At the 1996 World Championship quarterfinals in Rhodes, Greece, most North-Souths maneuvered themselves into three no-trump by South on a heart lead after West had shown a weak two in hearts.

In one match, South took the heart king and played the club king, and East erred by taking her club ace to play a second heart back. There was really no rush, since declarer was unlikely to have nine sure tricks. Declarer covered the heart six with the nine, and West naturally cashed her heart ace, after which declarer was home free.

At the other table in this match, East correctly ducked the club king. Now declarer crossed to the diamond king and played the club queen. All East had to do was win it and return a club, and the defense would have prevailed. But East played a second heart, and again the defensive communications had been cut.

In both the Open and Women’s series, almost every East besides Irina Levitina of the U.S. failed to duck the first club and continue the suit when declarer played it again. The defense was so blinded by the distraction in hearts that they could not see the simple way to defeat the contract.

Was there anything that declarer could have done about a correct defense? Yes, as Alfredo Versace for Italy demonstrated. Once the club king held the trick, declarer could cut the defensive communications by playing back a top heart himself! The defenders could take only four tricks now, no matter what they did next.

The art of the striptease can be perfected at the bridge table as well in the nightclub. If you can draw trumps and leave yourself with at least one trump in each hand, you can often remove cards from unimportant suits and throw the opponents on lead. You can then force them to give a ruff-sluff or to open up a suit to your advantage. This strategy will also work in no-trump, though not as frequently.

In today’s deal, consider the play in four spades on a neutral trump lead. The correct approach after winning the second trump is to play the club ace and a second club, since this is the suit where there is no benefit in having the opponents tackle the suit as opposed to leading it yourself. East’s best play is to win the club and shift to the diamond 10. There is no good reason not to finesse, but when West covers your jack, you win the king and play two more rounds of diamonds.

East will win the third diamond and shift to a heart (probably a low one, since this would beat the contract by force if the heart nine and seven were switched). You run the heart around to dummy, capturing West’s jack with the ace, then finesse against the queen to make 10 tricks.

As a side note, if East shifts to the heart queen at trick eight, he presents you with a choice: Will you play him for both heart honors or just the queen? Unless East is an expert, assume he has both honors.

After West showed the majors and North doubled, suggesting a defensive hand, South’s first thought was to try to reach no-trump. But when North suggested diamond support and extras, South took a shot at the slam.

He captured the lead of the spade king and was almost ready to claim his contract, but he was jolted back to reality when West failed to follow to the diamond ace.

It now seemed that he might need West to hold the club queen, or for the heart queen to fall from East. But before committing himself in hearts, declarer saw that he might achieve an endplay, as long as East’s major-suit holdings could be eliminated.

East was marked with no more than one heart, but if he also held just three spades, which would be consistent with the action, the position of the club queen might turn out to be irrelevant.

A trump to dummy’s king allowed declarer to trump a spade in hand. Then a heart to the king was followed by the ruff of dummy’s third spade. South now took the last necessary precaution of cashing his club king, then took the heart ace — just in case. Whether East ruffed with his master trump now or waited until he was endplayed with that card at the next trick, he would eventually have to play a club around to North. Either way, South’s losing heart could be discarded.

Note that if South doesn’t cash the club king before playing the third diamond, East can exit with a club, after which the clubs are blocked.

Whether to balance into your opponents’ auction is often a simple decision, and players become used to evaluating their hands well enough that they tend to know when it is right to bid and when to pass.

Occasionally more complex is how the partner of the balancer should react when the auction continues after the opponents compete again. The question may be just how many of your own values have been bid by your partner already! It is often the case that he has bid every single one of them — and sometimes even more.

In today’s deal, North was faced with just such a decision. He was swayed into competing again because it sounded like both sides had a double fit, and the vulnerability meant he might be able to afford to be off a trick in his calculations and still not be severely punished.

He was absolutely right, with both sides having play for their three-level contracts. In three spades, South ruffed the third diamond and led a heart to the nine and queen, then won the trump return to eliminate the trumps and hearts. At this point, he knew West to have started with a 2=5=4=2 pattern, and to have 10 points in the red suits. So, he needed a club honor to justify his opening bid, which in turn meant declarer could guarantee his contract by playing the ace and another club. West did his best by unblocking his club king, but the defenders could score only one club trick, no matter what.

Today’s deal from a recent tournament appeared under the headline of the old proverb: “For the want of a nail, the horseshoe was lost.”

As the writer indicated, it is probably lucky for all of us how rarely our small inaccuracies are as heavily punished as was the case today. If we all got our just deserts, life at the bridge table would be no fun at all.

You could argue that East-West did not deserve a good result, given East’s overcall in spades on that miserable five-carder, though it did get his partner off to the best lead against no-trump. (Of course, West led the spade two, which had the effect of blocking the suit.) North-South had certainly done well to get to the best game; now all South had to do was make the maximum.

Declarer won the first spade and had to decide what to do next. What would you have done? South missed the technically best play (as might we all), of cashing the diamond ace at trick two. Instead she tried to run the clubs and got the bad news when West pitched two hearts and then a spade.

Now declarer finessed the diamond jack and ran into about the only lie of that suit that could hold her to eight tricks. If she had cashed one top diamond at trick two, she would have taken four tricks in the suit instead of two, which would have represented about half a top difference in the results on this deal.

How would you handle the North hand after using Stayman and failing to find a heart fit? The simple route to follow is to bid three no-trump. A more prudent route would be to bid three diamonds, suggesting game-forcing values and a doubt about strain or level. In other words, either one major is a concern or North has interest in higher things.

If North had chosen the diamond call, South would have signed off in three no-trump because he has both majors stopped — but you can easily imagine that South’s spade ace-king could be the ace of hearts and diamond king, in which case North-South might make slam in a minor but go down in three no-trump.

That said, after a top spade lead against three no-trump, how should South play? Declarer has eight sure tricks and needs a ninth from one of the red suits. In which order should he go about playing those suits? The answer is slightly counterintuitive, in that he must try a heart toward the king first, and fall back on the diamond finesse if necessary.

Yes, technically, playing a heart could allow the defenders to run four tricks on him — even five tricks on a really terrible day. But the point is that South can afford to lose four heart tricks. He can still fall back on taking the diamond finesse sooner or later, for his contract.

By contrast, if declarer takes the diamond finesse and it loses, there is no fallback position. The defenders set up spades and are ready to win the heart ace and cash out.

At the Gold Coast teams tournament last year, Frances Hinden and Graham Osborne came all the way from England, and who did they get to play? The Scots team. In that match, Osborne played four hearts nicely here.

There is only one lead by West to defeat four hearts — a small trump. After Victor Silverstone’s lead of a top diamond honor, Osborne won the ace and ruffed a diamond, trying to score as many of his small trumps as possible, then crossed to a top club to lead a third diamond, ruffed by Derek Diamond and overruffed in hand. Now a club to dummy allowed declarer to ruff another diamond. The spade ace and a spade ruff produced a five-card ending where declarer was down to two losing spades and the A-J-10 of hearts, with the lead in dummy.

Osborne now led a diamond from dummy, and when East ruffed with the four, he discarded a spade. No matter which black suit East led next, Osborne could follow with his remaining spade, to ensure two of the last three tricks.

Had East retained both of his trumps in the five-card ending (together with one spade and two clubs), declarer would have needed to lead a club from dummy and pitch a spade as East won his jack.

At that point, West has one spade and four hearts and must pitch his spade to leave his partner on play. In turn, that means West will have to ruff his partner’s plain-suit winner at the next trick and be endplayed to concede two of the last three tricks.

What do you think would be the relative fates of four hearts and three no-trump? At the Gold Coast last year in a teams match, one East-West pair pre-empted to two spades, but it didn’t prevent their opponents from finding their way to four hearts by North.

It looks natural for declarer to cash the diamonds to pitch the spade loser, then play on clubs. The defenders can shift to trumps, but then declarer arranges to ruff out the clubs. Alternatively, the defenders can force declarer to ruff in hand — but he can ruff diamonds low and, if necessary, a third round of spades high.

What you cannot do, however, is play three rounds of trumps early — which was what happened at the table. Now the 4-1 club break meant that the defenders could force the North hand and leave declarer short of entries to set up clubs, so he ended with just nine tricks.

In the other room, Danny Sprung had the delight of playing three no-trump here on a spade lead. He ducked the first spade, won the second and cashed his hearts. After the last heart was played, East held three cards in each minor. West came down to three spades, the bare club queen and two diamonds. That was fatal; declarer could play three rounds of diamonds, which endplayed East to lead clubs into dummy’s tenace for the ninth trick.

West’s problem was that he did not know who had the last spade — and I’m not sure how the defenders could have signaled to get this right.