The decline in the number of entries in women’s events has me wondering how the women of today would match up against the American teams from 50 years ago. After all, it was only in the ‘70s that the Venice Cup — the most prestigious of women’s events — came into being.

As a small piece of evidence that the women back then could really play, I adduce into evidence this deal from a Spingold knockout match from that period.

Mary-Jane Farrell was playing with Marylin Johnson, and she declared six hearts on the lead of a low trump. She decided to play the diamond ace and take a diamond ruff, then the spade ace and a spade ruff followed by top trumps. If hearts had broken, she would have had 12 tricks, but she needed some more luck when trumps failed to behave.

She played her remaining top heart and exited with a heart, throwing two spades and a club from table. Nancy Gruver as West now made a nice play when she produced the club king to prevent declarer from taking three easy club tricks. Farrell won the club ace and simultaneously unblocked the club queen from hand to leave a four-card ending where dummy had two spades and two clubs, while she retained a trump, a club and two diamonds.

When she ruffed a spade to hand, she would have been home if the king had fallen, but even as it was, since East had sole control of diamonds and clubs, the spade ruff squeezed her into conceding the 12th trick.

In today’s deal, East-West did well not to sacrifice in five diamonds, which should certainly go at least two down, and might fare even worse from the East seat on an unlikely heart lead. East’s double of two spades showed cards but no obvious call, and West decided to take his chances on defense — a wise choice, with four spades a delicate contract.

When West quite naturally tried to cash two rounds of diamonds, South seized his opportunity by ruffing, then making the critical play of finessing hearts and eliminating that suit. Then he exited in trumps, and East was endplayed with his bare ace. He was forced to concede a ruff-sluff — in which declarer would pitch a club from hand and ruff in dummy — or lead a club himself, his actual choice.

That would have been good enough to set the game if the three and 10 of clubs were switched, but as it was, when West won his club king he had, East had no choice but to return a club, and declarer could claim the rest.

If a trump is led or a trump shift comes after the lead of the diamond king gets a count signal from East, the endplay no longer works. Declarer’s best play is to eliminate the red suits, then lead the club jack from dummy. This will work if either defender holds both the club king and queen or if West has a doubleton club king or queen. And of course, we have all seen sleepy defenders fail to cover an honor with an honor when they should …

In today’s deal, the contract in each room in a teams game was three no-trump, and at both tables the lead was the spade jack.

At the first table, after winning in hand, declarer led a low heart and ducked West’s eight. East overtook with the nine and continued with a second top heart. South won in hand and turned his attention to clubs, finessing the queen. This lost to the king and back came another heart. Can you see declarer’s winning line now? South failed when he played on clubs: He needed instead to take all his spade and diamond winners, then exit with a heart. East would have been able to cash two more hearts, but would then have to lead a club and let declarer score two more club tricks.

The second declarer won the spade lead and decided that his best chance would come from setting up one more trick in the club suit. At trick two, he crossed to the club ace, then advanced a low club from dummy. East put up the jack, and now the club 10 and queen were equals and could be established for declarer’s ninth trick.

If East had played low, would South have followed low, or would he have inserted the club 10? If the 10 lost to the jack, declarer would have regained the lead and led up toward the queen at his next turn. The only time that it is wrong to put up the 10 is when West started with exactly the doubleton club jack.

My ventures to the local club often yield curious results, but this deal from the Common Game six months ago produced a more unusual conclusion than usual.

Readers are asked to guess which card won trick 13 in four hearts. As you might expect from the introduction, best play was not necessarily involved. And yes, readers may guess which seat I was occupying, if they like.

West led the spade jack against four hearts, and East encouraged with the eight, letting South win the queen and lead a club to the king — correct defense by West to duck the club ace.

Now declarer made her first slight slip by leading the diamond 10 (maybe low to the jack was better, though that is debatable). This was covered by the queen and ace.

At this point, it seems right to play for diamond ruffs, but declarer made a serious error by cashing the heart ace and leading to the jack. When you want to ruff, don’t draw trumps. East won the queen to continue with the spade king, and declarer took the ace, drew the last trump, led a diamond to the jack, and exited in spades.

Now West won and played the 13th spade. South ruffed and led the diamond nine, allowing East to take his king and get out with a club. At trick 12, South ruffed and led her last card, the diamond four, and East triumphantly scored his five, more to his surprise than you might have expected.

Today’s deal offers an interesting declarer-play problem both for North and South. Let’s look at four hearts on the bidding shown, with South in the hot seat.

Game is easy to reach and appears to be a good contract. It gets worse, though, when West leads the club queen and the defense takes three tricks in that suit. As declarer, you should refrain from contributing the club king on either the first or second round of the suit from dummy since East (unless West is a very calculating customer) has the ace — but it might be singleton or doubleton. When East wins the third club, he will probably play the diamond king, taken by the ace.

One chance is that the spades will split 33, but there is also a squeeze chance. The only trick you are worrying about is the last, so lead out all the trumps. Lo and behold, East cannot keep the diamond queen and his spades!

This is the simplest of squeezes, but now imagine you are declaring four hearts from North on a top diamond lead, perhaps after an optimistic two-no-trump opener and a transfer sequence. Instead of relying on a squeeze here, you simply draw trumps and play four rounds of spades. If the suit breaks, you pitch your diamond from dummy. If it does not, you ruff the fourth spade and exit with the diamond jack to East, who must break clubs for you or give you a ruff-sluff. Either way, you are home safe with 10 tricks.

After South opens with two no-trump to show a balanced 22 to 24 points, what should North do? If North’s long suit were a major, he would transfer into it. But one should only do the same with a minor if there is a possibility of slam in the air. Here, North knows that his side probably belongs in three no-trump, so why help the opponents by telling them about his diamonds? North should simply raise to game in no-trump — though give dummy as little as Q-10-fourth of clubs instead of his actual holding, and North might want to consider making a slam try.

When dummy comes down after West’s small heart lead, South sees he has five top tricks in spades, clubs and hearts, with only slim chances for developing another trick from the black suits. He therefore needs only four tricks in diamonds to guarantee his contract.

This in turn suggests that at both teams and rubber bridge, South should take the safety play of cashing the ace, then deliberately ducking the second round of diamonds to protect against a 4-1 break in that suit.

As shown in the diagram, South’s precaution is needed to assure the contract today. If South wins the second diamond in dummy, he can take only three tricks in that suit. His best play would be to turn his attention to clubs, but when that suit also fails to break, he emerges with only eight tricks. Still, at pairs, where every trick counts, when you are in a normal contract, it might make sense to go down in the search for an overtrick.

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.