Today’s deal is from one of my more prolific correspondents, Tim Bourke of Australia. His partner had played a prosaic three diamonds here, down one. But in the other room, his North teammate found a balancing action, leaving South to declare four spades.

The diamond four was led to the nine and ace. Declarer tried a spade to the jack, queen and king. Back came the heart three, a clear singleton. Put yourself in declarer’s position and take it from there.

You must win the heart ace, draw the rest of the trumps, eliminate the clubs by taking the finesse, and then lead a diamond. East can do nothing but take two diamond winners, and South discards a heart on the third diamond rather than ruffing in. The next diamond concedes a ruff-and-discard as well as the contract, since declarer can discard his last heart loser.

Is that all there is to the deal? Not exactly! Let’s say East wins the spade king and, instead of leading a heart, plays the diamond king followed by the diamond queen. South ruffs the third diamond high, draws trumps and leads the club jack.

Assuming West covers, then declarer takes the club ace, cashes the queen and plays his last trump. West comes down to three hearts and one club, and declarer crosses to hand in clubs and leads a low heart toward the jack. Now West gets just one heart trick.

However, if in this version West ducks the club jack, the entries to achieve this position are no longer in place.

In today’s deal, South elects to open one spade rather than one no-trump, after which the auction escalates rapidly, and South has to decide whether to save over four hearts. It would certainly be a smart move, since on a spade lead, four hearts looks relatively comfortable.

On the other hand, four spades on a club lead would prove impossible, but West has a natural top heart lead. Declarer must lose a trick to the two outstanding aces, and he needs to ruff hearts in dummy while trying to avoid losing two club tricks.

South wins the first trick with the heart ace, of course, and needs to ruff a heart at once rather than playing on diamonds. (If he plays the diamond queen at trick two, the defenders can win the diamond ace. Then, after the best defense of a trump switch from East, followed by a second diamond, declarer can no longer arrange to ruff two hearts in dummy without running into a trump promotion of the spade 10.)

At trick three, South leads a diamond to his queen and plays back a second diamond — this time, ruffing a heart would disrupt his own entries. East wins his ace to shift to the club queen, and South must make his third critical play: He must duck, then win the next, ruff his last heart loser, then discard the club loser on dummy’s diamond winner.

Only now is it safe for declarer to lead a trump. West takes the trump ace, but can no longer cross to his partner and promote a trump trick.

Great Britain’s last victory in the European Championships was in 1991, in Killarney, Ireland. These days, Britain counts as four separate constituent countries, meaning it no longer competes as a single entity. This hand is from that 1991 event, reported by one of the Spanish players on the losing end of the swing.

North’s exuberant jump to slam saw the Spanish West select not the killing diamond, but the spade three, which ran to the eight. Declarer was not yet out of the woods, of course. Assuming the diamond finesse would lose, he needed three discards for his diamond losers, and the spades would only provide two.

If East held both heart honors, the contract would be hopeless. Since East likely held the ace rather than the queen, South decided to play on the assumption that this was a singleton.

The winning line is to ruff the club loser in dummy at trick two and follow up with the spade jack to the king, before taking the trump finesse. When East scores his ace, he has no exit card — he will be forced to open up diamonds or concede a ruff-sluff.

At the table, declarer eliminated three rounds of spades before taking the heart finesse. East missed his chance, though. He had to ruff in with his bare ace and exit with a club to give a ruff-and-discard. Declarer must ruff in dummy, since one discard from the board is not enough. But now he has no way to return to hand to take the trump finesse!

The single mistake more players make than any other is failing to devise a detailed plan as declarer before playing to the first trick. Today’s deal saw two declarers in six diamonds, with only one of them taking his time — and, as a result, taking his tricks.

Both Wests found the testing trump lead. The first declarer won in hand, then set off on a cross-ruff spree. He ruffed two clubs in dummy and a heart in hand; but when he exited from dummy with the spade king, East took his ace and returned a trump. That took the last trump from dummy, so that although one of South’s clubs could be discarded on the spade queen, there was no place to dispose of the other one. The contract had to go one down.

The second declarer quickly noticed that setting up clubs was unlikely to work, assuming the defenders would persist in trumps at their next turn.

He, too, won the lead in hand, but he then led a spade to the king and ace. Back came a trump, and upon winning in dummy, South ruffed a spade in hand. A heart to the ace allowed another spade ruff, with the 4-3 spade break a welcome sight.

Now declarer led a heart to the king and ruffed a heart with his last trump. The club ace and a club ruff in dummy saw him draw the last trump. Dummy’s spades took tricks 12 and 13. In essence, this was a dummy reversal; the hand with the shorter trump suit drew the last trump.

In today’s deal, the Three Little Pigs were all declarers in three no-trump on broadly similar auctions, but with very different results.

At each table, East and West bid and raised spades, but North put his partner into three no-trump. Both the spade two and nine make sense on opening lead here — I prefer the nine. In order to succeed, South must carefully decide on a way forward.

The first little pig cashed his three spade winners, pitching a heart and club from dummy. When he played on diamonds, East could win and cash out the spades, then the hearts for down four.

The second little pig was more cautious. He won the first spade and played on diamonds at once from the top, expecting the defenders to continue spades. But West discarded a spade and a club on the second and third diamonds. East shifted to the heart king, and that let West take the top hearts and exit in clubs, for down one.

The third little pig found the golden mean between cashing spades and abandoning them. He cashed precisely one more spade, discarding a club, then led a diamond to the jack. If that held the trick, the diamonds would run; if it lost, the diamond eight would serve as a re-entry to the South hand to allow him to cash the last spade winner.

Have you notice what might happen if South finesses in diamonds at trick two? At double-dummy, East can duck the first diamond. Now declarer has no reentry to his hand and only eight tricks.

There are some elements of technique that recur both for declarer and defender, which you can learn and put aside for future use. This deal reflects just one such point of technique that, once seen, should not be forgotten.

As West, you pass initially, but back in with your spades, and the opponents compete to the three-level. If you lead the ace from ace-king, then you might choose to lead the king from a bid and supported suit, or when planning to shift to a singleton. Here, though, your partnership agreement is always to lead king from ace-king.

You shift to your singleton club at trick two. Declarer wins the ace and leads a second spade, which you cannot afford to duck. You shift to the diamond 10, to the jack and partner’s ace. Back comes a small club, and declarer ruffs in with the heart 10.

To ensure the defeat of the contract, you must not over-ruff; instead, discard a diamond. Now your heart spots will be good enough to ensure a second winner in the suit when partner is kind enough to contribute the invaluable nine.

If you over-ruff the heart and play, for example, a diamond, declarer wins in hand and ruffs a spade, then draws trumps and has the diamond jack as an entry to dummy for the club king. He will be able to make his contract when either diamonds or hearts break.

The techniques of promoting trumps by the uppercut and refusal to over-ruff are well worth studying carefully.

Today’s deal came up at the second IOC Grand Prix, held in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The event was set up to try to help make the case for bridge as an Olympic sport.

There appear to be two inescapable losers outside the trump suit in South’s four-heart contract, suggesting that his chances of success are slim indeed. But though the contract went down each time it was played, perhaps declarer could have found a way home.

West would typically lead his partner’s suit against four hearts. When dummy plays low, East wins the spade 10 and shifts to a club. When South wins and plays a heart to the ace, dropping the king, there is no obvious reason to treat this as a false card; so the prospect of two trump losers is clearly threatening.

For South to have a chance of success, West needs to hold at least three clubs, but declarer might as well go after diamonds at once. The defenders are likely to duck the ace, win the second diamond and play a second club. Declarer wins in dummy, discards a club on the diamond queen, ruffs a spade in hand, crosses to a third club and ruffs dummy’s last spade in hand.

10 tricks have been played; one in hearts and three in each of the other suits. When South leads his last club, West is helpless. If he ruffs high, he will be endplayed to lead a trump into declarer’s tenace. If he ruffs low, dummy over-ruffs with the five and loses just one further trump trick.

Against four spades, West leads the diamond two to East’s four and your 10. When you cash the trump ace, both defenders follow with small cards.

With just 22 HCP between you, do not waste energy fretting about the missed excellent spade slam. This is not the time to worry about what might have been; focus your energy on coming to 10 tricks against any distribution.

It appears to be smooth sailing if the trumps divide 3-2 or East has the length — in fact, you will end up with 13 tricks. However, there are breakers ahead if West has four trumps, as shown in the diagram.

To guard against that, after cashing the trump ace, follow up with the queen. When the trump distribution is discovered, you change tack and advance the diamond queen. West’s best defense is to ruff this and play the ace and another club. (A heart would let you win and draw trumps.) You ruff the second club with the king and play the diamond ace, throwing your remaining club from hand. West can ruff in with his last trump, but that is the final trick for the defenders. You will ruff the likely club continuation and then cross to the heart ace to throw your heart losers on dummy’s master diamonds.

You make five trumps, a heart, three diamonds and a club ruff for a total of 10 tricks. Note West’s uninspired choice of opening leads; a heart lead is more logical, given his natural trump trick, and it would have worked better today.