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.

Wandering into the bidding over a strong one-no-trump opener and not buying the contract can prove to be an expensive exuberance. Today, West’s reasonable decision to show the majors painted a picture for declarer.

Against three no-trump, West led the spade four, and South saw he could count on eight tricks — four in spades, one in hearts, two in diamonds and one in clubs.

Declarer noticed that the likeliest source of the ninth trick lay in hearts, but he also knew that, in view of the bidding, West was almost certain to have the king. Thus, simply leading a low heart to the queen was unlikely to pay dividends.

So at trick two, when dummy’s spade queen held, he played a low heart, hoping that East might hold at least one of the four top cards in the suit. When East followed with the six, South inserted the seven and West won with the nine. (Had East played the 10, South would have covered with the queen.)

Now West guessed well to get off lead with a diamond. Taking East’s nine with the ace, South continued with the heart queen. West played the king, which was allowed to hold, the 10 dropping from East.

West exited passively in spades, and South won and drove out the spade king. When West took his king and returned a spade, South took his spade winners and successfully finessed the heart eight. He cashed the heart ace and led a club to the queen and ace to bring home nine tricks.

In today’s deal, three different declarers all reached six no-trump rather than six diamonds. That contract looks best at both pairs and teams, since there are some additional chances in no-trump when diamonds do not behave.

The first declarer won the heart lead in dummy and played a diamond to the nine and queen. The defenders persisted in hearts, so declarer cashed a top diamond to find the bad news, then took the club ace and the heart winners. He pitched a club and diamond from dummy and ran the spades, squeezing West in the minor suits.

The second declarer won the heart jack and cashed the diamond ace and king. The bad break made him pause, but he eventually decided to cash the hearts, pitching a diamond and club from the table, then run the spades. West came down to two diamonds and the bare club king, but declarer had no option but to play a club to the ace. When the king came tumbling down, he had his 12th trick.

The third declarer played a diamond to the ace and ducked a diamond; this was technically best, since if the suit had split 4-1, he would have been home regardless of the rank of West’s singleton, as well as when East had a bare honor. As it was, when West won the diamond jack and returned a heart, declarer had transposed into the first declarer’s line. He took his club ace and heart winners, and ran the spades to force West to concede in the two-card ending.

South’s distribution in the majors makes his hand untenable for a strong no-trump — at least to most of us. After North raises spades, South chooses to invite game with a call of two no-trump, suggesting his hand pattern pretty well, though he would prefer a tad more security in the heart suit. As it happens, North can happily accept the invitation to the spade game.

When West leads the heart king, South can see no losers in the black suits. He must surely lose two hearts, and he must do something with his third and fourth heart, as well as the diamond queen.

West leads out the heart king and queen as East follows high-low, suggesting his doubleton and asking West to continue with the suit. East is clearly hoping to create a trump trick for his side on a third heart.

At trick three, West leads the heart ace. If declarer ruffs low in dummy, he will be sending a boy to do a man’s job. To avoid this ugly fate, declarer ruffs the third heart with dummy’s spade king, then plays a trump to the ace.

When the nine appears, declarer might consider a later trump finesse, but he can almost ensure his contract without needing to make that play. He cashes a second top trump, then the diamond ace, and then takes three top clubs to pitch his diamond queen.

Now he ruffs a diamond back to hand and exits in hearts, reducing to a two-card ending where he has the J-8 of trumps poised over East’s 10-7 of spades.

It never does any harm to go over the basics from time to time. Today’s deal features points of interest in both the bidding and play.

First, let’s look at what actually happened at the table. South opened a strong no-trump and played there on a spade lead to the jack and king. (The king is the right card to encourage both defenders to continue the suit since West might think his partner had the queen.) Declarer played the diamond king; East won and naturally continued spades rather than finding the killing shift to clubs. Declarer won with the ace and advanced the diamond nine, letting it run when West pitched a heart. East won with his jack and shifted to clubs, holding declarer to eight tricks.

Now let’s look at the auction: As North, I would definitely transfer to diamonds (prepared to play my long suit) and keep the opponents out of the major suits. This may not always work, but it is the percentage action.

Against the no-trump contract, East goofed when he won the diamond ace on the first round of the suit. If he ducks, he retains control of the suit, holding declarer to just one trick in diamonds, rather than four. If East had ace-third, he would never have taken the first round of diamonds; his potential second winner in the suit should not have affected that decision.

In general, ducking an ace over the king-queen is often a good idea when you know declarer does not have a singleton — and maybe even when he does.