When I saw a close variant of this deal from the Common Game in 2017, I thought it had the makings of a good problem. At the table, most North-South pairs played five clubs on a deal where slam seemed highly likely to make. But with neither spades nor clubs behaving, the limit on the hand turned out to be 11 tricks.

However, imagine that North finds a slightly off-center raise to two spades rather than a negative double. This is sensible enough, since a decent hand with Q-10 of spades plus short hearts virtually corresponds to a three-card raise. Can you imagine how the defense would go against four spades?

West leads from his heart sequence. Declarer wins and crosses to the diamond king to run the spade queen to West, who forces declarer with a second heart. Now declarer must be careful not to draw any more trumps. Instead, he plays a club to the ace and a second club. East will probably discard, and declarer will clear the clubs. He can now ruff the next heart in dummy and come to hand in diamonds to draw trumps, then claim the rest. Note that had declarer drawn trumps before playing on clubs, the combination of bad breaks in the minors would sink him, since he runs out of trumps.

Still, I wonder if the defenders might have prevailed by following a more devious line. If West can duck the first trump smoothly, declarer will probably repeat the spade finesse. Now the force in hearts will work, since dummy is out of trumps.

Earlier this month, we talked about squeezes and how one might identify a deal where the aim was to bring pressure to bear on one or both opponents. The next step after determining that this might be relevant is to make sure you catch the opponents in the net.

In six no-trump after the lead of the heart 10, South can count 11 top tricks. He has a 12th trick if either spades or diamonds breaks 3-3. But there is one additional chance: if one opponent has length in both diamonds and spades.

It costs South nothing to prepare for this possibility. If either of those suits divides favorably, South will make his slam without breaking a sweat. But if neither suit breaks, simply cashing winners will not bring either defender under pressure.

Squeezes tend to work best when you have all the tricks you need but one; here, declarer has 11 tricks out of the 12 needed. So South must give up a trick (sometimes referred to as “rectifying the count”) by the strange-looking move of ducking a heart — which could be at trick one or two.

South wins the return and takes his club and heart winners. On the last of these, West, who guards both spades and diamonds, must concede the slam-going trick by unguarding one suit or the other. All South has to do is watch the discards, and he is home.

If South had not given up the heart trick, West would have one extra winner in his hand. He would not be squeezed, and the slam would be unmakable.

When South heard his partner show a limit or better spade raise, he took control with Keycard Blackwood. The response showed two key-cards and the trump queen, so South explored for the grand slam, then decided to account for diamonds playing better than spades by offering the choice at the seven-level. You can imagine that if North’s spade four were the diamond four, the grand slam in diamonds would be where you wanted to play, absent a spade ruff.

After West’s top heart lead, it might have seemed to declarer that he could claim 13 tricks. But it never does any harm to take a second or even a third and fourth look at your chances when playing a grand slam. The dangers of a 4-0 trump break were not all that significant, but South realized he could eliminate that risk by thoughtfully ruffing a heart to hand at trick two. Then he cashed the spade king, observing the bad break, and led a spade to the ace.

A second heart ruff allowed him to unblock the spade jack. Then he could lead a diamond to the king. The spade queen drew the last trump, and South was able to discard his losing club, then claim the rest with diamond and club winners. The 13 tricks came in the form of seven winners in the side suits, two heart ruffs and four spade tricks in dummy. If declarer doesn’t take his heart ruffs at once, he does not have the communications to do so later in addition to drawing trumps.

In today’s deal from a club duplicate, declarer based his line of play on his opinion about his opponents’ propensity to tell the truth in the carding.

Declaring four hearts, South covered the lead of the diamond 10 with the jack. East won the diamond queen and immediately shifted to the spade queen.

Declarer read this as a true card and inferred that West must hold the spade king, and also that East could not be overly long in diamonds, or he might have considered giving his partner a ruff.

Thus East rated to be relatively balanced, and probably held the rest of the high cards, given his opening bid. Because of the delicate entry position to dummy, South won the spade ace, then thoughtfully led the heart jack to the king.

Now he could pass the heart eight; when it held, he was still in dummy, and in position to lead a club to the jack. He could then draw trumps and cash out the clubs for 10 tricks.

Notice that if you lead a low heart to the king, you cannot take both the club and heart finesses; you will need to find one or the other queen doubleton, but today you are not in luck.

On a slightly different lie of the cards, if West had passed throughout and East had shifted to the spade king at trick two, East would have been marked with 11 points in spades and diamonds. In such a case, you might play West for the heart queen, since you would need East to have the club queen. Of course, East would not have a balanced 15-count, or he would have opened one no-trump.

The vulnerability persuades you as South to look for a vulnerable game rather than to play for penalties — a correct strategy since even four spades doubled might have been a cheap save against a game here.

When West leads the spade king, the defenders have immediately set up their long suit. After you have won the spade ace on either the first or second round of the suit, what is your plan to take the further eight tricks you need for your game? You can see seven tricks in clubs and hearts, but if you lead a diamond, the defenders will cash out for down one. So, you must find a fourth trick from the hearts.

You can do this if West has exactly five hearts and East’s singleton is the jack, nine or eight. When that singleton is the jack, a low heart to the queen will establish the 10, and you have straightforwardly achieved your goal. But since it is twice as likely that East’s singleton will be the nine or eight, as compared to the jack, you should play for that eventuality.

After taking the spade ace, lead the heart 10 from your hand. West will surely cover with the jack, and dummy’s queen will win the trick. Once the heart eight appears, you will cross to the club ace and lead the heart two to the seven. Next, you unblock hearts and run your nine tricks.

Incidentally, you cannot take any club winners before advancing the heart 10, as it would leave you short of an entry to your hand.

The England women have been consistently successful over the last decade fielding a partnership still in their 20s. Fiona Brown is originally from Australia, but has been living in the U.K. for over 10 years. She played with Susan Stockdale first in junior events, then in women’s events.

Here is Stockdale at work. Declaring four spades, she won the heart lead in dummy to play a spade to the ace (not best, but far from silly), and led her diamond. West won and continued diamonds, letting Stockdale finesse the jack. Next came dummy’s diamond king, on which East pitched her heart. (It would have been better to pitch a club, then shift to hearts at her next turn.) Stockdale discarded a second club on the diamond king and now led a trump. East won the spade queen and played back a top club, which Stockdale ducked. She won the next club, then played the last trump to squeeze West in the red suits for her contract.

For the record, declarer might have cashed the spade king and played a second trump after winning the diamond jack. When East wins and returns a spade, it squeezes West down to one club. Then declarer cashes the club ace, leads the heart seven to the ace, takes the heart queen and leads the heart three to West, forcing a diamond return into dummy’s king-10.

If South forgets to play the heart seven early, West can unblock in hearts to leave South on lead, to concede two club tricks to East.

Here is a deal from the ACBL’s Senior Pairs simultaneous event played in April, rotated 90 degrees. The accompanying commentary suggests that some Easts may open four spades, but those defensive tricks suggest a one-spade bid instead. West will respond one no-trump, and when North doubles, East can rebid two spades. Now South will want to compete, but how?

Depending on your partnership agreements, South’s options may include a take-out double, an artificial two-no-trump call or a simple three-heart bid. When West competes to three spades, par will have been achieved … but if North now bids on to four hearts, the defenders may have their work cut out to set it.

After West leads the spade king, this deal emphasizes that when dummy has a singleton, standard methods of signaling really aren’t good enough. The default method these days appears to be to use suit preference; in other words, a high card from East suggests playing a diamond, and a low spade maybe asks for a club. But here, East wants to encourage a spade continuation, and middle cards are often hard to read. Perhaps if East calls for a club, West can work out that that play can wait?

West can defeat the game by playing another spade. Then East wins the first heart to play the spade ace, forcing dummy to ruff again. East can now follow up with a fourth spade when in with the heart ace, to promote a trump for West.

Today’s deal sees you overcall in spades, then try three no-trump over your partner’s cuebid, since it is fairly typical here that partner is looking for a heart stopper for no-trump. When he bids on, he shows that he is cuebidding for spades, and once you cooperate, East is off to the races. Blackwood sees him put you in slam, and when West leads the heart six, the auction has told you that that suit will be breaking 6-1. You might as well play low from dummy, and capture East’s nine with your ace.

Drawing trumps seems logical, and East pitches a low heart. It now looks obvious to take the club finesse to dispose of one loser, but you actually have two alternative approaches. One line succeeds when East has exactly two diamonds (strip out the clubs, then play three rounds of diamonds, pitching a heart to endplay West). However, that is a relatively remote possibility.

A far better approach is to strip away the diamonds, ruffing the third round in hand. Then play the ace and king of clubs, planning to lead the club jack and pitch a heart. If West wins the trick, he will be forced to give you a ruff-sluff by playing a minor, since you know he is out of hearts. This line succeeds whenever the club finesse would have worked, but also adds on the slim (but not irrelevant) chance that East has the doubleton club queen. Since this line works whenever the club finesse would have succeeded, it is your best play.

One of the most common questions I receive from rubber bridge players who want to learn duplicate is how the approach differs from one game to the other. Today’s deal is a fine example of that difference.

Against three no-trump at both tables, the spade two was led. The first declarer played low from dummy (yes, playing the jack would have had some deceptive effect, but declarer wanted to be in hand), and East won with the king and thoughtfully switched to the heart queen. South ducked two rounds of hearts, but won the third to continue with the diamond queen. East was able to win and cash out for down two.

The second declarer saw the potential problem and rose with dummy’s ace at trick one. She had noticed that her contract would be safe unless diamonds were extremely unfriendly. She came to hand with a top club and led the diamond nine, which held. West showed out on the continuation of the diamond queen, but declarer let it ride, and East had to take the king now or lose it forever. Nine tricks made.

This hand would have been far more difficult to play in a matchpointed duplicate pairs tournament. Declarer now has a very awkward guess at trick one. If West has led a low spade away from the king, then by playing low from dummy and winning with the queen, declarer will end with at least 11 and maybe more. Unless both the spade and diamond finesse lose, the contract will be safe.