Today’s deal cropped up in the finals of the 2012 Women’s World Championships between England and Russia.

Both tables declared four spades rather than the simpler contract of three no-trump. When Susan Stockdale was South, West led the heart 10. Stockdale won with dummy’s ace and advanced the spade queen. When that held, she played a spade to her 10 and drew the outstanding trump, while West discarded the heart two.

Now declarer followed the sound principle of eliminating the side suits by cashing her top hearts, with East discarding an encouraging diamond. Declarer exited with the diamond jack, and West put up the king and returned the 10 for the eight, five and ace.

South now exited with a diamond, and when East won to play a club, she ducked. She knew the defenders would be able to take only one club, since West would be endplayed on winning her club honor.

When Natalia Ponomareva for Russia was declarer, West also led a top heart, and the play to the first six tricks was identical. But when South led the diamond jack, Nevena Senior as West made a good play by ducking. Now Heather Dhondy was able to win and switch to the club six, which Senior won with her king to return a devious diamond 10, rather than the king.

Declarer assumed that East had the diamond king, so she ducked, hoping West had no more diamonds. But now Senior could exit with the diamond king, and declarer had to lose another club trick eventually.

Today’s deal sees a point of general principles, together with the challenging issue of trying to use empathy at the table. As a defender, you need to put yourself in declarer’s position and try to work out what he would have done with certain hands.

The first issue arises in the auction. East should not open with a pre-empt of course, or come in over one no-trump. But balancing over two hearts, while not without risk, makes sense, either at pairs, or non-vulnerable at teams or rubber. More to the point, West must not re-compete to three spades here; his partner has already bid every single one of his values for him!

Against three hearts, you should lead the king in partner’s suit, not the ace, even if your agreement is to lead ace from ace-king in general. Regardless, West will probably continue with two more rounds of spades, and declarer will ruff and lead a low heart from hand.

West wins with the queen, exits with a club and … surely you didn’t fall for that as East, did you? When declarer leads a low heart from hand at trick four and West plays the queen, what should East imagine is going on? Surely if declarer had king-sixth or -seventh of hearts, he would cross to dummy in a minor to play trumps? The only reason for leading trumps from hand is that the whole deal looks very much like the diagram. East must overtake the trump, lead a fourth spade and score his side’s trumps separately for down one.

If you enjoy traveling to play bridge, consider the Gold Coast tournament in Brisbane. The event, held every February, has everything: beaches, sun, sand and restaurants, but primarily a week-long splendidly run tournament with a world-class field, as well as sections for intermediates, novices and seniors.

In a deal from the main pairs final, Griff Ware and Michael Ware — who are unrelated, but whose convention card had the players’ names as ‘AWare’ and ‘BWare’ — bid to six no-trump on a quantitative sequence after Michael, as declarer, had shown a balanced strong no-trump with four hearts.

West resisted the temptation to lead a club. While repeated heart leads might have worked out best, he led a spade and then cashed his spade ace to exit with a third spade.

Now declarer ran the remaining spades and the diamonds, and the last spade squeezed East, who knew that he had to retain four hearts, so was forced to relinquish a club. Reading the position perfectly, Ware pitched a heart from hand, then cashed the three top hearts. Finally, he decided that the combination of West’s earlier passive defense, coupled with the discard, had indicated that he held the club king. So he led the club queen to pin the jack, thereby establishing his extra club winner to emerge with a stone-cold top for his troubles.

As the bulletin from the tournament quipped, playing against one Ware is bad enough – playing against two of them must be doubly wearing.

Bobby Fischer’s now-famous chess dictum is that when you have seen a good move, you should look for a better one. Today’s deal exemplifies this. South opened one no-trump, North raised to game, ignoring his club suit, and West led the spade queen.

Declarer correctly observed that there would be a painless nine tricks if the club finesse succeeded, but if it failed, a switch to hearts by East might be highly uncomfortable.

Given that it was rubber bridge, it struck declarer that there was no need to take the club finesse. Playing the ace would gain if East held the singleton king, and even if West came to an undeserved trick with the king, the play of a spade, heart or diamond would give South his ninth trick.

Pleased with his analysis, declarer won the lead on the table and cashed the club ace, then continued with another club. East won and might have continued spades had West not guessed to discard the spade eight, prompting East to switch to the heart jack. When the finesse failed, the defenders cleared hearts and West discarded correctly, leaving declarer with only eight tricks when the diamond finesse failed.

The idea of playing the ace and another club was a good one, but South missed an even better play. Once both opponents follow to the club ace, a finesse of the diamond 10 absolutely guarantees the ninth trick. Whichever suit West chooses to return brings in an extra trick. Only then does declarer establish the clubs.

Consider the fate of the likely final contract of four hearts on this deal from the Politiken World Pairs.

On a minor-suit lead, declarer can simply win and take a heart finesse. The best defense now is to shift to spades, but South wins the king, gives up a heart, and now has 10 tricks.

So a spade lead must be best for the defense. What happens if declarer puts up the king after a deceptive low spade lead, then leads a trump? This is what happened when Jaggy Shivsdasani of India was declarer.

Larry Cohen, East, won his heart ace and thoughtfully continued with the spade jack. (He was known to hold the queen from the earlier play in the suit, so he wanted to make sure his partner knew what was going on.) Steve Weinstein (West) overtook the jack and played a third spade. This forced declarer to ruff, then cross to dummy in diamonds and lead a low heart, putting in the jack when East discarded.

Declarer was all set to concede one trump and claim the rest, but Weinstein ducked his trump queen! Now declarer could cash the heart king and play on diamonds, but West could ruff the third round and exit with a spade, leaving declarer with a losing club for down one.

If declarer had played on diamonds without cashing the trump king, West would again have ruffed the third diamond and exited with the trump queen. Cut off from dummy forever, declarer would eventually have had to surrender a club to East.

This deal is one of my favorite defensive problems, despite my being on the wrong end of it. (I sat East when it came in a long-ago Vanderbilt match.)

Put yourself in the West seat. Your partner opens one club in second seat, and you end up defending three spades — you don’t have to like it, but since four hearts your way on a spade lead would not have come home, at least you now have a chance for a plus score.

Against three spades, you lead your singleton club, and partner takes his ace as declarer follows with the six. Partner returns the club eight, declarer produces the king, and you ruff. What next?

Declarer’s shape is virtually known to be 6-2 in the black suits. Given that, you can set the contract for sure if declarer is 6-2-3-2 (partner has a spade trick, you have a heart trick plus the diamond ace, and you already have two club tricks in the bag). And if partner has no spade honor, he certainly has at least one diamond trick.

But what if your partner’s hand consists of a 4-2-2-5 pattern with the club honors, the spade ace and the diamond jack?

This would mean that declarer will pull through by squashing both your spade jack and partner’s diamond jack — unless you find the low diamond switch at trick three. Then your partner can arrange a diamond ruff when in with his trump winner. This was indeed the actual layout; alas, the rationale for the diamond switch only emerged in the post mortem.

Today’s deal sees a contract of four spades that looks easy to defeat, but where the fate of the contract swung back and forth before the result was finally reached.

North-South were playing the simple spade raise as mildly constructive, so South felt he had just enough for a game try. In context, North’s club spots looked like they should be useful, so he bid game, reaching a contract that rated to have at least four top losers most of the time. But West was not in on the game; he made his natural lead of the diamond 10. Declarer won in hand and had only to cash his top trumps, take his discard on the diamonds and give up three tricks. What could go wrong?

At trick two, South cashed the spade ace, and East craftily dropped the jack. Declarer delayed his trump guess, taking the three top diamonds, then playing a club to his king. When it held, he led a spade to the 10. Disaster! East won with his jack, led a low heart to his partner and ruffed the fourth diamond with the nine, then cashed the club ace for down one.

In retrospect, did declarer do anything terrible? Had no spade honor appeared at trick two, cashing the top spades early would have protected declarer against the same hand being short in both spades and diamonds. Maybe South could have led the fourth diamond to discard the heart loser instead of playing on clubs, but that course would have carried risks of its own.

In action on today’s hand is Zia Mahmood, playing in the 1999 U.S. Spingold Teams. After finding an unhelpful trump division, he took full advantage of the inferences available from the bidding to bring home his five-level contract.

After Mahmood, South, opened one heart, West doubled for take-out and North redoubled. East bid two spades, and Mahmood jumped to four hearts. West now bid four spades (a contract that makes), but Mahmood bid on, making a move toward slam; however, the partnership came to rest in five hearts.

The defenders began by cashing two spade tricks, then switched to a diamond. South took his ace and played the heart ace, discovering that East held the balance of the trumps. Zia’s next move was to finesse the club 10. When it held, he cashed the ace, discarding a diamond, then played the king. East ruffed, and declarer over-ruffed, then drew the outstanding trump and returned to dummy on the third round of trumps to pitch his last diamond on the club queen.

Why the spectacular finesse of the club 10? Zia had noticed from the bidding that West was likely to have at least four cards in each minor, especially after he had shown out in hearts. If he had simply played clubs from the top and East had ruffed the third (as he would have), declarer would have needed two further entries to dummy: one to set up a club winner and a second to cash it for the last diamond discard. And those entries would not have been there.

On this deal from an Open Pairs event a few years ago, Barnet Shenkin, formerly of Scotland, was the hero. He was playing with another Scottish expatriate, Sam Levinson.

Against four spades, West led the diamond king to Shenkin’s ace, and declarer played the spade king at trick two to East’s ace. Next came the diamond jack, followed by a third round of the suit, ruffed by Shenkin. Declarer got the bad news in trumps when he cashed the spade queen. Undaunted, he continued with a heart to dummy’s king (it would not have profited West to ruff a loser), followed by a club to his jack.

Shenkin then took the club ace and played a spade to dummy’s nine. East was already starting to feel the pressure, and it became unbearable when Shenkin cashed the spade jack.

In the four-card ending, what was East to do? A heart discard was out of the question, so he had to let go of a club. Shenkin then exited with the club queen, putting East on play in the two-card ending and forcing him to lead from his Q-10 of hearts into the tenace in dummy.

Did you notice the defensive resource? Shenkin remarked afterward that maybe he should have ducked the first trick to cut the defenders’ communications. Had East won the spade ace and given his partner a ruff by leading a suit-preference heart 10, West could then have underled his diamonds and received a second ruff.