Today’s deal comes from the 1979 U.S. Bermuda Bowl playoff. Five diamonds would have been cold and six diamonds playable for East-West, but that was hard for East to find. West began the defense with two top diamonds, East throwing the club 10 on the second round. How would you have played the hand?

You need to take three heart ruffs in dummy, but entries to the South hand are limited. My old partner, Dan Morse, ingeniously discarded the club queen instead of ruffing, to leave West on lead. Morse ruffed the next diamond and cross-ruffed in hearts and clubs to reduce to a four-card ending with the lead in dummy, where East had all trumps while declarer had the A-K-10 of spades and a heart left.

When declarer played a club from the board, East had to ruff high. Morse over-ruffed and exited in hearts, taking the last two tricks on a trump endplay.

What opportunities had the defenders miss? First, West could have played a club at trick two to allow East to play a trump. Far harder, East could have beaten the game by ruffing the second diamond! Suppose declarer over-ruffs to prevent East’s trump shift, plays the heart ace and ruffs a heart, then leads the diamond jack. East will ruff again, and declarer can over-ruff and take a second heart ruff, but must play a club from the board. East wins his ace and remove dummy’s last trump. The defense scores no trump tricks, but they pick up two heart tricks and the minor-suit aces.

Lawyer Chuck Burger is one of the least-known bridge stars of America. He played for 20 years in most major tournaments with Jimmy Cayne. But here, Burger was playing in the quarterfinals of the Grand National Teams with Allan Falk, who was conveniently placed to record the events at their table.

South reached four spades after showing a weak hand with six spades at his first turn, and Falk led a diamond to the four and Burger’s queen. Things looked bleak for the defense, with trumps behaving and clubs well-placed, but Burger found the unpleasant switch to a low heart at trick two, which went to the 10 and queen. So at least Burger had put himself in a position to get two more heart tricks if he could get his partner on lead. Declarer next played the spade king from dummy, and Burger began his campaign of deception when he unblocked the queen.

Now declarer crossed to hand by playing the diamond ace and ruffing a diamond. When he laid down the spade ace, Burger dropped the jack! Now declarer knew he needed trumps to be 3-3. He played for what he thought was his best chance, that of finding Burger with the spade 10, by playing a third trump. Falk took this with his 10 and played a second heart, for one down.

Of course, declarer could have succeeded in the ending by playing on clubs. But he naturally assumed that this was less likely than Burger’s ingenious defense. He will know better next time.

In today’s deal from the Common Game, I assumed the role of innocent bystander, watching as a defender while declarer missed the best line for his contract.

I sat West, and when my partner opened two hearts in third seat, I heard a double to my left; I raised to three hearts to try to make a nuisance of myself. East doubled, denying spades, and South jumped to four spades to end a competently bid auction.

I led a low heart to the ace, won the next heart with the king and exited with the spade eight. Declarer won in hand, looking unhappy, then crossed to the spade 10, played the club ace and called for the club jack. I ruffed and exited with a spade, and now my side was sure to take the 13th trick, for down one.

Let’s look at declarer’s options here. He could not afford to draw trumps before playing on clubs, since the defenders were threatening to run hearts once his trumps ran out. But if declarer played the club king from hand, followed by another club, I could have ruffed and exited in trump for a safe down one.

The winning line was not too far from what declarer actually did. After winning the spade ace at trick three, he should cross to the spade 10 and run the club jack from dummy. If West wins the queen and gives a ruff-sluff, declarer can trump in dummy and cross to hand in diamonds to draw trumps. But if dummy’s club jack holds, declarer can draw trumps and play for the overtrick.

When the opponents pre-empt, they put you on notice that the other suits may not be breaking.

In today’s auction, our declarer judged wisely to balance with a call of two no-trump, suggesting a fairly balanced hand with significant extra values. Sadly, he bid the hand much better than he played it. After a top diamond lead, it took him no time at all to go down in three no-trump because he had ignored the warning signs from the auction. He captured the opening lead and fired out the club ace, and now when clubs went pear-shaped on him, he could not recover. He did his best to set up clubs, but the defenders held him to two clubs, three hearts and two diamonds.

A far better line would have been to win the diamond lead and follow up with a low club from hand toward the nine. If clubs break 2-2 or 3-1, declarer has nine top tricks now. When they do not, East will win the first club and clear diamonds. Declarer can win, overtake the heart king to take one club finesse, then overtake the heart jack to repeat the process. You finish up with only two heart tricks and two diamond winners, but you also have five clubs, and that is enough for your contract.

You have invested one possible club winner and one possible heart trick, but the dividends are wholly worthwhile — even at matchpoints, you might still follow this line.

Against three spades, West leads the heart queen, and South counts the missing high cards. He realizes that East surely has the heart king and therefore West holds the rest of the deck. The trump king and diamond ace are surely working. Declarer can give up one heart trick and eventually trump his last heart with one of dummy’s small trumps, but he needs to avoid losing two club tricks.

South ducks the first trick, wins the next with the heart ace and immediately leads the diamond jack. The idea is to force out the diamond ace and thus establish dummy’s remaining diamonds as winners. When West takes the diamond ace, East follows with a high spot card, warning South of the possible 5-2 break. West continues with the club king. South ducks, and when East discourages, West reverts to diamonds. Now after putting up the diamond king, declarer turns his attention to trumps. The spade king takes the first trump, and West continues with another high diamond spot.

Playing safe, a necessary precaution today, declarer ducks in dummy and ruffs in hand, then draws trumps, ruffs a heart in dummy and finally pitches his club loser on dummy’s diamond queen.

Can you spot the untapped defensive resource, which is considerably easier to find in the postmortem, but maybe one that we should all add to our repertoires? At trick one, East needed to overtake the heart queen, to make sure he could lead clubs through early on in the deal.

In today’s deal, South’s jump to three spades is not forcing. North might pass with a really bad hand. If he does, South would be better off staying out of game. But as it happens, North has more than enough to bid on. Lacking any spade support, North might try for game at no-trump, in which case South would have no reason to overrule his decision. In this case, though, North is correct to raise spades, since a club lead by East gives the defenders five tricks before declarer obtains the lead.

In four spades, South must win the first diamond in his hand, leaving dummy’s ace as a later entry for a heart trick. He next draws one round of trumps, but must then attack hearts by leading to the 10. West signals count, letting East know he should duck the trick.

When dummy’s 10 holds, South can get back to his hand using dummy’s remaining trump. He then draws East’s last trump and runs a few more for good measure. This cannot hurt him and may embarrass the defenders.

Finally, South leads his second heart to dummy’s jack. This time, East wins and shifts to a club honor, letting the defenders take two club tricks. But declarer now has the rest.

If South had drawn all the trumps before leading hearts, he would have been unable to cross back to hand safely after dummy had won the first heart. He would have had to lead clubs. The defenders would take their two club tricks and knock out the diamond king before South had the chance to lead a second heart.

When this hand arose in the European Championships in the 1950s, the British declarer did well to play five diamonds rather than three no-trump. The defense cashed two rounds of hearts and played a club.

Naturally, declarer took this and led a top trump, on which West played the eight and East the three; then declarer took both top spades. When he led the diamond jack, West followed suit. Now South had to decide whether to play for spades to split and diamonds not to behave (when the right play would be to duck in dummy and draw a third round of trumps), or for the diamonds to be 2-2 and spades to be 4-2 (in which case South should overtake the second trump and would then be able to ruff out the spades).

Spades are slightly favored to break. But how likely is it that diamonds break? Imagine West has the diamond 10-9-8 and East the three, compared to that suit splitting 2-2? In abstract, the individual singleton is less likely than any individual 2-2 split, but in addition there are three doubleton honor-pairs where West must follow with his two cards at his first opportunity, and East similarly has to play his three at his first chance, lest you overtake on the second round with impunity.

So it is clearly right to play to overtake the second diamond, as that suit is much more likely to split than spades. The fact that this was the winning line does not prove anything, but at least virtue was rewarded.

All our deals this week have focused on the principle of Restricted Choice; but this concept cannot be considered purely in abstract, as today’s deal from the later stages of a Vanderbilt Trophy match shows.

Declaring four spades, your chances do not seem so great on a devious low diamond lead, but when the diamond king holds the first trick, things look up. Draw two rounds of trumps, ending in hand, and lead a heart to the jack and king. Now East cashes the diamond queen and returns the heart 10, on which West unblocks the queen.

You ruff the last heart in hand, cross to dummy in trumps, and lead a low club, intending to put in the seven. Naturally, East thwarts you by playing the nine, so you try the queen, losing to the king. When West returns a low club, what should you do?

If you have been following this week’s theme, you may conclude that Restricted Choice suggests playing low. The logic for that would be that East is more likely to have J-8-x or J-9-x than 9-8-x. However, there is a much sounder argument for putting in the six, if you remember the earlier play. East can be assumed to be a true expert player; with three low clubs, as opposed to jack-third, he would not have defended this way when on lead earlier in the hand. He would have shifted to a club rather than returning a heart, to break up the impending endplay.