A simple auction sees West on lead with a blind choice against four spades. While a trump would work best, he can hardly be blamed for selecting a diamond as what appears to be his most passive lead option.

Consider your play before contributing a card from dummy. You appear to have one diamond, three hearts and one possible spade loser if you treat South as the master hand. The good news is that your heart losers can be covered by dummy’s trumps.

Your plan should be to ruff two of the heart losers in dummy, so you have to take the opening lead with the diamond ace to avoid surrendering a tempo. Given a second chance, the defenders might shift to spades, after which you would be unable to ruff two hearts in the North hand.

After winning the diamond ace, you should play a small heart from hand without playing any trumps. As a matter of general technique, you can preserve the heart ace as a re-entry to your hand, to facilitate communications. You take West’s spade switch in dummy, cross to hand with the heart ace to ruff a heart low, then come to the club king to ruff a second heart with dummy’s remaining high trump. Then you can re-enter your hand with the club ace to play trumps and drive out the spade queen.

The defenders can force you to ruff a diamond, but you still have enough trumps left to claim the rest.

John Armstrong, who was one of Britain’s top players, died 10 years ago after a highly successful 30-year international career. He was a keen orienteer and a fine pianist, and as a defender he was very good at putting himself into declarer’s mind and giving him a losing option.

The board comes from when Great Britain won the European Championships in Killarney in 1991, and shows both tables contributing to the team’s success.

Both Souths reached six diamonds on the lead of the heart jack. Each won with the ace, drew trumps (East pitching two spades) and took the three top spades. Then they both played a heart to the king and advanced dummy’s last heart.

The Czech East ducked, not wanting to be left on lead, and now when Andrew Robson ruffed, he decided that East’s play indicated that he had the club king.

It would have been a lot simpler to play for the club king onside, but Robson trusted his judgment and played a club to the nine. (Yes, West could have inserted the 10 to give declarer a nasty guess.) East was now end-played to give declarer a ruff-and-discard or play a club for him.

Where John Armstrong was East, when the third heart was led, he rose with the queen (pretending to be a man who did want to be left on lead). Declarer duly ruffed, but was convinced by this play that East did not have the club king. So, he laid down the club ace, then led up to the queen and duly went one down.

The following deal occurred in the first qualifying session of the Keohane North American Swiss Teams. It was reported by Daniel Korbel and Jonathan Steinberg, the victims of Richard Popper’s expert play.

There was nothing wrong with the auction, but the final contract left something to be desired; the moral is that with two balanced hands, 32 high-card points is not always enough for slam.

Korbel started with the club 10, taken by Popper with the king in hand. He guessed to play a heart to dummy’s king, and then cashed four rounds of diamonds. When the suit divided to his satisfaction, he was still in with a chance of success. It would appear that declarer still needed a 3-3 break in spades, but Popper had other ideas.

A spade to the king and another spade to the ace reduced everyone down to five cards. When declarer led the spade nine from hand, West had to come down to two hearts and thus only two clubs. (West was not guarding a club winner, but by retaining three clubs he had been trying to prevent declarer from taking his club winners).

However, now a club to the king and a club to the queen caught East in an unusual squeeze. That player had to retain his master spade, so was forced to discard down to just one heart. Now Popper could lead dummy’s heart nine to the jack, queen and ace, and the heart seven took the 13th trick!

This type of play was identified as a Vise Squeeze by Terence Reese.

When the three little pigs were faced with a declarer-play problem in three no-trump on a low diamond lead, the differences in temperament emerged in their approaches.

The first little pig won his diamond queen and optimistically played three top spades, expecting that suit to break for him. When it did not (East pitching a diamond), he led a heart to the 10, which West won and drew the inference that his partner had to have good clubs. He shifted to that suit for down two.

The second little pig won the diamond queen and played on clubs, not expecting to set up the suit so much as hoping the defenders might shift to hearts for him. Not a bad idea, but today the cards did not cooperate, and East cashed out at once to set the hand.

The third little pig saw that either hearts or spades might produce the extra trick for him, but he decided that he could make life harder for West if he made him guess early. That way, he might be able to combine all his chances together.

The defenders would surely go after clubs if South played on hearts after showing that he had spade and diamond strength. But when he won the diamond ace, concealing his queen, then played a heart to the 10, losing that trick to West, West would have had to be very suspicious to shift to clubs.

When West failed to find the killing club shift, continuing instead with diamonds, South could test both spades and hearts, and the 3-3 break in hearts let him make his game.

When West led the heart jack against three no-trump, declarer saw that the most likely way to generate the two extra tricks he needed was by developing long tricks in spades.

If spades were 3-3, any play would develop two extra tricks. However, declarer saw that playing the ace, king and another spade might not utilize his spots to best effect. So, after winning the first trick with the heart ace, he led a low spade from the table. East followed with the two, and declarer played the nine from hand. When that held the trick, declarer cashed the spade ace, then crossed to dummy with a low club to the ace.

Next, he played the king and another spade, throwing clubs from hand. Upon winning the fourth round of spades with the queen, East shifted to the diamond nine. When declarer covered this with the 10, West won it with the jack. Since cashing the diamond ace was likely to give declarer an overtrick, West exited with a heart. At this point, declarer claimed nine tricks: four spades, three hearts and two clubs.

Declarer’s play in spades was best because it picked up four tricks against all 3-3 breaks, queen-jack doubleton with West, East holding four spades with the queen and jack, and the jack or queen doubleton with East.

This offers almost a two-thirds chance of making four tricks in spades — quite an improvement over the odds offered by just banging out the ace, king and another spade, which comes in at just over a one-third chance.

In today’s deal, North looks with favor on his balanced hand and decides not to give away information to the opponents by using Stayman, so he blasts three no-trump at his first turn — a perfectly reasonable strategy that puts West under pressure at trick one.

The question of what lead is best against a blind auction to three no-trump is one that could occupy a whole column. Scratch four bridge players, and you might find five opinions. I could imagine votes for all four suits, including either a top or a low club.

But put yourself in West’s position after leading a top club against three no-trump. Declarer plays low from dummy and takes your partner’s two with the queen. Now he advances the heart queen from hand, and you have to plan the defense.

Your partner has around 7 points on defense; it is hard to see how you can set the game if he has (for example) the diamond king and heart king. You can almost count nine tricks for declarer in the form of three clubs and two tricks in each of the other suits.

The only realistic hope of saving game is a very slim one; it is that you can win four spade tricks in a hurry. Therefore, when in with the heart ace, West should lead the spade jack through dummy’s tenace — the lead of a low card would be ineffective, since dummy could duck and the king would remain guarded as a stopper in the suit.

Today’s deal contains a point or two about modern bidding. First, should South open one heart or one no-trump? I could go either way, given the small doubleton and chunky five-card major. At South’s second turn, he breaks the transfer into hearts by jumping to three. It would be wildly optimistic to drive to game, hoping partner’s hand will furnish the right values to make it. If North doesn’t accept South’s invitation, even three hearts may be in jeopardy.

And so it proves when the dummy goes down. But can you see how declarer should give himself the best chance in his part-score? With three top losers outside clubs, declarer needs to find a way to give himself an extra chance other than finding the club ace onside.

After the trump lead, South won in hand and innocently advanced the diamond 10 around to East’s king. Back came a club (necessary, or declarer develops a discard from the diamonds) to the king and ace. When West continued with the club nine, declarer was home, but even if West had played a low club, declarer would probably have guessed the position correctly. East would have shifted to a high club without an honor, and West might have ducked the club king with the ace-jack poised over declarer’s tenace.

Did you spot the defensive error, though? West must cover the diamond 10 at trick one — somewhat easier in theory than practice, I suspect. Thereafter, passive defense sets the contract.

At the 1998 Cap Gemini World Pairs Invitational, Tony Forrester and Zia Mahmood’s once-huge lead was down to single digits as the final board hit the table.

The Italian pair in second place had also reached three no-trump here, but Tor Helness, West at that table, led the heart jack, in response to his partner’s opening bid. Declarer won with the king and guessed poorly on the clubs. Back came the heart nine, ducked all around, then a diamond to the king. That disrupted declarer’s communications; he now had no way to generate a ninth trick.

At the critical table, though, on the auction shown, Forrester reached three no-trump after the opponents’ nebulous club and negative response. West, Krzysztof Martens, led the diamond 10 to the king, East unblocking the queen. Forrester cashed the club ace and played another club to the jack. He continued in diamonds, throwing a heart from dummy and leaving Marek Szymanowski, East, on play. He made the natural-looking lead of the spade queen (he needed to shift to a heart to set the game), and Forrester put up the king.

He then took the diamond ace, discarding another heart, and cashed his clubs. Szymanowski had to keep three hearts, thus only two spades. Forrester was able to lead a spade, win the heart return with the ace and play another spade. The heart king and his long spade represented his eighth and ninth tricks.

Had the swing on this board gone the other way, it would have reversed the final positions.