In today’s deal, three no-trump would be the easiest game to make, since you have nine fast winners. However, you would appear to have excellent chances of overtricks in four hearts after a top spade lead.

South should win the spade ace and commence drawing trumps. The play would be straightforward if trumps broke 3-2: Declarer would draw them all, then play on diamonds. But when West shows out on the second round of hearts, South must change tack immediately.

Instead, South must turn his attention to diamonds, leaving dummy’s last trump as a bulwark against the enemy’s spades. The opponents are welcome to take their two top diamonds and one diamond ruff.

Not surprisingly, West continues the force on declarer when he wins the first diamond. South must ruff, but then can knock out the second top diamond. The next spade ruff leaves him with one fewer trump than East, but declarer simply leads a third diamond, allowing East to ruff in. Now whether East plays back a club, spade or trump, declarer has the rest.

Note that if South draws all of East’s trumps at once, the defenders would force him on winning the first diamond. They could then take the rest of their spades when they regained the lead. South would go down in similar fashion even if he drew only three rounds of trumps. The same defense would mean that South would run out of trumps before he could set up the diamond trick he needed for his game.

In today’s deal, East had a chance to prevent declarer from executing a neat maneuver in the trump suit. Put yourself in his shoes and see if you can do any better than he did.

On the heart king lead against two spades, declarer ducks, then wins the heart jack with the ace to lead a low club to the jack and king. West takes his heart queen — and you pitch the diamond seven to encourage. Back comes the diamond eight, so you win the king. What next?

At the table, East returned a spade. South won and cashed the second top trump before leading a club to the ace and ruffing a club. What was West to do? She could not over-ruff, or South would have had enough entries to dummy to be able to set up the long club. So she discarded a diamond, and now declarer trumped a diamond and ruffed out the clubs. Again, if West over-ruffed, dummy would be high, so she discarded a heart. But now South could lead a diamond at trick 12 and score the spade 10 in dummy for the eighth winner.

There was just one chance for the defense, but it was a fairly hard one to spot: Rather than leading a trump, East had to return the club queen at trick six, smothering the 10 and locking declarer in dummy. Declarer can try to ruff a club to hand, but now West can over-ruff and return a diamond. That leaves declarer unable to ruff out the clubs without losing another trump trick to West.

At his first turn, North felt his hand was inappropriate for a negative double and that he could not bid one no-trump without a heart stopper. While his partner could have been 4-4 in the majors, he took a reasonable shot to raise diamonds. Then he produced an imaginative raise of his partner’s two-spade call, sensibly noting that his own failure to make a negative double at his first turn had limited his spade holding to three cards. That got his side to the best game, four spades.

West started the defense by leading out three top hearts, of course. How was declarer supposed to tackle the hand?

The problem with ruffing the third heart and drawing trumps is that in the (somewhat unlikely) event that West has four spades, declarer will be left with an inevitable club loser and will have to lose a trick to the long trump. Even if East has the long trumps, 10 tricks will not be assured. It is far better to discard the almost inevitable club loser at trick three.

When the defenders shift to trumps, declarer should try to draw trumps in three rounds. If they split, declarer will either attempt to ruff out the clubs, or must fall back on diamonds behaving. If trumps are 4-2 as in the diagram, four rounds of spades will almost certainly squeeze East in the minors. Since West has nine cards in the majors, the minors will run for six tricks unless West also has honor-third in clubs.

The solution to today’s problem may be slightly counterintuitive, but once you’ve seen it, you’ll know it is clearly the best play.

The deal was played a few months ago in the Common Game all around the U.S. When I checked the frequencies, remarkably few players had brought home their game.

At the table I was watching, South declared three no-trump after an auction that strongly suggested that bad breaks could be expected, since East-West had bid to the three-level on a wing and prayer while vulnerable.

West led the heart five to East’s ace. Back came a second heart, which declarer won, discarding a spade from dummy. He led a club to the king and ace, won the next heart, pitching a second spade from dummy, and visibly gulped when diamonds broke 4-0 on him. He tried cashing out the clubs, but East simply threw away his small spade and a heart winner, and declarer could set up — but not reach — his spade winner in hand.

The winning line is to test diamonds at trick three. When the 4-0 break comes to light, South knocks out the club ace, wins the heart return, pitching a diamond from dummy, and then runs the clubs. He comes down to a five-card ending where both he and dummy have three diamonds and two spades and he has lost only two tricks so far.

East must keep three diamonds and one spade winner, so he can keep only one heart. Declarer draws out the spade ace, pitches the diamond loser on East’s heart winner, and has the rest.

Today’s deal is from the Bridge with Larry Cohen Newsletter, which Cohen mails out free, three times a month. It contains articles, lessons and quizzes.

Today’s deal was played at a high-level IMP game in Boca Raton, Florida. North opened with an off-shape no-trump, but recovered by cue-bidding in support of diamonds to steer South to the diamond slam.

West led a club, and declarer rose with dummy’s ace, then led a low diamond and captured East’s jack with the ace. South knew that East had started either with the jack alone, or king-jack bare. So, with a sure trump loser, he set about disposing of his club loser by playing three rounds of spades. West ruffed and had the diamond king for down one.

Cohen advocates playing on hearts rather than spades, which should succeed as long as hearts aren’t 5-1 or 6-0. West seems to have begun with either 7-2 or K-7-2 of diamonds. When a heart to the queen and another one back to the ace both pass off peacefully, you can safely play the heart king. If West follows, dummy’s club loser departs — and even if East trumps, it will be with the king. But if East is out of trumps, what can West do? He can trump with the king, when you pitch dummy’s club loser, or if West ruffs low, dummy will over-ruff. Then declarer plays on spades to throw his club loser from hand. The diamond king will be the only trick for the defense.

You can find details at www.larryco.com.

When South opens one no-trump, North uses Stayman and sets the contract in four hearts. On the lead of the club queen, East flies up with the ace and continues the suit. Declarer wins the king and has to decide on a plan. What would you do in his position?

You appear to have a loser in each red suit and two in clubs. How are you going to reduce four losers to three? Your best bet appears to be the spade finesse. After winning the club king, cross to the diamond ace and take the spade finesse. If it loses, you may go two down in your game, but this is a risk you should be prepared to take. When the finesse wins, you unblock spades, cross to the heart king, pitch your club loser on the spades and lead a second trump. If East follows low, you can afford the safety play of the finesse, since if this loses to the queen or jack, you can regain the lead and draw the last trump. If East splits his honors, you win the ace and play the king and another diamond, and the defenders score only one diamond and one trump trick.

Well played, but have you noticed an unusual resource available to the defense? If East ducks his club ace at the first trick, the defenders retain the upper hand. If declarer embarks on the same line as above, East still has an entry to keep South from scoring his trumps separately. No matter what declarer tries, the defense has a countermeasure.

Andrew Robson’s latest book, “Counting and Card Placement,” deals with many critical aspects of card play. As Robson says, tallying your quick and slow losers can be essential in determining the best line of play. For example, plan the play in four spades here, on the lead of the diamond queen.

While you have four spade, two heart, two diamond and two club winners, the problem is that you may also have four losers. (Effectively, you will take the tenth and last of your winners at trick 14!)

Say you win the first diamond and lead a spade. The opponents will win the ace and lead a second diamond. You will win the ace and draw trump to lead a heart. But the opponents can win and cash their third-round diamond winner, plus the club ace, for down one.

Agreed, you have to lose the three aces, but you can do something about that pesky slow diamond loser. It can be discarded on a heart, but you must set up the discard quickly — leading a trump loses a vital tempo. Instead, you must lead the heart at trick two.

There is a final wrinkle. If you win the diamond king at trick one to lead to the diamond queen, the defenders can duck, win the second heart and lead a second diamond. You will then have no way back to hand to cash the third heart and eliminate the diamond loser. Instead, win trick one with the diamond ace, then set up hearts, with the diamond re-entry to hand still in place.

In the Grand National Open Teams at the New South Wales Bridge Association, two strong Australian teams met, and both declarers passed the test they were set.

Against four spades, West led the heart king, then the queen, which East overtook. He returned a club, won in hand by declarer, Andrew Peake. Then came the spade two. West inserted the 10, and East showed out when the ace was played from dummy. Peake now played a diamond to the king, then the 10, covered with the jack and ace, then a further diamond was ruffed in hand. A club to the queen followed, then a second diamond was ruffed.

South cashed the club king, on which dummy’s last diamond departed. He continued with his low club, and with nothing but trumps left, West could make just one further trick.

Incidentally, had East followed to the third diamond, declarer would have played four rounds of clubs, ruffing in dummy, then ruffed a diamond with an intermediate trump to achieve the same ending.

The same line was taken by Paul Gosney at the second table, which was even more impressive, since he wasn’t doubled.

A better defense would have been for East to lead a third heart at trick three. When declarer ruffs in hand and West pitches a club, declarer will have to take care not to play trump at all. Instead, he strips off two clubs and four diamonds, and in the four-card ending leads a club from hand, under-ruffing West’s trump honor and endplaying him to concede the rest.