On this hand from the 1995 World Junior Championships the two instructive themes are firstly to try to cherish your partner, and secondly that you may be able to protect him from the consequences of his error, if you do not allow emotion to get in the way.

When West led the club eight, (third highest from three or four cards) Andrew Moss as East won his queen and had to decide what to do next.

He saw that if the defense could play three rounds of spades it would promote a trump trick for the defense. So Moss switched to the spade queen; when he followed up with the spade king, he made it easy for his partner to work out to overtake and play a third spade.

Arguably, this is no more than routine good technique. But what if (as happened at some tables) your partner, having overdone the Sunday lunch, supinely plays low on the second spade?

As East you know declarer has all the top red-suit cards, and that he cannot ruff any spades in dummy. Since you can see at least two club tricks for him, declarer must have a 4-5-2-2 shape for the play so far to make any sense. Switch back to a club now, to break up a squeeze on your partner in the black suits.

If you play back a diamond for example, declarer takes his seven red suit winners and the last trump forces your partner to concede. By breaking up a squeeze on your partner, you should earn plenty of Brownie points.

One of the arts in defense is to know when to be an optimist. If you need partner to have a specific card to beat a hand, then assume he has it and defend accordingly.

Here, when West led the heart three against three no-trump, East won his king and returned the heart 10 to dummy’s ace. South continued with a low club from dummy. East let declarer win in hand and South now switched horses by leading a diamond to the king and ace. At this point, the defense could do nothing to defeat South’s game.

However, at trick one East should have worked harder on his addition and subtraction. Since he and dummy hold 24 HCP between them, and South has admitted to at least 15 HCP, that leaves West with at most one point. To have any chance to set the game East must assume this is the heart jack.

Since East can see his partner has no more than five hearts, and that he needs to maintain communication with partner within the heart suit, East must follow with the 10, breaking a cardinal rule and finessing against partner.

Unless declarer has superhuman powers he will win his queen, and go after a minor. East should rush up with his ace and complete the unblock in hearts by returning his king to dummy’s ace. East will take his remaining ace at soon as he can, and revert to hearts to set the game.

And if declarer ducks his heart queen at trick one? Then find an easier game to play in.

Today’s deal demonstrates how to have your cake and eat it too. When playing teams you want to ensure making your contract if you can, or defeating it if humanly possible. Overtricks and undertricks are the lifeblood of the pairs game, but basically irrelevant at teams.

So let’s look at a pairs deal, where you declare four hearts on the defense of three rounds of spades, ruffed in hand. Your target is to make as many tricks as possible, while not going down if you can avoid it.

If you play hearts from the top and find the 4-1 break, there is nothing you can do to recover, against competent defense. West will ruff the third round of clubs, then exit with the heart jack, if declarer has drawn only two rounds of trump, or exit in spades if declarer drew three rounds of trump.

So what can declarer do to sidestep this outcome? You could play ace and a low heart, giving up a trump trick to settle for 10 winners. But if hearts break, you would then have sacrificed a trick for nothing.

A better line, which combines safety with excellent chances for 11 winners, is to cash one heart, then cross to dummy with a club to lead a second round of trump. When East discards, you put in the 10, and can claim the rest after West wins the jack. If East follows to the second trump, win the king, and unless West shows out, you have the rest. If West discards, try to cross to a top club to finesse in trumps.

My wife Judy was previously married to the late Norman Kay, one of the strongest players never to win a world title. He declared this deal, from the semifinals of the 1968 Olympiad.

Norman was always a deliberate player, and when West led the spade jack, he took considerable time before committing himself. Eventually he won, tested the hearts and, when they broke 3-3, took the diamond finesse for an overtrick.

Was his line of play the best? It fails had hearts divided 4-2 with the diamond finesse wrong. As against that, playing on diamonds first might work if that suit divided evenly. But if the diamond ace is followed by a diamond to the queen, which is allowed to win, does declarer now risk a third diamond, or does he try the hearts?

Once you have identified the problem, maybe you can spot the best play for declarer. This would have been to try a low diamond towards the queen before releasing the ace. If the queen wins, you are still in control in the diamond suit and can even cope with a bad heart break by coming to hand in spades and leading a low heart to the 10. This loses only to the bare heart jack in East. And of course if the diamond queen loses to the king, there is still time to test both red suits.

So were the US lucky here? Not exactly; in the other room the Dutch declarer was in seven no-trump — which simply needed both hearts 3-3 and the diamond finesse to work.

Wash your mouth out with soap and water if you even thought of opening today’s North hand one no-trump. After North opens one diamond and jumps to three diamonds, South has to decide between passing and trying for the no-trump game. He has only an eight-count, but the diamond jack may be useful in establishing the diamonds. It seems right to me to take a shot at three no-trump.

Now let’s switch to the defenders; as West, would you consider leading the club queen? It is certainly the right suit to lead, but the queen is unquestionably the wrong card. The most likely way to beat the hand is by finding partner with a top honor in clubs, but if that is so, it must be right to lead a small club. It may be necessary to unblock the suit in several scenarios, for example if partner has the doubleton ace, king or 10 of clubs.

OK, let’s switch back to declarer’s seat. When West leads a small club, which club should you play from dummy at trick one?

If the clubs are 4-3, your play will be irrelevant; but the clubs pose no danger, since there are only three tricks for the defenders to cash. If the clubs are 5-2 with East having a significant doubleton honor, you must play the ace to block the clubs. Try it out — and you will see that it works. You win the ace, drive out the diamond ace, and the defenders cannot run clubs whether East unblocked his club king at trick one or not.

In today’s deal South could not bear to conceal his five-card major at his first turn. West’s cuebid of two hearts showed 5-5 in spades and a minor, and now South tried to make up for lost time by rebidding three no-trump at his next turn. North read him as having a far stronger hand than this and leapt to six hearts, a contract that would have been easy had South held a doubleton in diamonds rather than spades. As it was, though, slam was very tricky to play after a spade lead, since the diamond king was surely going to be offside. Can you spot declarer’s best chance?

Declarer should win the spade lead and draw only two rounds of trump with the ace and queen. Then he must rely on four rounds of clubs standing up – almost a given, since the two-suited overcall means West can hardly hold more than two clubs. After pitching a spade on the fourth club, South can ruff a spade to hand, draw the last trump with the heart king, and reduce to a four-card ending where he has three diamonds and a trump in each hand.

Now he can lead the diamond nine from dummy, planning to let it run to West to endplay that player. If East holds one of the jack or 10 of diamonds, he will be at liberty to cover the nine, but South can play the queen. Though West can win the king, he must next lead back a diamond, and dummy’s eight will win the trick.

Ben Zeidenberg is a Canadian who represented his country as a junior. Today’s deal came up in a world junior qualifying event, and it is the sort of example where it is easy to play too fast, and regret your haste later. At the table Ben had not been tipped off that this was a challenging deal, but he still found the right play when it really counted.

The contract of four spades had been reached after some optimistic bidding from Zeidenberg’s partner – but after all, what is new when you are a junior?

In four spades Ben received the lead of the heart ace, and West then accurately switched to a diamond. Dummy’s 10 won the trick, and Zeidenberg ran the spade 10 to the ace.

West gave his partner a diamond ruff, and on this trick Ben carefully unblocked the diamond king, a necessary move to set the stage for the marked finesse in diamonds. Now a second heart came back, won in dummy. Ben than ran all the trump, finishing in hand. As you can see, the thoughtful unblock in diamonds now allowed him to take the diamond finesse. He could therefore reach a three-card ending in which dummy had the king-eight of hearts and the club queen, while declarer had three clubs in hand. East, who had sole guard of both clubs and hearts, was forced to keep two hearts and thus come down to the singleton king of clubs, so declarer scored his club 10 at trick 13.

The system in use at the Dyspeptics Club rubber game include transfer responses to one no-trump. So when South picked up his usual collection of high cards and opened one no-trump, North could look with favor on his aces and kings and transfer to spades, followed by a quantitative jump to four no-trump. That was a sensible valuation of his cards. South, who had never met a 16-count he didn’t like, leapt to the spade slam, and there they were. For the record, to set spades as trump then use Blackwood, start with a Texas transfer at the four level.

At the table the play matched the speed of the bidding but not the accuracy. South won the second round of hearts, then played three rounds of clubs, ruffing in hand as West pitched a diamond. Then he tried the spade queen and jack, deciding not to overtake because of the sight of East’s spade nine on the first round. He barely had time to pat himself on his back when West ruffed the second diamond, and down went the contract.

South’s protestations of being born under an unlucky star cut no ice with North – who knew how many points that player was normally dealt. But there was a second reason too; can you see it?

South should have cashed one round of trumps, then the diamond ace and king, before ruffing the club in hand. Once that passes off peacefully, declarer can unblock in trumps then safely ruff a diamond to dummy to complete the drawing of trump.

In today’s contract of six clubs, focus on ensuring your spade winners do not get ruffed away. Trump the heart lead at trick one and cash two high clubs from your hand. When East shows up with three, he is favorite to be the hand short in spades, if anyone is, so take the spade king and lead towards the ace. If East ruffs, you can later cash the ace and ruff the fourth round of spades. If East discards, take the ace, give up a spade, then ruff the fourth round with dummy’s king (if East ruffs his partner’s winner he no longer has a trump to play).

Your target is to protect your spade honors by following suit with your second honor after the defender with the last trump. Had you cashed the ace and led to the king, East would ruff, and you must lose another spade later. Had West turned up with three trumps, you would have played spades by first cashing the ace from hand.

One other point is that you must retain a high trump in dummy to be able to ruff the fourth round of spades high. If you use dummy’s king to draw an early round of trump, East can discard on the second round of spades and later ruff the fourth round with the club 10.

The alternative approach of cashing just one round of trump before playing spades loses when trumps are 2-2 or 3-1 and you misguess who has short spades. It gains only when the same hand has singletons in both black suits.