Cenk Tuncok gave the daily bulletin at the NEC tournament some analysis on this deal. It is a defensive problem, so look at just the West and North cards, and see if you can work out what to do.

South has opened a strong no-trump, and you have decided to let discretion be the better part of valor because of the vulnerability. When you lead the heart king against three no-trump (requesting the unblock of an honor or otherwise a count signal), partner contributes the two and declarer the jack. The position seems very straightforward, so why am I posing it to you as a problem? It looks obvious to continue with a heart — though whether you play a high or low one doesn’t seem critical.

But what if you play upsidedown count and attitude? Now partner’s two and declarer’s jack appear to be incompatible; someone has mis-sorted their hand or is playing a very deep — or clueless — game.

If playing standard signals, I do not see how you can do anything but continue hearts, and that would be fatal. As you can see, declarer has the doubleton spade ace and very little hope for a ninth trick unless you continue hearts. However, if you do fall into his trap, he can win his ace and play back a third heart to build the heart eight into his game-going trick.

Should you work this out if partner’s heart two is inconsistent with three small? I think you should — and especially from now on if the declarer is Cenk Tuncok!

When West leads a spade against four hearts, East comes in with the ace, while declarer follows with the queen. East must decide on his defense at trick two without knowing whether his partner has the spade king.

In view of the strong dummy, East can see that the least West will have to produce to give the defense a chance to beat the game is a trump trick plus at least one more winner from spades and clubs. Without two top cards, the defense surely has no chance to succeed, whether partner has a diamond winner or not.

In theory, a prompt attack on the diamonds might knock out the ace and queen before declarer can clear both the trumps and clubs. But what does that give declarer in the way of an opening bid? At most a nine-count if partner has a high heart, club and diamond!

But the ace of clubs and a high trump in the West hand would enable the defense to defeat game by means of a club ruff — assuming that South has any three small clubs. This hope requires far less to come to fruition, since it does not involve placing a third high card in the West hand such as the diamond king. East should therefore switch to a club at trick two, which West will win to return the suit. Then when West gets in again with the king of hearts, he can lead a third club, and East can ruff to set the game.

As South, you overcall two spades over two hearts without much enthusiasm, and at your next turn, your partner insists you bid slam if you have a heart control. How can you resist with such a perfect heart holding, even if the rest of your hand is uninspiring?

When dummy comes down, your slam appears to have excellent chances; you just need to hold your minor-suit losers to one. After winning the heart, you play the spade king and another spade to dummy, East pitching a heart. How should you plan the play from there on in, assuming East to have precisely six hearts?

The best sequence of plays is to cash the club and diamond aces, then ruff a heart to hand and lead a club to the nine, assuming West follows suit with a small club.

This line of play wins in every case when West has three clubs, since you have a discard coming eventually. It also works when he has four clubs, since when East wins the second club, he will be endplayed.

It also wins outright if West has the doubleton club queen or 10, or any singleton. And even if East had four clubs to the queen-10, then all he could do would be to return a club. At that point, the finesse for the diamond queen would be heavily favored to work. So you can cross to hand in spades and take the diamond finesse.

This line of play loses only when East has a 1-6-2-4 pattern with both minor-suit queens and the club 10.

Four hearts was an excellent contract here, essentially cold unless trumps were 3-0 offside. That happens no more than one time in seven, but today was that day.

Declarer was doubly unlucky that West had a natural spade lead; on any other defense, declarer can arrange to strip off two rounds of spades plus all the minor-suit cards. Then he can endplay East with the master heart to give him a ruff-sluff.

However, when West led the spade jack, declarer won and played the heart king (since he could protect against West having queen-third of hearts). When trumps refused to cooperate, his chances were down to slim and none, and slim appeared to have left the building. But South refused to give up, and found an ingenious way to come home.

He ducked a diamond, won the spade shift and led a club to the ace. When East neglected to unblock an honor, South played a club back to his king and led a third club, discarding dummy’s last diamond. East won the trick, perforce, and exited with a diamond, but that merely postponed the evil hour. South ruffed the diamond in dummy, took the heart ace and exited in trumps to East, who was now well and truly endplayed.

For the record, had declarer held the club 10 instead of West, the defenders would have been helpless here, so maybe East should have worked out what to do. But it is a great deal easier to pass that judgment when one can see all four hands.

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.