This board came up in the Common Game pairs recently, and I was lucky enough to be minding my own business as East when declarer proved yet again that greed is a terrible thing.

South had done well up to a point to open low and not drive beyond the four-level when her partner raised hearts. My partner tried a low spade lead, and declarer immediately cashed her black winners, then led the ace and another heart. My partner took the king and played a third heart. Declarer cashed the spade king to pitch a diamond, then ducked a diamond to the bare king, but now the defenders had plenty of exit cards, and declarer lost three diamonds and a trump for down one.

Paradoxically, there are good chances for the overtrick against most lies of the cards if the trump finesse succeeds, as long as declarer remembers that when you want to ruff, it is a bad idea to play trumps. Simply win the spade lead and cash the club honors, then the diamond ace, planning to exit in diamonds, and force the defenders to give you an entry to dummy for the trump finesse.

The sight of the diamond king should not dissuade you from this strategy. Play a second diamond, and East will cash two diamonds, West pitching spades, then will lead a second spade. You can ruff with a trump intermediate, planning to lead out the diamond jack and subsequently cross to dummy to take the trump finesse. At the very worst, you will be sure of 10 tricks.

Against your delicate six-heart slam, West leads the spade two, an apparent singleton. Can you find any way to make your contract?

The layout you need to make 12 tricks will require West to have a doubleton rather than a tripleton heart. Win the opening lead with the spade ace, then cash the trump ace and king. Next, play a low spade from dummy.

Since you can expect to encounter good defenders in my problems (if not always in real life), East is likely to duck; so your jack will win the trick. After crossing back to dummy with the trump queen, you ruff a spade. Then, after a diamond to the ace, you concede a trick to East’s spade king. East will no doubt shift to a club, which you will win with the ace. You can then throw dummy’s remaining club on your diamond king and claim the rest of the tricks, since dummy is high. You make four spades plus a ruff, four trumps in dummy, and three winners in the minors, for a total of 12 tricks.

Notice that you could not afford to draw a third round of trumps. If you had done so, East’s playing low on the second round of spades would leave you one entry short of being able to set up and cash the spades. You needed three entries to dummy: one to ruff a spade, one to concede a spade, and the final ruff to reach the winning spades in dummy.

Also, if West starts with three trumps and a singleton spade, then the contract cannot be made against best defense.

Against three no-trump, West leads the spade two (low from three small in partner’s suit), and East plays the nine. How do you plan to make your contract?

If you win the first trick with the spade queen and go after diamonds, West ought to rise with the king to play a second spade. After you win the spade ace and discover that the hearts are not breaking, you will have eight tricks, but no more.

The way to avoid this unpleasant outcome is to duck in hand at trick one. If a spade is continued, you should follow low again. If East plays a third round of spades, you will cover that card and win the trick. When you play the diamond 10 to the next trick, West will win the trick with his king, but he will have no spade left to play. After winning the heart exit, you will play a second diamond to dummy’s queen and East’s ace. At this point, you can claim nine tricks: two spades, three hearts, a diamond and three clubs.

You should observe that if East doesn’t continue spades at trick two or three, you will be able to develop two diamond tricks to make your contract.

The justification for this line is that it looks like the spades are 3-5, and you need East to have the three missing spade honors. As most players would open the bidding if they had the diamond ace and king as well as this hypothetical spade suit, you should play on that assumption.

West has no reason not to lead the heart jack against three no-trump. South wins the first trick with the king and leads the diamond jack, losing the finesse to East. What should East play next?

It looks natural to return a heart, but if partner has one more entry, the lead of a low club will eventually ensure three tricks in the suit; and if partner cannot gain the lead, the game will surely not be defeated.

So at the third trick, East returns a low club, knowing that if he can subsequently manage to put his partner on lead to play back a club from his side, it will suffice to set the contract, always assuming that he has two or more clubs. It would be a mistake to shift to the club queen, since that would be fatal if South had four to the 10.

After the return of the low club, South is helpless; he can do nothing but drive out the diamond ace, and West holds off until the third round, to see East’s discard. When East pitches the spade two on the diamond ace, it should be clear that he wants a club return, and that will suffice for the defenders to take two diamonds and three clubs.

The fact that declarer took a first-round finesse in diamonds is somewhat indicative of the fact that he may be missing the ace. If declarer were missing a different ace (say, the heart ace), declarer would be more likely to win the heart queen at the first trick and finesse in diamonds against East.

Over the last four years, an elite annual bridge tournament for women has been organized in Beijing. The Hua Yuan Cup is for eight national women’s teams, and today’s deal comes from the main event.

Poland’s Justyna Zmuda had the opportunity to find a sparkling defense after an unusual sequence. While the jump in a minor suit opened on your left can be played as natural, typically a jump bid in the suit the opponents have opened asks your partner to bid three no-trump with a guard in that suit. The call is usually based on a long, solid minor suit, plus guards in at least one of the other two suits.

On lead against three no-trump, Zmuda started with the spade ace in order to get a look at dummy. East followed with the spade five, and South with the three. The auction showed that South had started with a spade stopper — probably queen-third or queen-fourth.

Zmuda took heed of East’s five and decided that unless East had started with the doubleton 5-4, it was consistent with a suit-preference signal for diamonds, the lower of the red suits. And since she needed less from her partner in diamonds than she did in hearts, she made the killing switch to the diamond jack, though today the diamond king would have worked equally well. (That would not have been the case if partner had held the doubleton A-9 or A-10.)

The defenders could now cash five diamonds and two spades for three down.

Today’s deal, based on a recent Common Game deal with the club honors slightly altered, sees East use a defensive technique that everyone should know. It may seem obvious when you see the point, but at the table, the intermediate player who was faced with the problem did not see the solution.

North used Stayman, then settled in three no-trump when he did not uncover a four-card spade suit opposite. West led a top diamond; declarer won and passed the spade jack. East won cheaply and shifted to a low heart. When declarer guessed correctly to play low, it forced the king, and declarer now had nine tricks without breaking a sweat.

Notice the difference if East shifts to the heart 10. Whether South ducks or covers, the defenders will be in position to run the hearts when they regain the lead with the spade ace.

This concept of leading a high card to squash a doubleton or tripleton spot-card in dummy has more than one variation. (The play would work equally well if the heart two were in dummy rather than in East’s hand.) It may be right for East to shift to the jack from A-J-9 or K-J-9 if there were a doubleton or guarded 10 in dummy, for example. When declarer has queen-third, this will allow the defenders to run the suit on defense.

Of course, in our example hand against a good defender, maybe you should assume East is more likely to have the K-Q than Q-10 or K-10 when he shifts to a low card!

Today’s deal is a theme that dates back to an early Culbertson match — though it was not untypical that a deal played by one of Culbertson’s opponents was attributed in print to Ely himself!

East may be best advised to pass on the first round, though as a passed hand, it would also be reasonable to double for take-out. However, when the call of two clubs comes around to him, he should reopen the bidding with a take-out double. It would be practical for South to re-compete to three clubs, in the hope of preventing his opponents from getting together. West should not take any part in the auction now, since his partner did not double on the first round and must therefore be limited in shape or high cards, or both.

A red-suit lead would defeat the contract, but when West leads a low spade, it gives declarer some extra chances. He follows with the seven from dummy, and when East contributes the king, South can see that he surely has to lose one spade, one heart, two diamonds and at least one club. His only chance of avoiding one of these losers is to pick up a second trick in spades by throwing his queen under the king and subsequently taking a finesse against the jack. When the finesse succeeds, a diamond can be discarded on the spade ace, and the lie of the trumps is such that with the lead coming from dummy, whether declarer finesses the queen or the 10, only one club trick should be lost.

Today’s deal cropped up in the mixed pairs event at last year’s European Open. Against three no-trump, West led the heart 10; when East overtook it with the jack, declarer Alfredo Versace won the king, unblocked the diamond queen, crossed to dummy with a club and cashed the diamond ace. The bad break was a blow, but Versace cashed a third top diamond (East pitching a club), and then played dummy’s spade queen, covered by the king — ducking would have worked no better — and ace.

Declarer now played two more rounds of clubs, putting West on lead. She could cash a second club and had two winning jacks, but then had to surrender two tricks either to South or dummy.

In hindsight, East should have kept all his clubs, so that he can win the third round of clubs. However, suppose East pitches two spades on dummy’s top diamonds? If West retains the diamond J-9, declarer plays the spade queen as before, and after that exits with the spade 10, pinning East’s nine.

Now if West cashes the diamond jack and exits with the nine, declarer follows with dummy’s eight, and West must surrender three tricks. West can counter this in unlikely fashion by unblocking the diamond nine earlier on, so that dummy can be thrown in with the diamond six.

The simplest defense is for East to pitch a spade and a heart on the diamonds. Then East covers the spade queen, and now West lets East win the third club or spade; the defenders take the rest.