When West leads the spade king against four hearts, South can see the danger of losing two spades and two clubs. There are only nine top winners, but diamonds offer an additional source of tricks.

South wins the spade ace at trick one and draws trumps, pitching spades from dummy. Then he leads his diamond queen to dummy’s ace and returns the diamond jack for a ruffing finesse. Beware! If South trumps in when East plays the king, West may be able to get in and run spades, since declarer will be out of trumps. Instead, South pitches a spade and will now make it home if either spades are 6-1 or East has the club ace.

If West had held the diamond king, South would have run the diamond jack, pitching a spade, and would have lost the trick to him. However, the contract would still have had play at that point. West could have taken the diamond king but would retain only one additional spade to cash. Declarer would still come home when the club ace was offside, since East could not prevent him from reaching dummy eventually to cash out the diamonds.

As the cards lie, the diamond king is in a favorable position, and when East is allowed to win the trick with that card, he can play a spade. West can take one trick there, but declarer will eventually force an entry in clubs to dummy’s winners.

Note: Had declarer taken a straightforward losing diamond finesse, he would go down when the club ace was onside, or when spades were 5-2. West would have an entry to cash out enough spade winners to set the game.

Against four spades, West leads the diamond four. South can see that he has no losers in the black suits, but he must plan to take care of three losing hearts and two losing diamonds.

A logical plan is to try to trump two of these cards in dummy. An alternative is to set up dummy’s long club suit to provide a home for his losers. Either plan would be sensible, but setting up the long suit may offer the better odds.

South takes East’s diamond jack with his ace, then lays down the spade king. When West discards a high heart, it looks right for South to shift to clubs, hoping the suit breaks 3-2. He leads the club king and plays a second club to the ace. East ruffs in and finds the best defense by leading a heart to the queen and king, then he wins the diamond king to play the spade jack.

Declarer must win this in dummy to continue ruffing out the clubs. But beware! South must simultaneously unblock a high spade from hand under the jack to ensure that dummy’s spade eight remains an entry. So declarer contributes the nine, wins the trump ace and ruffs a club with the 10. Now he can ruff a heart low in dummy, ruff the fourth club with the queen and draw East’s last trump by leading his six to the eight.

For the record, if East had returned a red suit after winning his diamond king, declarer would be able to take the rest by scoring his seven trumps separately. In the two-card ending, East’s spade jack would be caught in a trump coup.

When South plays six no-trump, West leads the heart queen. East discards a spade, and you win with the king. You have 11 top tricks and will need either 3-3 spades or some form of pressure; you need either a squeeze in hearts and a second suit against West or, more likely, a spade-diamond squeeze against East.

First, cash the clubs, discarding a diamond from the board. When both defenders follow to three clubs, West has revealed 10 cards in hearts and clubs, so no squeeze will be possible on him. You must therefore hope that East holds the sole guard in both spades and diamonds. You need to maximize the amount of pressure you can bring to bear on East. How may this be done?

The answer is to play the spade ace and king, West pitching a heart, then lead the heart seven and duck West’s eight. By surrendering a trick now, you will extract one more card from the East hand.

West can do no better than return a heart, but this has the effect of squeezing East, since after nine tricks have been played in hearts, clubs and spades, dummy is down to two diamonds and the doubleton spade queen, while you have three diamonds and a spade in hand. East can see he must keep spades, so he will pitch a diamond, and you can take the spade queen then cash all three of your diamonds for 12 tricks.

By surrendering the trick you have to lose, you extract a spare card from the defenders, which makes it much easier to execute a possible squeeze.

After North drives to game in spades, and South shows extras and no shortage, then looks for a grand slam before settling in six. Slam is made more difficult by the fact that the side-suits are perfectly mirrored in the two hands. Switch the diamond four in North’s hand to the club four, and the grand slam would hinge on a finesse. As it is, though, declarer appears to be poorly placed. What can you do about the fact that you have an inevitable heart loser and a likely diamond loser?

The club jack opening lead goes to the ace. Declarer draws trumps with the ace and king, then cashes the club king and both top hearts before exiting with a third heart. Whichever defender wins this trick, they must lead diamonds. If the diamond finesse is right, then West must win the trick, since a low diamond lead from East around to the queen would clearly be hopeless for the defense.

However, no matter which defender has the diamond 10, the contract is still cold, since declarer puts in a low diamond from dummy when West shifts to a diamond. East can put up his king or withhold it, but declarer can play diamonds for no loser.

This line simply needs the diamond king to be well-placed.

Note that if declarer leads a diamond to the jack before exiting in hearts, that line would result in defeat. West would be able to win the third heart and shift to diamonds, and the defenders would collect a trick in diamonds.

Against three no-trump, West hits on the one lead that will create a problem for South, the spade eight. This looks very much like top of nothing, so South plays low from dummy to preserve his queen. After all, if West has the king, the queen will make a trick later.

South must develop clubs to make his contract, but he must also try to keep West out of the lead. Accordingly, declarer leads the club nine, intending to let it ride around to East. If West ducks, he knows South will let it run, so West covers, and declarer must go up with one of dummy’s top clubs, consistent with his plan of keeping West off play. When East unblocks his club jack — since he doesn’t want the lead — South is in trouble.

He returns to his hand in diamonds and leads the club two, again intending to let this card ride around to East. West covers this card for the same reason as before — his best play is the eight. Once again, declarer wins in dummy, and East follows with the seven.

When declarer cashes the third top club and East shows out, pitching a diamond, declarer plays the diamond ace and king, as East pitches a spade. Before playing on spades, South falls back on one further slim chance, namely playing three rounds of hearts. Bingo! East must win and lead away from the spade king to concede the ninth trick.

Had West won the third heart, declarer would still have come home if the spade king was onside.

When South opens one spade, North’s call of two no-trump is an unlimited game-forcing trump raise. South’s jump to game denies both shortage and extra values, and North must pass since he has no undisclosed extras.

When dummy comes down, South sees that the contract may be in jeopardy if the diamond ace is offside. What is the right line after drawing trumps? South would lose out if he led diamonds first from the dummy. Specifically, if South put up the diamond king, West would take the ace and later capture the diamond jack with the queen. That would end any chance of winning a diamond trick.

The correct play is to lead a diamond toward dummy’s jack at trick three. This maneuver will force West to put up the queen if he has it. Later on, the jack can be used to knock out the ace. That means a heart can subsequently be discarded on the diamond king.

If East has the diamond queen, dummy’s jack will lose to it, but declarer will still be able to enter dummy with a heart and lead toward his diamond king. If East has the diamond ace, the king will provide the critical discard.

This play would not work if South needed the first or second trick in diamonds (or if West had led a heart at trick one). Since that is not the case, South increases his odds by leading first toward dummy’s jack and falling back on leading to the king, turning a 50 percent line into 75 percent.

In today’s deal, you appear to have nine tricks ready to run once clubs have been established. So what is the danger? Clearly, the defenders might be able to run the spades. If you win the spade king, then arrange to finesse in clubs, West may get in with the club king and lead a spade through dummy’s remaining 10-third of spades. Now East-West can cash out for down one.

So your target is to hold up or protect your spade stopper. You can accomplish this by the somewhat unnatural move of ducking the spade at trick one.

The defense will almost certainly clear spades. If East does not play a third and fourth round of the suit, you will have tricks to burn. But if he does, then after taking his spade trick, declarer should take the club finesse, confident that West will be out of spades when he gains the lead in clubs.

The holdup is correct because you know that it is only West (the safe hand) who can gain the lead in clubs. If the clubs honors were reversed, with the ace in dummy, winning the spade king at once would be correct, since East couldn’t play spades without setting up dummy’s 10. And if you are missing the club ace instead of the king, it is a blind guess as to whether to win or duck the first trick.

Strangely, if North declares three no-trump on a low spade lead, the winning play of ducking at trick one becomes even harder to find, doesn’t it?

At the NABC in Toronto last July, John Rengstorff was partnering Geoff Brod in the finals of the Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs.

Against four hearts, Rengstorff led a third-and-fifth diamond seven to the jack, queen and three. (Yes, the lead of the two would have avoided all subsequent problems, but that was not this partnership’s leading method).

Brod now played the club king, ducked by declarer, then continued with the club queen instead of reverting to diamonds, though in retrospect the diamond play might have made declarer’s life more awkward. Declarer won the club ace and led a third club; Rengstorff ruffed with the six and made the key play of the diamond nine. Declarer finessed the diamond 10, playing the eight from his hand, then ran trumps to come down to a three-card ending as he led his last trump, with the diamond five and a losing club in hand. Dummy had the spade king and two diamonds, West also had two diamonds, and East had the spade ace and a master club.

On the last trump, Rengstorff and dummy each pitched their last spade. Rengstorff refrained from covering when declarer played the diamond five, so declarer had to concede the last trick to one defender or the other.

Declarer made not one but two slips at trick one. He might have played low from the board, but more to the point, he needed to unblock the diamond five! Then he would have had a diamond finesse at trick 12.