In today’s deal, North’s cuebid of three diamonds promised a high-card raise to at least three hearts, after which South’s extra high cards persuaded him to jump to four hearts despite his absence of aces. When West led the ace and another club, South had no choice but to win and start on the trump suit. But as he feared, East won and led another club for West to ruff with his 10 in front of dummy. Declarer guessed to pitch a diamond from dummy, and West — judging that a spade lead would now be fatal — exited with the diamond king.

Although this gave away a trick, West could now let go of all his diamonds on the run of the trump, and the defenders still had to come to a spade at the end for their fourth winner.

Would it have worked better for declarer to part with one of dummy’s spades? If he had, West would have been able to exit with a spade, coming to a diamond at the end. So is there any way to make the game? Yes, indeed!

Unlikely as it may seem, declarer must underruff West’s trump 10. West can do no better than exit with the diamond king, but declarer wins the ace and plays off the rest of his trumps, squeezing West in spades and diamonds. Dummy’s diamond six is still in place as a threat against West, and in the ending, West has to unguard his spade king on the last trump. That allows South to pitch dummy’s diamond and take three tricks in spades.

Today’s deal provided an excellent test of timing for declarer, but the correct solution was found at only one of the two tables.

In the first room, a highly competitive auction saw South end up in six hearts after his opponents had bid up to five spades following a Michaels Cue-bid by West. After the lead of a top diamond, declarer ruffed in hand and trumped a spade in dummy, then finessed in trump. But there was now no way to avoid losing both a trump and a spade.

At the featured table, Fred Hamilton opened one heart with the South cards, West overcalled with one spade and North sensibly responded two clubs. When East jumped to four spades, Hamilton decided that since his partner had to be very short in spades, he probably had some hearts. So he made an imaginative leap to six hearts! Both East and West had some prospects on defense, so they elected to try to beat the slam.

Again, West led a top diamond; after ruffing, Hamilton found the play to make his opponents’ lives as hard as possible. At trick two, he led a low trump to dummy’s 10; when East took the trick, declarer was home free. Had East ducked smoothly, South would have led a second trump and hoped to guess which defender had ducked their king. It might not have been easy, but I would have bet on Hamilton to find his way home.

The Tarrytown regional tournament this February threw up an interesting defensive problem here. There were several points of interest in the bidding, the first of which was East’s two-no-trump call, sometimes referred to as “Good-Bad Two No-Trump.” In this system, East has two ways to rebid clubs. A direct call of three clubs would promise extras (akin to a jump to three clubs over a one-heart response). This sequence was purely competitive in clubs — not an underbid!

When South reached four spades, West did well to lead a trump rather than making the knee-jerk play of leading the club ace. Since his side had plenty of high cards, the opponents’ auction was surely based on side-suit shortages somewhere, and West saw there was very likely to be a need to ruff either a club or a heart in dummy.

This lead should have been the killer. However, when declarer won in hand and led a diamond to the 10, king and ace, East shifted to a heart. Declarer set about his cross-ruff and emerged with 10 tricks.

East made a pardonable mistake, but he took his eye off the ball at trick three. He knew for certain that West didn’t have a singleton club — he surely would have led it. And if West didn’t have an ace, the defense had no chance. By playing a club, East would allow his partner to play a second trump if he had either the club ace or the heart ace. Shifting to a heart put all his eggs in a (broken) basket.

Today’s deal comes from a recent national tournament played at many tables, where the key to the defense was how to signal properly in order to find the best way to defeat three spades. The defenders were playing standard signals and third-and-lowest leads (wherein the defenders lead low from three or five cards and top of a doubleton, or third-highest from four cards). These methods tend to help the defenders get a count from the lead, whereas fourth-highest and second from a bad suit may help with the attitude of the opening leader.

Against three spades, West led the heart king; this went to the five, three and nine. Using upside-down count, when West next led a low heart to East’s ace, declarer playing the two, there was some ambiguity as to whether East had begun with A-10-2 or A-2. But third-and-fifth leads should come to the rescue!

After winning the heart ace, East shifted to the club six, to declarer’s three, the jack and the ace. East then took the diamond king with the ace and continued with the club five.

When West won his king, he could be sure East didn’t have only two clubs, because South had so far already shown seven spades, two hearts, two clubs and one diamond. The spot-card lead in clubs let West be sure his partner had four clubs; therefore, declarer had only two clubs. Thus, he could try to cash the heart queen, with confidence that this was his only chance to defeat the contract.

When West leads the spade three against three no-trump, South counts seven sure winners from spades, hearts and clubs. So the target is to set up two additional tricks. South can develop at least one trick from the diamonds. If the ace is favorably located, South will be able to take both of his diamond tricks. A further possibility is a finesse in hearts or finding the clubs breaking. The key is in which order to try for those tricks.

After ducking the first spade then taking the spade ace in dummy, declarer immediately leads a low diamond from the dummy in the hope of developing two diamond tricks. South puts up the diamond king, planning, if it wins, to cross back to a top club and play another diamond toward his remaining honor. As it happens, West captures declarer’s king, meaning South can win only one diamond trick without losing the lead.

West now clears spades, leaving South to look for a new way to develop his ninth trick. He turns his attention to clubs, cashing the ace and king. If they break, all will be well. But when West discards a heart on the second club, it is clear that declarer will have to go elsewhere for honey.

Declarer can do little but lead a low heart from dummy to his ace and then play a low heart toward dummy’s king-jack, finessing against West, hoping that player has the queen. Third time’s a charm! When the heart finesse succeeds, declarer cashes out and surrenders the balance.

When is a sure trump trick not a sure trump trick? Look at this board from England against Finland in last year’s European Championships.

Clas Nyberg declared six diamonds, a slam that would have been defeated on a club lead and any trump break. In fact, even five diamonds would go down as the cards lie. Even after a low heart to East’s ace, East must have felt reasonably good about the deal, looking at his trump holding.

After winning the spade return, Nyberg cashed the diamond ace, unblocked the heart king, went back to dummy with a spade and played the heart queen. If East ruffed low now, declarer would be home free. If East ruffed with the nine or 10, he would still be over-ruffed, and the position would develop into an easy trump coup.

When East did not ruff in, declarer’s club losers went away on the major-suit winners. In the six-card ending (after three spades, three hearts and a diamond), he led a major suit from dummy.

Now what was East to do? When he discarded a club declarer next lead out the club ace and continued with another side-suit card. Down to nothing but trumps, East finally had to split his diamond honors. Declarer overruffed, led a diamond to the queen, and now executed the trump coup.

Note that six diamonds can be defeated if East finds a club switch, as this knocks out the late dummy entry that is required to operate the trump coup. Would you have found it?

In today’s deal, from a championship match between Denmark and Iceland, the Danes found six hearts and cashed out for 12 tricks. But the deal offered more interesting play in the other room after a complex strong-club auction had led to a grand slam. (The two-spade response showed any 4-4-4-1 pattern, two no-trump asked the shortness, and the four-heart call showed six controls in aces and kings.)

When there are 12 tricks, there are often 13 — and that might have been the case here when West led a heart rather than a killing low club or a truly imaginative diamond queen.

Declarer started by rattling off six of his seven hearts, on which dummy discarded three clubs, a diamond and one spade. It was now up to West, Lars Blakset, to create an alternative reality if he wanted to defeat the slam. He chose to discard two clubs, blanking his king, then a spade, and finally a diamond. When South led his last heart, West pitched a second diamond. This successfully created the impression in declarer’s mind that West was giving up his diamond stopper. Accordingly, on the last heart, declarer pitched a spade from dummy, a fatal mistake.

If South had thrown the last low diamond from dummy on the heart, then cashed the diamond ace and king, East would have been squeezed in the black suits. But with the spade menace gone from dummy, 13 tricks were no longer possible. One down, and team Denmark had a big swing when it might have been forced out.

In today’s deal from the match between Iceland and Denmark at the 2018 European Championships in Ostend, Belgium, the Danish West led a top heart against four spades. Declarer followed the normal line: He won the ace and took a losing diamond finesse. When East made the thoughtful return of a club to his partner’s 10, the contract was doomed. Declarer could not draw trumps and still ruff the required number of losers.

In the open room, West’s lead of his singleton diamond seven gave the declarer, Dennis Bilde, an outside chance. Dummy played the 10, and East won with the queen to return the diamond four (not his smallest diamond, which would have suggested a preference for clubs). When West ruffed, he duly exited with a trump, letting declarer draw the remaining trump. He cashed the diamond ace, throwing a club from hand, then ruffed a diamond to hand, squeezing West down to three clubs and four hearts.

Next, rather than simply playing for the club king to be onside, South cashed the heart ace and ruffed a heart in dummy, then ruffed another diamond in hand (West being forced to pitch a heart) and another heart in dummy. West, North and South were now all down to three clubs.

At this point, declarer ran the club nine from dummy. West could win with the club 10 but was forced to return a club into the split tenace. Bilde commented afterward that East’s return of the diamond four at trick two had persuaded him to play this line.

Mark Horton has a regular feature in which he features anonymous hands where declarer has not made the most of his assets. He analyzed today’s deal, which came up at the end of a short match in a major team championship.

South reached three no-trump after a 14-16 no-trump and transfer. When West led the club two, the obvious place for declarer to look for a ninth trick was in the heart suit. South opted for simplicity, cashing the heart king and playing a heart to the jack. East won with the queen and returned the diamond queen. Declarer took that with dummy’s ace and cashed the heart ace, but when West discarded a spade, South’s time was up.

It is hard to criticize declarer for choosing the simplest line, but in fact, there was no rush to go after the hearts. Rather than playing on hearts directly, declarer should have cashed three more rounds of clubs, discarding a diamond and a spade from dummy.

On the last club, East must keep all his hearts and will therefore have to come down to one spade or just three diamonds. If he pitches a diamond, then declarer can play on hearts as before, but will now lose no more than two hearts and two diamonds. However, if East pitches a spade instead, his king will now be bare, and declarer can cross to the spade ace before touching hearts, switching horses to set up his ninth winner in spades. In other words, hearts can wait, but spades cannot.