Today’s deal is a real-life hand from 45 years ago, reported in the Australian press.

It represents a missed opportunity for declarer, who had been given a roadmap by East’s double (maybe Dick Cummings was assuming his partner, Tim Seres, had a hand with some defense, given his overcall rather than a preempt.)

The defense began with a top heart lead to the ace. Perhaps assuming that hearts could not be 7-1, declarer unblocked clubs and led a heart from the board. Cummings discarded a club on this trick, and from here on in, the contract could no longer be made.

Declarer should surely have played for the diamonds not to break, and after winning the club ace, he should have led the diamond queen from dummy.

Say East covers, which looks right for preserving the tenace over dummy. Then four more rounds of clubs, discarding spades from dummy, forces East to ruff and return a high diamond. Now Declarer wins in dummy and cross-ruffs the majors. Though East can score his high trump sooner or later, that is all he gets.

The play is far more interesting on a spade lead, when East wins and returns a heart. After heart ace, then club ace, then the diamond queen to the king and ace, South cashes the club king and queen, throwing hearts from dummy. Then he takes the spade king, leads a spade to the queen, and ruffs a spade. In the four-card ending, South ruffs a spade and leads a heart from the board; now East can score only one more trump trick.

Bridge history records all too many slam bids missing two aces, or two top tricks. Some of these contracts have come home, but surely one of the odder entries into the record books is today’s hand, from the 1997 Vanderbilt Trophy quarterfinals in Dallas.

West led the diamond ace in an attempt to force out declarer’s trumps, and declarer made the odd-looking play of discarding a spade from dummy. Meanwhile East played the diamond nine, a discouraging card that, according to the partnership methods, suggested to West that he should switch to a high suit rather than a low one. What was going on here? West could see no future in trying to cash the club ace, since it was surely never going to get away, so he led a spade, which seemed passive enough.

Declarer Paul Soloway won the king, drew four rounds of trumps and took the rest of the tricks with his seven-card spade suit and his diamond king, discarding all of dummy’s clubs in the process!

So what was going on? Soloway had thought his partner, Bobby Goldman, was showing the two lower unbid suits when he bid five no-trump. His hearts were better than his clubs, so he decided to bid hearts to protect his diamond king. Didn’t he play it well?

This turned out to be a flat board, since the opponents played in six spades in the other room, but Soloway’s squad was clearly the team of destiny, since they squeaked through in this match by 1 IMP and went on to win the trophy after that.

This deal arose in the North American trials of 1999, where the next Hall of Fame inductee Michael Seamon was playing with Jimmy Cayne. It was a valiant effort in a losing cause. Against four spades doubled, West led the club ace, producing the three from dummy and the 10 from East.

As West’s jump overcall was expected to be a six-card suit, declarer suspected that East’s double was partly made on the basis of holding a singleton club; so, in tempo, declarer Seamon contributed the king!

West wasn’t quite sure whom to believe, but eventually came down on the side of declarer (a variation on “Who are you going to believe — me, or the evidence before your own eyes?”). He made the unsuccessful switch to a low diamond. Note that if he had led a heart instead, East might have found the return of a low diamond and then still received his club ruff. As it was, though, East rose with the diamond ace, cashed his other red ace, then returned a second diamond.

Granted a second reprieve, Seamon ruffed in hand, then discarded a club on the heart king and ruffed a heart in dummy. When he ruffed a diamond in hand, it brought down West’s king, and a second heart ruff produced the queen from East.

The 4-0 trump break could now be handled in style: The diamond jack let South discard his second club, and he could then take the last three tricks on a high crossruff, with East forced to underruff throughout.

When West led the diamond queen against six spades, declarer paused to form a plan, even though his play to the first trick was nearly automatic. He could count to 11 tricks if trumps divided, so he needed a 12th.

One possibility was to try to set up a long diamond in dummy, but that would almost certainly require both trumps and diamonds to behave. Declarer decided that a better shot was to ruff a heart high in dummy and finesse the trump nine after having done so. (This line does offer a better chance of making the contract than trying to set up diamonds.)

So at trick two, declarer led a low trump; but when West discarded a heart, declarer had to reconsider his options. Winning the trick with dummy’s trump queen, declarer then played a heart to the ace and cashed three rounds of clubs. After discarding a heart on the diamond ace, declarer ruffed a diamond low, then exited with a heart. West won the trick with the heart eight and exited with a low heart. As planned, declarer ruffed this with dummy’s trump king.

In the three-card ending, declarer had the trump ace-jacknine remaining, and any lead from dummy would ensure he could score all of the remaining tricks. Declarer made five trumps, the heart ace, a heart ruff, two diamonds and three clubs, for a total of 12 tricks.

It was critical here to cash the clubs and take the diamond ruff before East could discard from the minors on the hearts.

The odds associated with a finesse are traditionally 50-50, but sometimes you can achieve a 100% result by finessing into the safe hand — and sometimes you can achieve an equally good result by rejecting the finesse altogether.

Consider today’s deal, in which you reach what appears to be the normal contract of four spades, on a passive club lead from West.

To digress for a moment: I would certainly lead a red-suit against that contract myself, since it is far more likely that you need to set up winners than go passive here, but that is another column. Similarly, the question of whether to lead second-highest from four small here would produce different opinions from different players.

You win the club ace and hasten to draw trumps; what next? You should cash the club king and ruff a club to eliminate that suit altogether. Now you must play the diamond ace followed by the diamond queen. Yes, you give up on the finesse, but you have ensured your contract in the process. Whoever wins the diamond king must give you a trick in return, either via a ruff-sluff or by broaching hearts for you, to ensure that you lose no more than two tricks in the suit.

Note that if you take the diamond finesse, you risk going down. When it loses, back comes a diamond, and you will find you still have to lose three hearts.

The technique here, of eliminating the side suits and forcing a favorable return, is one worth adding to your repertoire.

Today’s deal comes from the 1989 European Championship and was declared by Tony Forrester, who played in four hearts on the spade 10 lead. Forrester has been ever present on the Great Britain and now England teams over the last 35 years. He is well known as being both a tough opponent to play against because of his imaginative and aggressive bidding, and also for being an excellent technician.

The contract of four hearts seemed reasonable, but when the spade 10 was led, the risk of a ruff on defense suddenly became a serious one.

If declarer were to win the opening lead and try to draw trumps, the defense would score their ruff, play off their top trumps, then exit in clubs. They would eventually collect a diamond winner.

Forrester had other ideas; he won the opening lead, played the club ace and king, then ruffed a club in hand before playing the heart jack. East won the heart ace and returned a spade. The good news was that his partner could ruff and cash the heart king, but after that, he was endplayed. With only minor-suit cards left, he could exit in diamonds into the tenace or play a club, at which point declarer would pitch dummy’s diamond loser(s) and take the rest via his top spades, the diamond ace, and the three trumps.

This deal emphasizes how often, when you need cooperation from your opponents, eliminating the side suits early can put additional pressure on the defenders, sometimes in unexpected ways.

There are advantages to being a pack rat (though it is possible my wife would not agree). Going back through my copious records, I discovered a deal from a national tournament of the 1970s.

The deal arose in the Spingold Trophy, where both tables declared four hearts. After the lead of the club jack to the king, East cashed the club ace and erred by playing a third club. That gave declarer a chance by allowing him to try to shorten his trumps and cope with a bad break. A diamond shift would have left declarer no chance as the cards lay.

Robert Lebi, then of Montreal, earned a 12-IMP swing for his team by ruffing and playing a heart to the ace. Believing East’s king was a true card (who would find the false card here?), he cashed the spade ace, ruffed a spade and took the diamond ace and king, before ruffing a diamond to dummy. After ruffing a spade to hand, declarer was down to the heart Q-10 and the diamond jack, while West had been forced to follow suit throughout and held J-9-3 of hearts. The diamond jack completed the coup: West ruffed and had to lead into the trump tenace.

The Lebi team won their knockout match by 11 IMPs when the other declarer was given the same chance at trick three but did not ruff a spade when in dummy with the heart ace!

For the record, in almost every variation, a diamond shift at trick two from East is either essential or at least as good as a club.

When a partnership has the Jacoby two no-trump available for slam-interested raises of partner’s major, the initial splinter jump tends to need partner to have real extras — or a perfect fit — to consider slam. In this case, when North jumps to four hearts (a splinter bid for this pair, not a natural jump), South has a highly suitable heart holding but a dead minimum, so he signs off in game.

On the lead of the heart queen, South should try to develop dummy’s clubs, but he can still fall back on a successful finesse in diamonds. So, he wins the first trick with the heart ace and draws trumps, ending in dummy.

South begins the clubs by leading toward the king, on which East alertly unblocks his jack. South takes his king, then leads a low club toward dummy. Since one club trick must be lost no matter what happens, declarer hopes to duck this trick to East. But whether he wins or ducks the second club, West will get in with his clubs and must then lead the diamond queen. He needs to hope his partner has the A-J-10, or that declarer will be unable to guess what to do with the cards lying as they do today.

If South ducks the queen (playing West for the Q-J-9), he is done for. But he should not do that, since West would probably have led a diamond at trick one with that holding. If South covers the queen, East should take his ace and return a low diamond. I don’t envy declarer his decision now!

When is a finesse not a 50-50 chance? When you take a finesse, your odds of success can vary enormously, depending on what you know about the rest of the deal, but you can tilt the odds in your favor sometimes by making the opponents lead the suit in which you need to take the finesse.

Today’s deal shows a hand that appears to depend on the diamond finesse, but you can sway the odds in your favor — and in some cases, avoid the diamond finesse altogether. In other cases, you can turn a 50 percent chance into something much better.

Against six hearts (reached after an insouciant but practical jump to slam), you capture the spade king with your ace and draw trumps, ruffing dummy’s spades in hand en route. The best sequence of plays may be to take two rounds of trumps, then the club ace-king, followed by a spade ruff, a third trump to dummy and a second spade ruff.

Now you lead the club nine from hand and concede the trick that has to be lost, hoping the defenders will give you something in return. If East wins the club, you are safe against any return. If West wins, he must lead a diamond, and you simply cover his card.

The slam will come home if West has either the queen or both the 10 and nine, since you will be able to take two finesses against those cards. In other words, careful play has improved your chances in the slam from one in two to something closer to two in three.