This deal from the first final session of the Wernher Open Pairs in Atlanta last summer gave declarers with a good nose the chance to come very close to bringing home four spades, even if not doubled.

The journalist reporting this deal recounted that at his table the heart eight lead ran to the ten jack and queen. He took a club finesse, and East won the queen to play back the heart two. This looked like suit preference to South, who put in the nine; when it held the trick, he fell from grace by playing the spade queen. The contract could now no longer be made.

A better line would have been to play a club to the ace at trick four and ruff a club. Then declarer could cash the two top diamonds and lead the fourth club. When East discards, South can pitch his last diamond.

After eight tricks, declarer has seven winners in the bag and West is down to his five trumps. A spade to the queen might see West slip up by winning this trick. If he does, then whether he plays a high or low trump, he scores only one more trump trick. He must return a low trump, then he is endplayed again at the next trick.

Curiously, though, if West ducks his trump ace, he can then ruff the heart ace with the spade 10 and exit with a low trump to ensure his extra trump winner for down one. For the record, going one down in four spades was only a skosh below average.

On this deal from last summer’s second qualifying session of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs, after passing initially, most Souths found themselves in a spade part-score.

Aggressive pairs found themselves in four spades when they decided that, as a passed hand, their offensive values were about as good as they could possibly be. They then had to make their game to justify their aggression.

Much depended on how friendly the defenders were going to be on opening lead, but declarer was still in a good place even if the defenders didn’t give him a helping hand. The point was that if West unimaginatively led the heart ace and another heart, declarer had 10 tricks without breaking a sweat. South could draw trumps and pitch a diamond loser on the heart winner.

However, at one table, West was able to see that the heart ruff could probably wait, so he led a low spade. South won the lead and played back the suit, letting East pitch an encouraging club as West won his ace. So West shifted to a club.

To make 10 tricks now, declarer should win the club ace, cross to hand in the trump suit and lead a low heart to the jack, then duck a heart to fell West’s now-bare ace. That gives declarer a discard of a diamond from dummy and an easy route to plus 620. Since West is marked with at most a doubleton, this play is strongly indicated. If East has the ace, you cannot generate a discard for yourself from the hearts.

Last summer, the U.S. National tournament was held in Atlanta. The major event at the championships was the Spingold Trophy. This is a knockout tournament featuring the best teams from around the world. The top 16 are typically as strong as a major world championship, with teams from every corner of the world assembled.

In the second round of that event, Bruce Rogoff was faced with a touch-and-go grand slam on this deal. He and Alex Ornstein were playing against John Hurd and Joel Wooldridge.

The slightly sporting jump to five no-trump by Ornstein was the grand slam force, asking Rogoff to bid seven with two of the top three trump honors. Rogoff may have had a minimum opening bid, but he wasn’t being asked if he had extras.

When Hurd led the deceptive club jack, Rogoff gave serious thought to letting it run to his king. Eventually, he decided against risking the embarrassment of going down in a laydown grand slam at trick one. So he ruffed the club, played the spade ace and spade king, ruffed a spade high, then crossed to a top trump and ruffed the fourth spade high. That let him draw the trumps, reaching a four-card ending where Wooldridge had three hearts and the club ace.

The play of the last spade squeezed Wooldridge in hearts and clubs. He discarded his club ace to keep hearts protected, and declarer had his 13th trick in the form of the club king.

When today’s deal was played in a regional pairs event, an expert player stopped in six spades and was highly disappointed when dummy came down.

Playing rather casually, perhaps vexed by his own failure to bid the hand to the right level, he took 12 tricks after the lead of a top diamond. When his partner called him out after the game, he made the reflex response that the double-dummy analyzer of the set had indicated that only 12 tricks were available. That statement was accurate in theory but wrong in practice, since after a top diamond lead he could have done better.

Let’s say you reach seven spades on the hypothetical auction shown, on the lead of the diamond king. Win the diamond ace and ruff a diamond, cash the spade ace, then lead a heart to dummy to ruff a diamond. Now play a club to dummy to ruff a diamond, and lead your last trump to the 10 to draw all the trumps.

You have taken three hearts, two clubs, four diamonds — via three ruffs — and four spade tricks; that adds up to 13. This maneuver of using the long trumps to take ruffs and drawing trumps with the short hand is called a dummy reversal.

Having said that, the reason 12 tricks are the theoretical limit is that a heart lead defeats the grand slam. The 6-1 break in the suit deprives declarer of one of his entries to table to complete the dummy reversal.

After his forcing response of one no-trump, North shows a three-card limit raise in spades, which you as South can comfortably raise to game.

You take West’s lead of the club queen with the ace and lead a low trump to the queen, which holds. When you cash the trump ace, West discards a club. What now?

You have three certain losers — two trumps and one diamond — as well as two more potential ones in hearts and clubs. The only hope is to run four heart tricks, discarding a club from table while East follows suit. (If East has three or fewer hearts, he can ruff in and cash the trump king, leaving you with a club loser.) Therefore, East needs to have at least four hearts, and under that assumption, you must play him to hold the heart queen. Basically, you need a layout like the one shown.

At trick four, play a heart to the ace and lead the heart 10. If East plays low, so do you. Next, you repeat the heart finesse and cash a heart winner to dispose of dummy’s losing club. A club ruff will be your eighth trick, and your ninth will be the diamond ace, leaving you with three low trumps in hand, which will suffice for your 10th trick.

If East covered the 10 of hearts with the queen, you would win the king, cross to dummy’s heart nine and lead a diamond to the ace. Next, you would throw dummy’s club on the heart jack and play as before.

At the 1997 Bermuda Bowl, Paul Thurston of Canada had the opportunity for a simple but elegant play. See if you can match him.

After East’s weak jump overcall of three clubs, Thurston stretched to force to game with a call of three diamonds, and soon found himself in to the diamond game when his partner made a forcing raise to four diamonds.

Yes, three no-trump might have come home on an endplay against West, but five diamonds also had play — even if the contract appeared to need the spade break.

After winning the opening lead in dummy, South drew one round of trumps, then followed with the two top spades, and ruffed a spade in hand. Things might have seemed bleak when that suit broke 4-2, but declarer pressed on with a second round of trumps to the ace, pleased to see them breaking, and led another spade.

When East discarded a second club, Thurston now made the key play of discarding a club from his hand on the spade loser, putting West on lead with only hearts to lead. He did his best by leading a low heart to the 10 and king, but now declarer could enter the North hand with a trump and pitch his last club on dummy’s fifth spade. Declarer could now ruff his heart loser in dummy for his 11th trick.

Had declarer ruffed the fourth round of spades in hand instead of discarding on that trick, he would have made only 10 tricks. The endplay against West was necessary to bring home his game.

When you lead a top club against four spades, partner’s two is a grave disappointment. In order to set four spades, it appears to be necessary to win a trick in diamonds. It looks correct, therefore, to shift to a diamond.

However, even if declarer’s distribution is 5=3=3=2, four spades cannot be set; declarer can arrange to pitch a diamond on dummy’s clubs. But if South’s distribution is 5=2=4=2, it might be possible to defeat the contract; can you see how? One possibility is to lead a diamond, playing partner for the jack. Then the defense can win a diamond before declarer discards two diamonds on dummy’s clubs. However, the diamond shift is disastrous if declarer holds the K-J-x-x of diamonds.

There is a better way to set four spades without risking a diamond lead away from the queen. You should continue with the club ace and a third club, which dummy will win with the jack, declarer pitching a diamond.

Declarer leads a spade to his king and your ace. You then lead a fourth round of clubs, which partner ruffs low and declarer over-ruffs. South has lost his second discard and is later forced to take a diamond finesse. When that loses, four spades is down one.

As you can see, if West fails to play the ace, king and another club, and later a fourth club for East to ruff, then declarer will eventually be able to pitch two diamonds on dummy’s clubs.

In “Master Play in Contract Bridge,” Terence Reese shows this intriguing deal played by world champion Karl Schneider of Austria in an early European Championship game.

Both tables played four spades. After a club lead, the British declarer drew four rounds of trumps, then successfully finessed the diamond queen for a heart discard.

But at the other table, on the auction shown, West led the diamond three. Declarer guessed to win the diamond ace, then played a spade to the nine, putting West on play before he had had a chance to observe his partner’s discards. West laid down the heart ace, but could not read his partner’s heart four, so switched to a club, hoping that his partner had the ace. When East correctly played low, South won cheaply and ran his four top trumps. Then he cashed the club ace and played the last spade.

In the three-card ending, dummy had the bare heart queen and the K-9 of clubs, while South had the bare club queen and two hearts in hand. East had to pitch a heart to keep his club guard, so South cashed the club queen, exited with a heart and won the last trick with dummy’s club king.

West’s defense would have been right if South had held the heart king and something like Q-J-x in clubs. But would South then have ducked the first trump? West’s heart holding should have told him that declarer’s strategy of ducking an early trump must have been based on hoping to discard hearts on clubs, not clubs on hearts.

Today’s deal saw a fine example of premature euphoria being punished. In my experience, there are two common reasons for players failing to find plays they should. These come when things appear to be going so well that they do not consider what might go wrong, or when things are going so badly that they cannot imagine how they might recover from the seemingly hopeless position.

Today, South reached three no-trump without either player having significantly overbid. But on a low heart lead, the outlook did not appear very promising. South nevertheless made the right play when he put up the heart queen. With the heart queen doubleton, there was no advantage to playing low from dummy and forcing a high honor. Meanwhile, putting up the queen would pay off if West had underled the ace-king.

When the heart queen held, South relaxed and cashed dummy’s top clubs, then came to the diamond ace and took his remaining top club before leading a second diamond to dummy’s queen and being disgusted by the result. At that point, the contract could not be made since the diamonds were dead.

The winning line is to cash dummy’s club winners, then lead the diamond king, on which you unblock your own 10 before crossing to the diamond ace and taking the club queen. Now the 4-1 diamond break becomes apparent, and your unblock in diamonds allows you to finesse against West and run nine winners.