There are many reasons for rejecting a possible finesse. All too often, it may not be necessary, since the loser may be discarded elsewhere. Equally, though, the loss of a tempo if the finesse fails may be critical.

Declaring four spades, South takes the diamond lead in his hand. He sees he may have two diamond losers, as well as two club losers and one spade loser. Some of these may be discarded on dummy’s clubs, so he must set up that suit. Thus, declarer plays a club from his hand while he still retains his trump entries to dummy.

West will duck his club king, of course, and East wins his ace and should return a heart. Be careful now! At this point, declarer should not finesse, since his immediate goal is to discard diamond losers on the clubs. If the finesse succeeds, it may produce an overtrick. If it fails, declarer loses a vital tempo — which could be fatal. West can return a diamond after winning the heart king, setting up a winner before clubs can be established for the discards needed.

So South takes the heart ace and plays another club. West takes his club winner and cashes the heart king, but that is all he can take. Declarer can ruff a small club high in hand after taking dummy’s diamond king. He ends up in dummy after cashing three rounds of trumps, and he can then discard both diamond losers on the two established club winners.

This line needs the trump break, but that’s better odds than a finesse.

In today’s deal from the annals of the Dyspeptics Club, four spades seems like a very good contract, doesn’t it? Indeed, there would appear to be 10 top tricks in the form of nine side winners and a ruff in dummy.

However, West found the best start for the defense when he hit upon the spade-five lead. Dummy played low, and declarer won cheaply in hand. He unblocked clubs and led a low heart from hand, won the trump return with the ace, finding the bad break in trumps, then cashed the club ace to pitch his diamond loser, and led a second heart. East thoughtfully ducked his ace, and West won the trick to play a third trump. Now declarer was left with two inevitable heart losers at the end.

North pointed out that South had needed to be less mean and more forward-looking.

Say South wins the opening lead with the trump eight or higher. As before, he can judge that he has nine top tricks and he should hope the 10th will come from either a heart ruff or a long club.

Again, declarer cashes the club king and leads a heart, but this time, when West wins and leads a second trump, dummy’s seven will win the trick. (If East can cover the seven spades will be breaking, hearts will break, and there will be a heart ruff in dummy.) Then South takes the club ace, ruffs a club high, leads a spade to the ace, ruffs another club, and crosses to the diamond ace to cash the long club for his 10th trick.

It is often a danger signal when an expert thrusts a bridge deal scrawled illegibly on a grubby scrap of paper into your hand. Typically, he is giving you a chance to make a fool of yourself, so make sure not to commit to a plan until you have found the trap.

In the deal that follows, a colleague of mine described being buttonholed by an international player and shown just the North and South cards, to play four spades on the bidding and auction shown.

My friend thought he had spotted the theme. He ruffed the opening lead high, then played a spade to dummy’s 10 for another diamond ruff. He went back to dummy with a trump to ruff the last diamond and led a third trump to dummy, then a low club from the board, intending to insert the nine.

When East inserted the 10, the king lost to the ace. The defenders cashed three clubs ending in West, and exited in hearts, leaving declarer needing one of the queen or 10 onside. Today was not his lucky day.

That said, though declarer had taken most of his chances, he could have done better. At trick one, declarer simply discards a heart on the diamond king. West’s best hope is to shift to a trump, but you win, eliminate the hearts, then return to dummy in trump to ruff the diamond nine.

Finally you go back to dummy with a trump and play the diamond queen, throwing a club from hand. West is forced either to furnish a ruff-and-discard or to lead around to your club king.

Against three no-trump, West leads the spade jack; when East plays low, South must plan the play. Clearly, South must bring in dummy’s long diamond suit in order to make his contract. He can expect to win two spades, either two or three hearts, and three clubs. That comes to only eight tricks even if South manages to take a successful finesse in hearts. It is a far better idea, of course, to develop more than one diamond trick without risking a heart finesse.

Accordingly, South must let West hold the first trick with the spade jack! South will still be able to win two spade tricks later on, but note that if West’s spade jack happens to be a singleton, West will be obliged to shift to a new suit. This will give South time to establish and run dummy’s long diamonds.

When West shifts to a club, dummy wins with the queen and goes after diamonds at once. East takes the diamond king and returns a spade, and South finesses, then leads another diamond, establishing dummy’s long suit and bringing home 10 tricks.

Nicely played — but East missed his chance at trick one when he failed to overtake the lead with his king. The sight of the doubleton spade eight in dummy should have made it relatively easy for East to see that his spots were good enough to allow him to overtake the spade and still run the spades for the loss of just two tricks. Even if the jack and king fell together, the defense would still be in the lead in the race to establish the long suit.

In today’s deal from a team game, one pair came back to score up with what they considered a normal result in their game contract: North had opened a weak no-trump and played four spades on a heart lead. He could not find a way to succeed after that start, but was disappointed to lose a big swing when four spades came home from the South seat in the other room on the auction shown. And it all came down to the play to trick one.

When you have this combined heart holding, you are happy to have the suit led around to — rather than through — your tenace. You are gifted a second trick in the suit, but that will not do you any good today. One discard is completely irrelevant in comparison to the avoidance issues in the minor suits.

See what happens if South wins East’s heart queen with the ace. After drawing trumps, declarer will run the diamond nine. East can win with the king and return a heart to West’s king, then a club shift will beat the contract.

At the table, South appreciated the necessity of keeping the danger hand, West, off lead. By allowing East’s heart queen to hold, communications between the defensive hands were cut. East could not effectively attack clubs from his side of the table. South won the heart return, drew trumps, then ran the diamond nine. East could win in either case the first or second round, but the defenders were limited to one club trick in any case.

Italy’s Andrea Manno had to emulate Hercule Poirot to succeed in his slam at the 2014 Cavendish, held in Monte Carlo.

Manno ended in slam after East had opened one diamond, guaranteeing an unbalanced hand, since he would have opened one club with a balanced hand. West selected the club four as his opening lead (lowest from an odd number or third-highest from an even number) — a fine choice, since on a diamond lead, declarer will take 12 tricks without breaking a sweat. He can set up spades to pitch his club losers, even if he loses a spade trick.

On the club lead, Manno rose with dummy’s ace and took due notice of East’s 10. Declarer cashed the spade ace next, then set about drawing trumps. When East showed up with four hearts, that meant that he surely held at least nine cards in the red suits. The club 10 at trick one suggested a doubleton; it could not be a singleton, since in that case West would have led the king from the king-queen, and not the four. And if East had three clubs, East must also have a singleton spade, in which case the contract could not be made, since there would be no entry to dummy’s long spade.

This allowed Manno to deduce East’s 2-4-5-2 shape, and he also knew East had a maximum of 9 points in the minors. To have enough material for even the slightest of opening bids, East surely had to hold the spade queen. So Manno cashed the spade king, and down came the queen.

Helen Sobel was one of the world’s best players of her generation. When she declared three no-trump here, West led the spade seven, his partner’s suit. Sobel made two winning plays at the first trick: She called for dummy’s 10, and then she ducked East’s queen.

After taking the spade king continuation with the ace, she played the club queen (hoping the club honors were split). East took this with the king and played the spade nine, taken by Sobel’s jack, while discarding a heart from dummy. Then came the club 10. West won and could do no better than exit with a club, taken by the jack. The diamond ace came next, then a diamond to the queen, and the hand was over. Sobel had two tricks in each major, plus a club and four diamonds.

Note the significance of the play to the first trick. If declarer does not put up the spade 10, East covers the seven with the eight. South must duck, or the spades will eventually be set up, as the defenders still have communications in place in spades. After declarer ducks trick one, if the defenders are careful not to open up hearts, declarer can take no more than eight tricks.

But once declarer puts up the 10, it forces East to cover; otherwise, declarer has a cheap trick while retaining two spade stoppers. Now, by ducking, declarer has effectively severed the defenders’ communications in the spade suit.

Today’s deal shows what appears to be a relatively simple contract of four spades. However, the deal may only appear to be easy because there seem to be five top tricks outside the trump suit and the threat of only three losers (one in each side suit after a top heart lead). But that ignores the risk of the defenders cashing more than one heart if you draw all the trumps; or they may get a ruff or overruff if you don’t draw trumps.

The simplest way to play the hand is to assume trumps will break. After the heart king lead to your ace (ducking might permit the defenders a ruff), the simplest plan is to cash the spade ace and king, then play on clubs.

East can take either the first or second round of clubs, and will play a heart when he does so. Dummy’s remaining trump can now be used to ruff the third heart. East overruffs, but that is the last defensive trick, since there are no trumps out and declarer has the diamond ace as an entry to dummy.

One trap to avoid here is playing three rounds of trumps before playing clubs. If you do so, the defenders may be able to cash one club and three heart tricks, since dummy will be bereft of trumps. Similarly, if you draw fewer than two rounds of trumps before playing two rounds of clubs, with the cards lying as they do in the diagram, West may get a club ruff from the short trumps, then lead hearts to promote a trump trick for his partner.

Whether you have agreed to play high or low cards to encourage the opening lead, you must occasionally send a different kind of message. One possibility is to use suit-preference signals if continuation of the suit led cannot possibly be right — but it is often far from obvious to both players that this is the case.

Today we shall look at the subject of “alarm clocks” at the bridge table. These don’t just say: “Wake up, partner!” Instead, they ask partner neither to continue with the suit led nor to shift to what would otherwise be the normal suit. Does that sound obscure? Maybe, but a relatively recent Rosenblum Trophy produced just such an opportunity. Though East-West were an unfamiliar partnership, they were on the same wavelength when it mattered.

Bruce Rogoff, West, found himself on lead against four spades after Gay Keaveney had chosen to jump to four spades rather than use a transfer. Fortuitously, this meant the hand with a side-suit singleton was not on lead.

When Rogoff led the club king, his partner, Barry Rigal, produced the queen. A discouraging club would have produced a heart shift, so was something else required? Rogoff drew the right conclusion and shifted to a diamond.

Declarer won dummy’s ace and went after trumps; East could take his spade ace to play back a low club to West’s ace for the diamond ruff. Since Rogoff’s teammates had stopped in two spades, making four, this turned out to be a decent swing in instead of a large swing away.