In today’s deal from Frank Stewart’s latest book, Keys to Winning Bridge, I’m going to show you what might happen at the table before discussing what should happen.

When West leads the diamond three against six hearts it goes to the four, jack, and king.

Declarer will take the heart ace and queen and run the spade queen from dummy to West’s ace. Back comes a second top diamond, and declarer wins in hand, ruffs a diamond, and should now take the ruffing finesse in spades rather than rely on the club finesse. If West has managed to keep his fingers off a top spade lead from the ace-king at trick one he deserves to beat you.

But the key to the deal is that East should cover the spade queen at trick four. If South has the spade ace, the contract is surely unbeatable. After all, East can count six trump tricks for South, the club ace, diamond ace-king and at least one diamond ruff in dummy. (Since West led the diamond three, he can have no more than five diamonds, leaving South with at least three.) In fact declarer rates to be cold for 13 tricks whatever you do.

When East’s spade king wins, he will exit passively in diamonds, and whether declarer plays on spades or clubs, the defenders will surely score another trick, one way or another.

Note also that declarer’s chances of obtaining a defensive error are much higher if he makes his first play in spades from dummy and not from hand.

In 2002, the Finals of the international match at Salt Lake City between Poland and Canada saw the latter win narrowly, despite scoring fewer than 1 1/2 IMPs per board. That was a testament to a relatively flat set of boards where both teams played very well.

This deal helped the winners’ cause. In one room they had been doubled and set 100 in three hearts, but here they declared four spades with remarkably few values, after North (Joe Silver) had donned a rosy pair of glasses.

Fred Gitelman as declarer received the lead of an unreadable diamond six, and took some while to plan the play. Eventually he won in hand and ruffed a heart, then led a spade to the king. West took this and returned the spade 10 – though a club shift might have worked better.

Gitelman won in hand and ruffed another heart, then led a low diamond from dummy, assuming that East would hold the diamond queen, and hoping that either diamonds would be 3-3, or that West would not have both a doubleton diamond and the last trump.

In fact East won the diamond queen and could do no better than play a fourth heart. Gitelman ruffed, drew the last trump, (pitching clubs from dummy) and led a club up to dummy, conceding just the club ace for 10 tricks.

For the record, had East taken the second diamond and returned the suit, declarer could have won it in hand to draw the last trump before playing a club to dummy.

Our last deal from the 2001 world championships contrasts two declarers in the same contract. First let’s see the unsuccessful declarer.

For Indonesia, Robert Tobing drove to slam on finding a limit raise opposite with one key card. After a club lead he ruffed his heart losers in dummy and relied on the diamond honors being onside, once the 3-1 trump split did not allow him an endplay. Down one.

However, in the match between Italy and USA-I, the commentators saw both Souths had made their slam, and hypothesized that there must have been a misdeal. How could the slam make?

Well, both Bob Hamman and Alfredo Versace reached slam after West had bid clubs. Both won the opening club lead to advance a diamond at trick two, reasoning West would surely split his honors if he held both the king and queen. When West followed low unconcernedly, (yes, it was necessary to play the king) both declarers changed tack and set out to find an endplay. They took the diamond ace, then cashed the hearts and ruffed a heart, ruffed a club, ruffed a heart, and ruffed a club. Then they drew precisely one trump, and exited with a diamond.

In the three-card ending West was on lead, with only clubs left to lead. On the forced ruff and discard, dummy could take the ruff and declarer the discard. A spectacular flat board, while both West players and the vugraph commentators reached quickly (but a little too late) for the veil of anonymity.

At the 2001 Bermuda Bowl in Paris the USA suffered maybe their most humiliating defeat against Italy ever. With 32 deals to go the match was almost tied, but then the roof fell in and they lost the last two sets of the match by over 100 IMPs, having been held virtually scoreless in both sets.

Here, for example, both tables reached four hearts, leaving the two Wests with about the same amount of information. Say you lead a top club – and infer from trick one that partner has one or two clubs; what would you do now?

For the USA, Jeff Meckstroth shifted to a diamond – which looks logical enough. Declarer won and ducked a club to Meckstroth, won the next trump in dummy, ruffed a club, crossed with a diamond ruff and ruffed a club, then drew the last trumps, and claimed 10 tricks. Had Meckstroth played back a spade at trick four, declarer could have cross-ruffed to 10 tricks.

By contrast, Alfredo Versace shifted to a spade at trick two, knocking out the late entry to dummy. This is the only defense to succeed here (a trump shift lets declarer overtake and play clubs from hand).

The American declarer could do nothing now. He chose to duck this trick — hoping to be allowed to play a crossruff or set up the clubs — but Lorenzo Lauria overtook the spade queen and gave his partner the ruff, for down one. Very nicely done after the club lead; of course most leads but a top club also succeed outright.

Experts often play the hands better with the sight of only 26 cards than the commentators, who can study all 52 cards. At the World Championships in Paris in 2001, in the match between USA-I and Italy, the Italians bid unopposed to four hearts, and escaped for minus 100. In the other room Norberto Bocchi reached five diamonds as South, and Eric Rodwell found the killing heart lead.

But of course a ‘killing’ lead is in the eye of the beholder. Bocchi had heard East overcall to show the majors, so when Jeff Meckstroth shifted to a spade at trick two, Bocchi took what looks like a practice finesse of the queen. When it held, he cashed the spade ace and ruffed a spade, then took the diamond ace and used the top clubs as entries to eliminate the hearts. In the four-card ending he could exit to East with the second diamond.

At this point three tricks had been played in each major and two in each minor, and East had only major-suit cards to lead. Declarer could pitch his club loser from hand and ruff in dummy, to take 11 tricks and gain 7 IMPs. Beautifully played – and note that if Bocchi does not take the spade finesse at trick two, he runs out of trumps and entries to make the winning play.

This line was duplicated by Sabine Auken in the Women’s series in five diamonds – she also had the same information that East had a good hand with both majors, but it was still a very fine play.

The German ladies won the women’s world championships in 2001 after a stunning come-from-behind victory against France. But this deal was from their quarter-final victory over USA.

In one room Jill Meyers declared three no-trump and Sabine Auken led a top diamond. Meyers ducked this, won the next diamond, and played the heart king out of her hand, hoping East had one of the top heart honors. A good try, but declarer still had to go down one.

Meanwhile in the other room Andrea Rauscheid declared four hearts. She won the diamond lead and played to ruff a diamond in dummy, then finessed the heart jack.

Irina Levitina won the queen and shifted to spades. Declarer won in hand and exited with a low heart, letting Levitina hop up with her ace, to play a second spade. Rauscheid took this and cut loose with a third spade. What was the defense to do? If East, Lynn Baker, won the trick, a ruff and discard would let Rauscheid pitch a club from hand, while a club lead would obviously be fatal.

So Levitina correctly ruffed her partner’s spade winner. But now, since a diamond would concede a ruff and discard, the best she could do was to lead a low club. Accurately defended, but Rauscheid had been given a minute extra chance in clubs, and she took it, by putting in the eight. That extra chance turned out to be relevant today, since Baker had to play the queen, and that was declarer’s 10th trick.

When Norway took on Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the Bermuda Bowl in 2001, the Indonesians tended to go for the more direct route, the Norwegians followed a more cerebral approach. But that was not always the case.

On this deal, the Indonesians had discovered their four-four heart fit, and played game there, a contract that went two down on the diamond ruff. By contrast, Erik Saelensminde located the heart suit opposite, but then deliberately bypassed the 4-4 heart fit.

Given that his partner’s ruffing value in spades was wasted at no-trump, he certainly emerged smelling of roses. To be fair, it is hard to see how to offer a choice of hearts or no-trump sensibly on this deal; still, I think declarer is due a lot of credit here.

Of course it is one thing to bid the game, another to make it. Three no-trump, on a club lead to the 10 and queen, was by no means cold. Saelensminde won in hand and knocked out the heart ace; now West shifted to a diamond.

That let East win and lead a spade through, but Saelensminde put up the ace and cashed all his club and heart winners, ending in dummy, then exited with the fourth club to force West to lead spades into the tenace. Nicely done!

On a club continuation at trick three, there would also have been a lot of play left in the board. But if declarer plays for diamonds 4-1 and ducks a diamond early, he can always succeed.

Zia Mahmood has the reputation of a player always looking for the spectacular coup, but he is also a fine technical player, who works hard to extract every possible piece of information before committing himself.

He found a very thoughtful play on this deal, from the Summer Nationals in Washington 15 years ago. It came up in the early stages of the Spingold Trophy, the primary knockout event of the championships.

He reached five clubs here in the face of strong competition in hearts, and West slipped fractionally by leading the heart king and ace (a play for which one can hardly blame him though a club shift beats the game, and a spade might well do so). Zia ruffed, and instead of simply relying on the double finesse in spades, he decided to strip out the diamond suit just in case something happened. Did it ever!

On the second diamond West produced the queen, then Zia ruffed the third diamond high as West discarded. East was now virtually marked with a 2-4-6-1 shape, and Zia decided that East’s preempt, coupled with West’s decision not to double the final contract meant that East was likely to have the club ace. So he worked out that that the right play was to lead to the spade queen, cash the spade ace and exit with a club. It worked: East had the doubleton spade jack together with a singleton club, and when he won his bare club ace, he was endplayed to concede the ruff and discard.