Too many competent players boast that they have never read a bridge book in their lives. As someone who works as a writer, I am always surprised at how many basic positions are missed by players who might have encountered that very position in a book. A little learning may be a dangerous thing, but zero learning tends to work even worse.

In today’s deal, South offered a choice of games at the four-level, and North’s return to four spades ended the auction. West led the diamond jack, and South tried to make East’s task as hard as he could when he put up the king.

East won and shifted to a club, hoping somewhat optimistically that his side could take two club tricks, and that West would turn up with a winner in one of the major suits as well.

West won with his ace and returned a club, but it was to no avail. Dummy’s queen was covered by the king and ruffed. When West got in with his spade king, there was no hope for the defense — declarer was in complete control.

East should have reasoned that West was likely to hold four trumps. Instead of leading back the club six, he might have tried broaching clubs by leading the king. Then the defenders would have been in business. Declarer is immediately shortened in trumps on the second round of clubs (which he has to ruff). When West gets in with the spade king, West can force him again by leading the club ace, to ensure a second trump trick for his side.

In “Keys to Winning Bridge,” Frank Stewart debunks several of the game’s longstanding myths. One of the principles of defense in Whist, as espoused in the eighteenth century, was: When in doubt, win the trick. But as Stewart comments, though Edmond Hoyle’s axiom may have seemed valid 250 years ago, we have moved on from there.

Let’s take a look at three no-trump here. West leads the spade two, and dummy’s jack wins. Declarer continues with dummy’s diamond to East’s eight and his own king. If West takes his ace and leads, say, the spade queen, declarer wins and ducks a diamond. He takes the next trick and runs the diamonds, winning three diamonds, three spades, two clubs and a heart.

West should refuse to take the diamond ace, ducking as smoothly as he can. Declarer may lead another diamond and play low from dummy, hoping East held the doubleton ace-eight, but even if he reads the position correctly, he will never get more than two diamond tricks in any case, thanks to the absence of entries to dummy.

Let’s contrast the position if the king and jack of clubs were switched, so that West could be reasonably confident that dummy had an entry on the side. Now if you duck the diamond, you turn two sure tricks into one, so in matchpoints it may be right to win the trick. It would be even more difficult to plan the defense if dummy’s club jack were the queen. Now you can’t be sure whether dummy has an entry or not; but fortunately that isn’t our problem today.

In today’s deal, a straightforward strong no-trump auction leads you to three no-trump. North would need the diamond queen instead of the two to start contemplating higher contracts.

West leads the top of his heart sequence against the no-trump game, and it would be easy to relax and to fail to focus on what might go wrong. You will have plenty of tricks if diamonds behave and the suit breaks 3-2. Similarly, if West has diamond length, you should be able to negotiate the position easily enough. But what if East has long diamonds? You cannot do much about a 5-0 break, and some 4-1 breaks will prove too challenging. But if West has the bare queen, or if he has a singleton nine or 10, you can take steps to neutralize the defenders’ holdings.

Win the heart king at trick one to preserve dummy’s entries, then lead to the diamond ace and observe the fall of West’s nine. You can now guarantee your contract by leading a low diamond from dummy and covering East’s card. If East plays the 10 or queen, you can set up the suit easily. If he plays low, you put on the eight, knowing that if West wins the trick, the suit will break 3-2. And if West shows out, as here, you cash the king, go to the club ace and play a fourth diamond. You still have a heart entry to the board to cash the fifth diamond.

Of course, if West turns up with four diamonds, go up with the king and play a third diamond.

Part of Goldilocks’ rent payment, apart from an extended duty cleaning dishes, is listening to the convoluted stories that the Three Bears bring back from the bridge club.

When this deal was played at their club, all three were sitting East, so they had the chance to compare results over the next morning’s porridge.

Papa Bear had seen nothing of interest in the deal at all. “I was a little surprised to score below average here. My partner found his only decent lead of the night — a small club. I won my jack and continued the suit, then took the spade jack with my queen and continued the attack on clubs, but declarer won and eventually drove out my spade ace. Since there was no way to reach my partner’s hand, South came to nine tricks easily enough.”

Mama Bear told her story next. “If I had been lucky enough to win the first club, I would have known to shift to hearts to try to kill dummy’s entry, or even shift to diamonds. My declarer took the first trick and ducked the next club, and now it was too late for the defense.”

“Not at my table!” interrupted Baby Bear. “My partner also led a club. Declarer won the trick and led a spade to the jack, which I ducked. He crossed to hand in hearts and led a spade up, which I won and reverted to clubs. Declarer could set up a long heart, but still had only eight tricks, since he did not have the entries to establish spades.”

Bob Hamman’s frequently repeated saying that the best play lousy and the rest play worse may be supported by what might appear to be an absurd series of results here. But some deals are just too challenging for ordinary mortals.

This deal comes from Salt Lake City 15 years ago. Where I was watching, Nicholas Gartaganis for Canada opened three spades as East, and Jacek Pszczola overcalled three no-trump. His partner, Michal Kwiecien, raised to four no-trump, and that ended the auction for plus-460. Nicely bid — but not all the other pairs were so reticent. In fact, the potential for swings was huge, since in all four matches of the playoffs and finals, one table opened the East hand four spades, and South overcalled five diamonds and was raised to six diamonds by North. With two aces to cash, can you guess how many of the four pairs of defenders allowed the slam to make?

Naturally, all four Wests led a spade. While I suppose you could make some sort of case for the club ace, it is just too likely to cost your side the second trick in that suit. All four Easts won their ace and knew that the most likely way to beat the slam was to collect a slow club trick or to cash an ace. If an ace was out, then a heart return now would only let through the contract if declarer had a doubleton ace-queen or ace-jack, along with a singleton club. So all four Easts played back a heart — contract made!

Here South has a simple call of two clubs on his first turn, but no reason to do more than rebid two no-trump on his second. This is invitational, not forcing; a two-over-one in competition does not even guarantee a second call.

After West leads the spade six against three no-trump, South must bring in the clubs to make his game, no matter who has the club ace. Imagine declarer plays low from dummy at trick one and East puts in the nine. South can duck to try to kill the spades, but this line of play will fail if East has the club ace. The duck will be fatal since East will later get the lead with the club ace and will run the spades.

Conversely, if the cards lie as they do in the diagram and South wins the first spade, West will grab his club ace and play a second spade through to kill the contract. However, assuming West has led from a doubleton spade, then to make sure of the contract regardless of the location of the club ace, South needs to put up the spade queen from dummy at once.

East must win with the ace, or South will still have the spade king poised over East’s ace, and the spades will not pose a threat. But if East now leads another spade, South can let it ride around to dummy’s 10, so East must shift. In turn, that gives South time to develop the clubs while he still has the protection of his spade king.

Even the best rules have exceptions. Ducking an ace when dummy has a singleton may persuade declarer to misguess the position. But how often can declarer misguess when you as defender hold both the ace and queen? Read on.

When France met Monaco in the European Championship, Geir Helgemo and Tor Helness for Monaco faced Michel and Thomas Bessis. Both tables played five spades here on the lead of the club king. South correctly inferred that clubs were breaking 5-1, so took the first trick.

In one room, when declarer drew trumps ending in dummy and called for dummy’s diamond, East rose with the ace — and now the contract was home without a struggle. Declarer could pitch one loser on the diamond king, then run the diamond jack, pitching from dummy again. All he lost was two diamonds. He took two diamonds, one club and eight trumps.

For Monaco, Helgemo also led the club king, won by the ace. Declarer drew trumps, ending in dummy, then played the diamond nine. When East, Helness, played low smoothly, Bessis called for the king, and from here on in had to go one down. His play was based on the fact that he was sure from the bidding that East had the ace. But had he played low from his hand, his nine would have held. After ruffing a heart to hand, he could have led out high diamonds from hand and discarded club losers from dummy.

East cannot prevent declarer from eventually coming to two diamond tricks, one club, and eight trumps.

In today’s deal, which comes from the semifinal of a regional knockout, Gavin Wolpert brought home a delicate game. He played it very nicely, but the deal just goes to prove that, as Bob Hamman said: The best play lousy and the rest play worse. See if you can spot how the defenders missed their chances.

The contract of four hearts looks fine — except on a diamond lead — but that is what West led. Wolpert ducked the diamond jack, then won the diamond continuation as West followed with his small diamond. Wolpert now led a low club to dummy’s queen, which won the trick. Yes, West could have flown up with the ace, but that would have looked silly if South had held king-third of clubs.

When the spade finesse held, Wolpert crossed his fingers and cashed the heart ace-king followed by the spade ace, before exiting with a third diamond.

Much to his surprise and pleasure, his LHO was forced to win the trick and had no spade or heart to lead. He could cash his club ace, but then had to lead a club and concede a ruff-and-discard. Wolpert could ruff in hand, discarding the spade from dummy. He could next ruff a spade to dummy, to draw the last trump and claim his contract.

So have you spotted the significant error on defense? West should have unblocked his diamond king at trick two, so that he could let East win the third diamond and avoid the endplay.

Today’s deal comes from the U.S. Nationals 15 years ago. It is often the case that virtue goes unrewarded at the bridge table, as a poor bid or play goes unpunished, or worse, is rewarded by a highly favorable lie of the cards. Today was not one of those days, though, since Jon Wittes and Ross Grabel used their system to get to the right spot, then took advantage of their auction to bring in a huge swing.

There are all sorts of methods to show controls in response to a two-club opening. The one in use here allocates one call to show an ace and king in the same suit, and another for three kings or an ace and king in separate suits. (By the way, these responses are better than responding in steps to show HCP.)

Wittes found his partner with the club ace and heart king on his first turn, then managed to bid his suits to give his partner an intelligent choice as to which slam to play.

After a trump lead, Wittes drew two rounds of clubs and cashed the diamond ace-king. Eureka! He ran into the specific lie of the cards that would reward his carefulness, where the same hand had short diamonds and no more than two clubs.

When one of the defenders showed out of diamonds but had no trumps with which to ruff, that allowed Wittes to ruff his diamond loser in dummy, draw the last trump and claim 13 tricks. This was a gain of 16 IMPs against seven diamonds down one in the other room.