Without West’s weak two-spade opening bid, it would have been natural to take two spade finesses in six no-trump. But West’s opener puts a different complexion on the deal, and although West might have opened with a spade suit of king-sixth or queen-sixth, that eventuality is rather unlikely at the vulnerability. Why rely on that, when you can achieve almost complete certainty?

When West leads the club 10 against six no-trump, the sensible way forward is to win in dummy, then cash four rounds of diamonds. West has to find three discards, and he can comfortably release his three small spades. Declarer now needs to find out more about West’s shape. He cashes the club king, all following, then the ace and king of hearts. When the heart jack puts in an appearance from West, South should suspect that West was dealt a 6=2=1=4 shape – kudos to West if he has dropped the jack from an original four-card suit!

A heart to the queen confirms the suspicion. Of course, if West had followed suit, there would have been 12 top tricks. But what should West pitch? He must discard a club in order to keep his spade holding intact. So now we can cross to the club queen to lead a spade to the 10. When West wins the trick, he is endplayed to lead from his remaining honor into South’s tenace, and the slam comes home.

Today’s deal from a recent U.S. Nationals was accompanied by the line: “I’ll give you something to cry about.” The two bridge players who met in the bar wanted to exchange hard-luck stories; it turned out that they were from the same deal. Both were declaring the deal, one as South in the diagram and one as North, the former in four spades on the auction shown.

South led the club ace and another club, ruffed by North, who shifted to a low diamond. How would you play it? At trick three, declarer quite reasonably won the diamond ace and played the spade ace and a spade to the jack, certain that the spade king or heart king was to his left. That led to his going one down!

“You think that’s bad?” said the second sad sack. “We had a different auction, though, and stopped safely low. Our dealer also opened the bidding, but with a call of one club. I overcalled one heart and, after a negative double from my left, we came to rest in three hearts. The defense led the singleton club, and my right-hand opponent deviously won the club ace to play back the club jack (suit preference for spades) for the ruff. My left-hand opponent ruffed and obediently returned the spade eight!”

Put yourself in North’s seat; wouldn’t you sympathize with him for winning the spade ace at trick three to take the heart finesse? Now it went heart king, spade king, spade ruff, club ruff — and he was down 200. Who do you think was more unlucky?

When South opens one heart, North is too weak to respond at the two-level. His one-no-trump response merely shows that he is strong enough to keep the bidding open. South rebids two hearts, and North has to leave him there, rather than search for a better spot.

The defense leads spades, and when East wins his ace, he might shift to a club, but continuing spades is hardly absurd. Perhaps West might now shift to clubs himself, but he plays a diamond to East’s ace, and now comes the club shift. This is the defenders’ last chance: To set the contract, West must follow with the king, not the jack – but that is far from obvious.

If he does not, declarer wins the ace, takes the spade jack, pitching his diamond honor, then cashes the diamond queen to discard a club, and ruffs a diamond with the seven. When he exits with his losing club, West must win and help reduce South’s trumps by returning his last spade.

At this point, South is down to four trumps. He must lose a trick to the king, but does not want to lose an additional trick to the 10. His best chance is to lead the queen, and, when that holds, to lead the jack. West must take the jack and return a trump, whereupon South scores his ace and nine, to take the last two tricks.

Note that if South had taken the heart ace before leading the heart queen, West would let the queen hold. He would then be in position to win the last two tricks with the king and 10.

When South opens a 15-17 no-trump, North has a simple raise to game. Yes, he could invite game, but so often the more information you give away, the easier the defense becomes.

When West leads a spade, declarer must put the queen up from dummy, since if he plays low and East plays anything but the ace, the defenders will be able to run the spades as soon as they regain the lead. When the spade queen holds, declarer must try to develop diamonds while keeping East off lead, in case spades are 5-3 rather than 4-4.

So South leads a diamond toward his hand. When East plays low, declarer puts in the eight and West wins; his best move now is to shift to a top heart. Declarer ducks the queen as East encourages the lead, then takes West’s heart jack with his ace. He unblocks the diamond ace, then cashes the club ace, leads the club nine to the king and tries to runs the diamonds, pitching a small heart from hand on the last.

When diamonds break, South can cash 10 tricks. If they had failed to split, with West having the length, declarer would still have been able to bring home his game. He would run the clubs, ending in dummy, and after 10 tricks (one spade, two hearts, three diamonds and four clubs) he would exit with the fourth diamond, knowing West would win the trick and be endplayed to lead away from his spade ace. West would be unable to escape the endplay except by unblocking in diamonds, which would obviously lead to a worse fate.

When West leads the club four against four hearts, South should count his losers. There is some danger of losing one trick in each suit; however, South may be able to avoid the loss of a diamond by means of a successful finesse. If the club finesse should lose, the club jack would be good for an additional trick in the suit.

At trick one, declarer finesses dummy’s club queen. East wins with the king and shifts to the heart jack, which South wins with the ace. South plans to ruff his losing spades in the dummy, so he leaves trumps alone. Let’s make this our apothegm: if you want to take ruffs, don’t draw trumps.

Instead, declarer leads a club to dummy’s ace and comes back to his hand with the spade ace to try the losing diamond finesse of the queen. When East returns the heart 10, South wins with the king. Declarer leaves the master trump outstanding, since he needs to trump both of his losing spades in dummy.

Instead, South cashes the club jack, discarding a losing spade from the dummy. South can now cash the spade king and ruff a low spade in dummy. He then plays dummy’s diamond ace and ruffs a diamond to get back to his own hand.

As it happens, West over-ruffs, but whatever he does next, declarer has the rest of the tricks. If West had not over-ruffed, South would be in position to ruff his last spade with dummy’s last trump.

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.