As South in today’s auction, should you have bid four no-trump over four diamonds? Against five clubs, West leads the spade king, and East shows an even number of spades. You win the ace and cash the trump ace, on which West discards a low spade. How do you plan to take 11 tricks?

West has at least 5-5 in the majors and a trump void, so you should play him for an original distribution of 5=5=3=0 pattern. This leaves East with a likely starting shape of 2=1=6=4.

Your aim is to strip East of his major-suit cards and all but one trump; then you can endplay him with a club to force him to play a diamond: if so, you will make a spade, a two hearts, two diamonds and six trumps.

After winning the first trick with the spade ace and drawing a round of trumps, simply advance the spade 10 at trick three. West can do no better than win the trick with the jack and play another high spade. The trap to avoid is ruffing this trick with the two. Instead, you must ruff the third round of spades with the six, draw two more rounds of trumps, cash the high hearts (East will discard a diamond) and then endplay East by leading your two of clubs to his three — assuming East has done his best to unblock in trumps.

East will only have diamonds remaining, so you will make dummy’s two top diamonds along with six trumps and three winners in the majors, for a total of 11 tricks in all.

Australia’s most consistent pair in the early part of this last decade was Sartaj Hans and Tony Nunn. On this deal, from a recent World Championship match between Australia and the U.S., Hans played skillfully to land a contract that failed at many tables.

Against three no-trump, Marty Fleisher for the U.S. led the spade four, taken by his partner Mike Kamil with the king. On the spade return, Fleisher ducked declarer’s jack. Hans now played a diamond to dummy’s ace, cashed the diamond king and ran the club 10 to West’s jack. A low spade cleared the suit and put the lead in dummy.

At this point, most of the unsuccessful declarers took a second club finesse and lost two clubs and three spades. Hans instead saw that he needed only two club tricks, but that he surely needed to keep West off lead. So he played a club to his ace, then cashed his two diamond winners, pitching a heart from dummy on the first.

Fleisher could spare a heart on the third round of diamonds, but he had to let go of a spade on declarer’s final diamond — pitching a heart honor would have let dummy throw a club. Declarer would then have been able to lead out the heart queen to establish a second heart trick.

Once West discarded a spade, Hans pitched a second heart from dummy and set up the clubs, leaving Fleisher on lead. The defense could cash a spade, but then had to concede the last two tricks to dummy.

With both North and South having five hearts and a decent hand, it’s easy to imagine them going overboard, or at least to the five-level. However, at the table both players exercised restraint, South down-valuing his hand out of a strong no-trump, and North merely inviting game. So now all South needs to do is make 10 tricks.

On the passive diamond lead, South should expect to lose a trump trick, so he must limit the loss in the black suits to two tricks. If he is not careful, he will also lose two clubs and one spade. The way to make sure of the contract is to force the opponents to lend their assistance and open up those suits to his advantage.

Declarer starts by winning the diamond ace and leading the heart jack, perhaps intending to let it run, but hoping East will incautiously cover from a doubleton honor. When the queen appears, South wins and cashes the diamonds before taking the spade ace and putting the defense in with a spade.

If East wins, he will have to open up clubs sooner or later. As it is, West wins and cashes the heart king, but must then lead clubs. Dummy plays low, and East can win the first club, but he must now concede.

If South had exited in hearts at trick five, West would have won and broken up the endplay by leading clubs. If declarer instead takes the spade finesse, either a club or the heart king followed by a second spade from West should suffice to set the hand.

In today’s deal, you reach a delicate four-heart game after West has suggested a three-suiter and a maximum for his original pass. You duck the lead of the club king, and West accurately shifts to a trump.

It may be hard to see how to avoid the loss of three diamond tricks, since the top honors appear to be split, but you can exert a fair amount of pressure if you run five rounds of hearts. You keep all four spades and your top clubs in hand, coming down to the bare diamond queen. But what does West keep?

If he pitches a spade, you ruff out that suit while you still have a club re-entry to hand; while if he comes down to one club, your clubs will be good. So West also must come down to one diamond. That has to be the king (or ace), or you can establish a diamond trick.

Now you cash the sixth trump and pitch your last diamond, and West must again keep all his spades and clubs to keep you from establishing either suit. So he, too, discards his last diamond, and that lets you lead the king and another spade, aiming to cover East’s card to keep him off lead.

West wins cheaply and must play back a low spade, but you win that, then endplay him in spades to lead clubs into your tenace. Your initial goal on the deal was to avoid losing three diamond winners; in fact, you ended up losing no diamond tricks at all!

One of the regular fundraising activities of the American Contract Bridge League is to produce simultaneous pairs events with a commentary. This allows people to compare their results at the table with what, in theory, is par on the board.

In today’s deal from a recent such event, North does not possess a classic opener. (Indeed, Ely Culbertson might be turning in his grave at the idea of opening a hand with no aces and a bare, balanced 12-count.) Having said that, with nobody vulnerable at pairs, it often pays to get in early and try to steal the contract. You’d expect West to bid spades over one diamond, and now North-South rate to reach three no-trump, probably by South, and most likely on a spade lead. (Of course if West leads hearts, declarer will come home with no problem.)

Since declarer does not have second sight, he will probably win the spade ace, cash the club ace, then play a club to the eight and take the club king. To keep himself in the game, West must pitch two diamonds and a spade; if he pitches a heart, declarer establishes a third heart trick without too much trouble.

But after this start, South will have a shrewd idea of West’s original distribution: to bring home his contract, South must lead a heart to the nine at trick five. As the commentary indicates, any declarer who reads the cards this well will truly deserve his top!

Bridge at the Dyspeptics Club is often equivalent to a game of hot potato. A contract may start out as makeable, or off in top tricks, but quite frequently the fate of the contract will switch from one side to the other. All too often it is the player who makes the last mistake who will come in for the criticism, while the other errors are glossed over altogether.

See if you can decide how many times the outcome of today’s contract of three no-trump changed hands here.

West led a spade to the king, won the second spade and played the spade two, as East pitched a heart. Declarer next played a diamond to the king and a second diamond, thoughtfully ducking when East produced the queen. Now the suit had been established with West kept off lead, so declarer had nine tricks.

When South started to brag about his foresight, North corrected him and told him that he was the poster child for the slogan “It’s better to be lucky than good.” How many mistakes had been made on the deal?

Had East pitched his diamond queen under the king, the defense would have prevailed. But South could have broached diamonds by crossing to a top heart and leading a low diamond to his ace, then a diamond back. Now the defenders would be unable to unblock successfully.

Or, if West had played a high (suit preference) spade at trick three, maybe East could have discarded the diamond queen at that point, rendering declarer helpless.

Gabriel Chagas is one of the few players to have won the three major world teams championships as well as the World Open Pairs. Forty years ago, he wrote a Bols bridge tip to alert players to the intra-finesse, using this hand to illustrate his point.

Against four spades, the defense begins with three rounds of hearts, South ruffing the third. The success of the game hinges on not losing more than one trump trick. Under normal circumstances, you would lead toward the queen after cashing the ace. But here, East is known to hold the king, by virtue of his opening call of one no-trump.

There are two sensible lines of play that declarer should consider. The first is that East might have started with the doubleton spade king, in which case declarer can drive it out without wasting the queen. The other possibility is that West holds the doubleton 10 or jack, so an intrafinesse will be the winning move.

Start by leading a spade to the nine, which lets East win with the jack to return the club queen. Now declarer ruffs a club to hand and discovers that East also began with a doubleton club.

Although East might be 2-4-5-2 for his one no-trump opening bid, 3-4-4-2 is a far more likely shape. So, declarer leads a diamond to dummy’s ace and advances the spade queen. Since West’s 10 falls under the queen, whether East covers or not, declarer holds his trump losers to one and has succeeded in his task.

Most partnerships these days use a 15-17 no-trump opening bid rather than 16-18. The logic is that if you open most 12-counts, you do not want your rebid of one no-trump to be 12-15; that is an uncomfortably wide range for exploring game and slam.

In today’s deal, South has a little too much for the no-trump opener, despite his square pattern. Of course, any action South chooses should lead to his declaring a contract of three no-trump on a low heart lead.

The contract may appear to be in jeopardy, but South can prevail by using a maneuver that should be in everyone’s armory: the holdup. He merely delays taking his heart ace, playing small hearts on the first and second tricks and taking his ace on the third round of the suit.

What is the result of this approach? South knows that he will eventually finesse in diamonds into what he imagines will be the safe hand, East, since it is West who appears to have long hearts.

Note that when South leads the diamond queen, if East wins the finesse to shift to a spade, declarer will have to decide whether to take the spade finesse or play for diamonds to behave. Rising with the ace feels right to me.

However, when the diamond queen is covered with the king, as it is today, declarer comes back to hand in clubs and runs the diamond eight. Whether the finesse of the diamond 10 wins or loses, he has nine tricks and does not need the spade finesse.

In today’s deal, South’s response of two no-trump to an opening minor was forcing, so North simply raised to three no-trump.

West led a low spade to East’s king, and South carefully counted his winners before choosing his card. He had four tricks in the majors, and there would be either four or five diamonds, depending on the finesse in that suit. Additionally, there would be one or two club tricks, also depending on whether or not that finesse were successful.

That looks like at least nine tricks, but say South had taken the first spade trick and lost a finesse to the diamond king, East would have been able to return a spade. Now the defenders would take four spades and the diamond king, defeating the contract. So South had to duck the first spade trick, playing low from both hands. The idea of the holdup was to exhaust East of his spades. If East won the diamond king, South hoped he would be unable to return a spade.

When East continued with a low spade at trick two, South put in the jack and let West win his queen. Declarer took his ace on the third round of spades and discarded a low club from dummy. He next led the diamond jack and let it ride. As expected, when East won the diamond king, he had no spade to lead.

When East returned a club at trick five, South rejected the finesse, rising with the ace and running nine tricks without taking any unnecessary risk, a wise precaution today.