defense under maximum pressure before they have had a chance to signal.

In today’s deal, South took at a flyer at slam, since his side was playing a weak no-trump; thus, the simple raise would normally deliver extras in the form of shape or high cards. West avoided leading the club ace (which would have been fatal), but he did lead a trump rather than a heart, the latter of which would have made East’s task far easier. South won his jack and immediately took the diamond finesse, since the sooner it was taken, the better the chance East might make the wrong return. Note that if three rounds of trumps had been drawn, West would have discarded a small heart.

When he won with the diamond queen, East realized that he had to find his partner’s ace at once. With what seemed to him like an open choice, he led a heart and later tried to excuse himself on the grounds that he had simply guessed wrong.

True enough — except that it was highly improbable that South could be missing the heart ace and have so few hearts that they could be discarded on the diamonds. That would give West a six- or seven-card heart suit headed by the ace, with which he might have opened the bidding and would surely have led that suit to the first trick. A singleton club, on the other hand, was a more plausible holding for South.

Just because South has a 19-count doesn’t mean his side can make game; he should open one spade rather than with a stronger call. If his partner passes, will his side really miss game? Additionally, no-trump may play better from North. In any event, when North raises spades, South can simply jump to game.

West leads the heart nine, and South expects to lose two hearts and one club. West’s opening lead is surely top of a short holding of some kind. South’s possession of the eight means West is unlikely to have three or more cards there.

When East wins the first two heart tricks and leads a third heart, South must decide whether to ruff with a high or low trump. Since West appears to be short in hearts, he is more likely than East to hold the spade jack. So South ruffs high.

He must next decide whether to draw trumps from the top or to finesse. Again, the odds make that decision relatively straightforward: After cashing the spade king and leading toward dummy’s Q-10, it must be right to finesse. At this point in the deal, for declarer to have a chance, East must have started with two spades and West three — so the jack is more likely to be with the length than the shortage. After finessing the 10, then drawing the last trump, South can lead a club toward his king. If it holds, he can play for an overtrick; if it loses, he will pitch his club loser on dummy’s heart winner.

On this deal from the first round of last year’s Spingold, Philippe Soulet, playing with Michel Lebel, played the cards to perfection. Soulet and Lebel were members of the Payen team from France that defeated a strong Dutch squad.

West led the diamond king, and East encouraged the suit. West pressed on with two more rounds of diamonds, making Soulet suspect strongly that the attempt to weaken declarer’s trumps meant spades were divided 4-0. Soulet pitched a club from dummy, East winning the diamond queen and returning the heart queen, taken by Soulet with the ace.

Backing his reading of the position, Soulet led the diamond jack, encouraging West to discard his last heart. Soulet pitched dummy’s club and advanced the spade 10, covered by West with the jack. Soulet now crossed to the spade queen and finessed again in spades, then ran the rest of the trumps.

When the last trump was played, East — holding three hearts and the guarded club king — was squeezed. If he pitched a club, declarer would cash the club ace, dropping the king. He could ruff a heart to his hand, which would then be good. If East discarded a heart, Soulet could cash the heart king and ruff a heart. Dummy, with the club ace as an entry, would be high.

West had missed his chance to set the game, though it was far from easy; he had needed to ruff the diamond jack with the spade nine to mess up the entries for the squeeze.

In a deal from a Swiss teams event at last year’s Atlanta Summer Nationals, you play three no-trump on the lead of the diamond four to the five, jack and queen. You unblock the top spades, then a heart to the king loses to the ace. Back comes an unfriendly club 10; what do you play now?

East is likely to have Q-10-(8)x or something similar. He may be setting the suit up for himself or trying to set it up for his partner. It seems reasonable to cover with the jack, which loses to the king. Are you still paying attention? Now West tables the club six: What should you play from dummy?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter what you do now. The way the cards lie, you are down no matter what you do … unless you unblocked the club seven from dummy on the first round of clubs! If you didn’t, and you win the second club, the defenders will eventually win the heart queen, cash a second club and exit in diamonds to score the setting trick there. If you duck the second club, they play back a low club and achieve the same result.

However, if you unblock the club seven at once, then cover the return of the club six with the nine while ducking in the closed hand, you have a finesse position against East’s 8-4 of clubs for the ninth trick!

The defenders were Sam Dinkin (West) and Michael Shuster (East). At the other table, East shifted to a low club at trick four, and declarer Karen McCallum played low from hand to wrap up nine tricks.

Jan Jansma was declarer on this deal from the second semifinal session of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs in Atlanta last summer. Would you have been good enough to defeat his game?

You, West, lead the heart jack against four spades: That goes to the queen, king and ace. Declarer plays a low diamond at trick two. As West, you would play low, I assume? If you do, partner wins the diamond king to play a trump.

When declarer plays low, you win your king … and shift to a club, I hope. This is necessary if you look at the full deal. As you can see, if you try to cash a heart, declarer has time to dispose of his club loser on the diamonds.

Jansma’s play of the heart queen at trick one might have encouraged the defenders to try to cash a heart, but Marshall Lewis, playing with Jan van Cleeff, wasn’t born yesterday. He duly shifted to a club and defeated the game. After all, the heart losers were unlikely to vanish from dummy, whereas club losers might be discarded on declarer’s diamonds.

Incidentally, Jansma might have gone up with the spade ace to play a second diamond, but since van Cleeff (who happens to be a former partner of Jansma’s) was perfectly capable of leading a spade away from the king, declarer couldn’t risk rejecting the finesse. The 5-2 diamond break would have been fatal anyway, since East would have been able to ruff in before all of dummy’s clubs could be discarded.