Today’s deal has a relatively simple theme, but the answer is one that might surprise some of my readers. North may have done too much here, to reach slam. While he does have all four aces, he should have taken second- and third-round controls into account as well, and in this case he has no idea where any spade losers may be discarded.

When the spade king is led to the ace, declarer has to find a way to take care of his spade losers, not to mention the club queen. Which defender should you play for the missing club honor?

After winning the heart ace, king and jack, declarer has to imagine a situation where he can achieve an endplay after extracting the clubs. For that situation to arise, declarer will need to find East having begun with a singleton spade. Given East’s known singleton heart, South must hope that East originally had a 1-1-7-4 shape. So, after cashing the club ace, declarer leads out the club jack, covered by the queen and king.

Then after leading the diamond three to dummy’s ace, declarer cashes two more club tricks with the aid of the marked finesse. At this point, he can lead the diamond queen from hand, throwing a spade from dummy. When East takes the trick, he has only diamonds left to lead, and dummy’s other spade disappears when declarer ruffs the diamond return in hand.

Notice that it is key to lead the club jack from dummy and not to lead low to the 10 on the second round of that suit.

Today’s deal sees North with a promising hand for slam when his partner opens the bidding. However, the one-no-trump rebid persuades North to look no higher than three no-trump. He certainly has no reason to assume that game will be as delicate as it actually turns out to be.

When West leads his fourth-best diamond, the fate of the contract hinges on declarer’s play to the first trick. He should reason that West is relatively unlikely to have led low from a suit headed by all three of the king, queen and 10, so one of those honors must be held by East. If this is so, and the suit divides 4-3, the defenders will have three tricks in diamonds, but no more.

If diamonds break 5-2, the play of the ace may well block the run of the suit for the defense. South’s correct play, therefore, is to go up with the ace in dummy. This play does not lose even if West has led from both the king and queen, because the fact that the 10 would then be doubleton in East’s hand will prevent the run of four tricks. Declarer must still exercise caution; if he next finesses in clubs, the defenders can unscramble their six winners.

Instead, declarer must unblock spades and go after hearts at once, since he needs no more than two tricks in that suit to make his game.

West can win with the heart ace, but his side can take no more than two diamond tricks, even if East has unblocked his king at the first trick.

This deal (with a slight alteration of the heart honors) came up in the Common Game in December last year. Pretty much everyone would have bid the North-South cards to three no-trump; North has just enough to use Stayman and invite game, since if partner has a heart fit or a maximum, there should be decent play for game.

The opening lead gives you grounds for optimism as declarer. The club 10 comes around to your queen, and now it seems natural to go after diamonds. Beware, though! If you play the ace and another diamond, the defenders can clear the clubs and remove your last sure entry to hand. If the defenders duck the first spade and win the next, then cash their club winner, West can exit in hearts and collect the fifth trick for their side.

A much better line is to lead the diamond eight to the queen at trick two. At the table where I was involved, East won her diamond king and continued clubs, but declarer could simply drive out the spade ace and come to nine tricks painlessly enough.

Had East ducked the diamond king, South would next go after spades by running the jack, then leading a spade to the king. The defenders can still make life awkward by winning the second spade and returning a club, but the fall of the spade 10 and the fact that hearts are 3-3 allows you to come home against any defense. You win the third club, cash the remaining top spade to pitch a heart, and set up diamonds, leaving the defenders with two clubs, one spade and one diamond trick.

West should double one diamond rather than overcall one heart, despite his five-card major. North has more than enough to redouble, after which East should pass if he plays that as neutral, or (as here) bid one no-trump if a pass would be played as for penalties.

South can now raise a red flag by bidding two diamonds, suggesting extra length and a minimum hand. Over West’s sporting two-heart call, North’s values look suitable for offense, so he can compete to three diamonds. Even if he passes, South would surely bid on to three diamonds by virtue of his seven-card suit. East may expect to defeat the contract, but it would be unwise to double here since the location of the diamond 10 may be critical to the defense.

West leads and continues clubs, not wanting to open up either major. Declarer ruffs the third round and plays the trump ace, discovering the bad news. It seems at first sight that he must lose three more tricks, but careful timing enables him to force East to trump a loser.

South cashes both top diamonds, enters dummy with the spade king, and ruffs the fourth club as East discards a spade. Then he takes the spade ace and ruffs a spade in hand. He leads a heart to the ace and plays the last spade, retaining two diamonds and a heart in his hand. If East ruffs, declarer discards his losing heart; if not, declarer ruffs and concedes the last two tricks.

Should East ruff a club or spade loser earlier in the hand, the heart loser can be discarded in the same way.

In today’s deal, sitting South, you should focus on making your contract if you can, while not worrying about overtricks. When West leads the spade four against your contract of three no-trump, how would you plan to make your nine tricks? At first glance, you can identify your eight top winners in the form of two hearts, two spades, three diamonds and a club. An extra trick could be made from either the diamonds or the clubs, but South should note that the diamonds are blocked, and dummy has only one entry, in spades, to help set up the diamonds.

One straightforward route to success would come if the diamond jack falls in two or three rounds. If that fails, you could resort to the club finesse. But is there a more reliable route to nine winners?

There is, and it comes from the intermediates in dummy. South should plan to cash the diamond ace, then overtake the diamond queen with the king before using the diamond 10 to force out the jack, in an attempt to ensure four diamond winners.

To guarantee a late entry to dummy, South should plan to win the first trick with the spade ace (even though you could score the spade jack, it would not generate an extra trick), then go after diamonds as described above. Diamonds will break 3-3 or 4-2 five times out of six. If worst comes to worst, you can still set up a third diamond trick and fall back on the club finesse.

Kit Woolsey offered up today’s problem from a Vanderbilt Knockout Trophy event in Memphis. You are given the full deal, but you may want to focus on just the North and West cards initially.

You lead the club eight (playing third-highest from an even number of cards and low from an odd number) and discover dummy has been simulating more values than he actually has, to keep you out of the auction.

Your club lead goes to partner’s ace. Back comes the heart 10 to declarer’s ace. South plays a second club, and you win the king to continue the attack on hearts. Declarer wins in dummy, cashes the club queen to discard a heart, then plays a low spade from dummy. Your partner discards the diamond queen, making it clear that underleading the ace won’t give declarer a chance to misguess.

So you capture declarer’s spade king with your ace, cash the diamond ace, and play a diamond, locking declarer in dummy. Now declarer has a real problem: How does he get back to hand to take the marked spade finesse? As you can see, a club is safe, but a heart will be over-ruffed. A careful declarer is going to ruff a club to hand (having registered that your partner did not play the club jack to the first trick) … that is, unless you dropped the club jack under the queen a few tricks ago!

Woolsey found this deceptive play, and consequently declarer went with the odds when he tried to ruff a heart to hand, for down one.

Against six hearts, West leads the spade four, which all but marks him as having started with a singleton. Plan the play as declarer.

Once you realize that you need one of the major suits to break 3-2, the play here is virtually forced. You win the opening lead with the spade king, cross to hand with the club ace, then lead the trump four to dummy’s eight. After throwing your remaining spade on the club king, ruff a spade with the trump nine. Next, you cross to dummy via the trump king, noting that trumps are breaking, and ruff another spade, setting up the suit. Then you can draw the last trump and play a diamond to the king.

Here, East will take the diamond king with the ace and play a club. You ruff this with your last trump, then cross to dummy with a diamond to the queen and cash the spade ace. The last trick is taken by an established spade: You make three spades, six trumps, a diamond and two clubs for a total of 12 tricks.

Note that if you draw all the trumps early, your entries to dummy are compromised. You will be able to ruff out the spades, but you will not be able to get back to dummy to cash them. Similarly, if you play to ruff a diamond in dummy by playing that suit immediately, before drawing trumps, the defenders can arrange a spade ruff. That line would at least work if West had the diamond ace, though.

When I saw a close variant of this deal from the Common Game in 2017, I thought it had the makings of a good problem. At the table, most North-South pairs played five clubs on a deal where slam seemed highly likely to make. But with neither spades nor clubs behaving, the limit on the hand turned out to be 11 tricks.

However, imagine that North finds a slightly off-center raise to two spades rather than a negative double. This is sensible enough, since a decent hand with Q-10 of spades plus short hearts virtually corresponds to a three-card raise. Can you imagine how the defense would go against four spades?

West leads from his heart sequence. Declarer wins and crosses to the diamond king to run the spade queen to West, who forces declarer with a second heart. Now declarer must be careful not to draw any more trumps. Instead, he plays a club to the ace and a second club. East will probably discard, and declarer will clear the clubs. He can now ruff the next heart in dummy and come to hand in diamonds to draw trumps, then claim the rest. Note that had declarer drawn trumps before playing on clubs, the combination of bad breaks in the minors would sink him, since he runs out of trumps.

Still, I wonder if the defenders might have prevailed by following a more devious line. If West can duck the first trump smoothly, declarer will probably repeat the spade finesse. Now the force in hearts will work, since dummy is out of trumps.

Earlier this month, we talked about squeezes and how one might identify a deal where the aim was to bring pressure to bear on one or both opponents. The next step after determining that this might be relevant is to make sure you catch the opponents in the net.

In six no-trump after the lead of the heart 10, South can count 11 top tricks. He has a 12th trick if either spades or diamonds breaks 3-3. But there is one additional chance: if one opponent has length in both diamonds and spades.

It costs South nothing to prepare for this possibility. If either of those suits divides favorably, South will make his slam without breaking a sweat. But if neither suit breaks, simply cashing winners will not bring either defender under pressure.

Squeezes tend to work best when you have all the tricks you need but one; here, declarer has 11 tricks out of the 12 needed. So South must give up a trick (sometimes referred to as “rectifying the count”) by the strange-looking move of ducking a heart — which could be at trick one or two.

South wins the return and takes his club and heart winners. On the last of these, West, who guards both spades and diamonds, must concede the slam-going trick by unguarding one suit or the other. All South has to do is watch the discards, and he is home.

If South had not given up the heart trick, West would have one extra winner in his hand. He would not be squeezed, and the slam would be unmakable.