Hands up everyone who thought they recognized this deal as being recycled from the previous month? Well done if you thought the hand looks familiar – but there is a material change between the two deals. The heart and club aces have switched locations, and this has a significant impact on how to play three no-trump when West leads the spade 10 against three no-trump. South must decide whether to win or duck, and which suit to attack first.

The question of whether to win or duck is often a complex one when you have two high cards to knock out. With two entries missing in the same suit, you generally do best to duck if you are not afraid of any shift, as here.

This line of play will see you home if spades are four-four, since the defenders take only two tricks in each black suit, or if spades are 6-2 — unless the hand with long spades has both top clubs. The point is that when East takes the first club he has no spade to lead, and if West wins the first club, he no longer has an entry to his suit.

But what if, as here, spades are 5-3 and the club honors split, with West not holding a singleton honor? You still have a decent chance to succeed so long as you duck trick one and win the second spade. Then you cross to a top heart in dummy to lead a low club towards your hand. If East flies up with the king to clear spades, he deserves to beat you!

In today’s deal South declared four spades after deciding to exploit the vulnerability by pre-empting to the limit in third seat.

West kicked off with the heart king, and South ruffed and led the diamond 10 to the queen, hoping to muddy the waters in that suit. His maneuver was successful, because even though West played the diamond five on this trick, trying to show an even number of cards, East elected to play South for a singleton diamond. So he won his ace to return a club. South ducked, and when that forced West’s queen, declarer was home free, losing just one trump trick, to make 10 tricks.

Had declarer followed a less deceptive route in the diamond suit, East might have worked out that declarer actually had three diamonds and at least two clubs. In that case he might have found the killing defense at the point that he won the diamond ace. He should shift to the club 10, surrounding the nine in dummy. South must cover the 10 with the jack, and West wins and returns a club. Whatever declarer does, he cannot stop the defenders establishing a second fast winner in clubs. Declarer can draw two rounds of trump and play on diamonds, but West will ruff in and cash the club winner for down one.

This surrounding play in the club suit is often done when holding a top honor and the jack, with the 10 visible in dummy, but this is a parallel example and perhaps a little harder to spot.

Place your bets, gentle reader: will declarer prevail or can the defense defeat South’s four heart contract, North having opened the bidding then rebid two no-trump to show a balanced 18-19?

When West led the spade jack, North’s queen lost to the king, and East returned the diamond 10. Declarer won dummy’s queen and advanced the heart nine. East played low, West won with the ace and returned a diamond to the ace. Dummy’s last trump was led, on which East played the king, but that was the last trick for the defense.

East had missed his chance to defeat the game. He must play West to hold the trump ace, (or declarer must have four heart tricks and six plain winners). So East should steel himself to go up with the king on the first heart, then return his last diamond. Now when West wins the trump ace, he can return a diamond for East to ruff with his heart jack.

So is your money on the defenders? Not so fast: technically, declarer missed his opportunity at the opening lead. If he puts up the spade ace, then immediately plays a trump, he will make his contract.

However, on the lead of the spade jack, declarer has to compare the chances of the spade king being offside, as opposed to the chance that he can play hearts for two losers. This is a close calculation: declarer can see the chances that the defenders might have a ruff coming, but it is hard to reject a legitimate finesse, isn’t it?

At the Dyspeptics Club, East and West are used to defending against high-level contracts with South at the helm. They are aware that he will often fail to give his contract his best shot, but on this occasion it was East who missed his chance. All credit to South, though, for putting the opponents under pressure.

After West did his best to put a spoke in the opponents’ wheel, North offered his partner a chance to bid slam, and nothing could hold South back after that. In six spades South won the top heart lead, cashed the spade king, led a trump to the ace, and ruffed a heart. Then he cashed the three top diamonds, East discarding a heart, and ruffed the fourth diamond while East discarded a second heart.

Now after considerable thought South came to the right conclusion when he exited with a trump. East was reduced to four clubs only, and when he returned a low club, South played low, claiming the balance when West was forced to put up his queen.

East should have realized that his only chance to beat the hand was to find his partner with one of the king or queen of clubs. Whichever West has, there was no need to keep all four clubs. If East discards a small club on the fourth diamond, then he will be able to exit with a heart after winning the third trump. Now declarer would have had to guess to drop the doubleton club queen to make his slam – and there would have been no reason to do that.

In today’s deal when North raised to two spades at his first turn, South might have driven to four spades and received a diamond lead. Perhaps unwisely, he tried a three heart call (three diamonds might have been more accurate, since that is the suit South really wants help in). Now when North bid four spades, West led a low trump, avoiding giving away the contract with a diamond lead.

It might seem natural to draw trumps and try to guess diamonds, but declarer decided he would try and find out more about the hand before committing himself. So he played a club to the king at trick two. East won and shifted to hearts, letting West take his ace, cash his club queen and exit in trumps.

Now South won in hand, ruffed out the hearts, and trumped a club high. At this point South knew that West had started with exactly two clubs and three trumps; this left him with eight cards in the red suits. East had pitched clubs on the second and third trumps, and each defender had followed with small hearts on the third round.

Since East had shifted to a low heart at trick three, the odds were that each defender had one of the jack and 10, so that suggested hearts were originally 4-4, and therefore West had begun with four of the missing six diamonds.

So declarer cashed the diamond ace and successfully finessed West for the diamond queen.

This month I am delighted to be able to run deals from Frank Stewart’s new book. Keys to Winning Bridge is not only a book with tips that will help players at all levels, it is also a book with a social conscience, since Frank devotes all the income from the book to his local Fayette charities. For details of the book and other of his works, go to http://www.bridgeworld.com/indexphp.php?page=/pages/bookstore/authorgallerypages/authorgallerypage_251.html.

This is a declarer play problem from the book. As Stewart says, correct timing requires an ability to visualize and manipulate a card array; it requires foresight acquired through practice.

Against three no-trump West leads a low heart, and declarer puts up dummy’s jack, winning the trick. I’m willing to bet the majority of declarers would take a diamond finesse next. If they do so, West will win and lead a club, putting South to a nasty guess, since now South has only eight top tricks. He can make his game if the club finesse works or if spades break 3-3, but he must decide which play to try.

For example, in the diagramed position declarer must play on spades. But switch the club king and spade five, for instance. Now if South rejects the club finesse, West can pitch hearts and keep enough clubs to set the game.

After South wins the first trick, he should take his three high spades. Should the suit break 4-2, South would know he needed the club finesse if the diamond finesse didn’t work.

In today’s deal from a head to head match there were contrasting approaches taken by the two declarers in four spades. One relaxed, envisaging that there were just three aces to lose, and consequently went down without a fight, while the other recognized the danger signals and took careful evasive action.

At both tables South ended in four spades, and in each case the lead was a small heart, allowing East to take his ace and return the suit. That let declarer win in hand and take it from there.

At one table South simply played a spade toward dummy’s king. West won, and returned a heart for his partner to ruff. The diamond ace was the setting trick.

The second declarer, seeing the lead of the heart three, suggesting five in West’s methods, immediately played on clubs. He overtook his second honor with dummy’s ace, throwing a heart from his hand on the club jack.

It would have been easy to relax now and play a spade to the queen and ace, but South saw the risks associated with that. West could have won and played a third heart, to promote a trump for his partner.

Instead, South ruffed a heart back to hand and led a low spade toward the dummy. It now did not matter if West went up with the ace and played a third heart, as he did, hoping his partner had the spade queen instead of the jack. As the cards lay, declarer was safe against any defense.

After the overcall of two no-trump by West to show the minors, North’s three spade call suggested the shape and values for a simple spade raise. With a better hand North could double to show defense, or cuebid three clubs or three diamonds. One of those bids shows hearts and a good hand, one a limit raise in spades. That lets a direct three heart call be non-forcing.

Against four spades West led the heart two, to the nine and ace. Dummy’s diamond length was very bad news, but declarer did his best by drawing trump ending in dummy. He now needed to build the diamonds into an extra trick – but he was still in danger of running out of trumps.

So at trick five South led the club four. The idea was to keep East off lead if humanly possible, so declarer needed him to have only one club honor — or to make a mistake by failing to put up a high card from a holding such as Q10xx.

When East played low on the first club declarer inserted the nine. West won cheaply and returned a club to the ace. Declarer countered with the diamond queen, hoping to get lucky and find East with a significant singleton – the nine or jack. After winning his diamond king, West could see that a diamond return would be fatal. So he led back a club. Dummy ruffed, while declarer discarded the heart four from hand. Now South ran the diamond eight round to West’s jack, and claimed the rest.