Larry Cohen has written a teaching tool to improve your declarer play at no-trump you can find out more details at https://www.larryco.com/bridge-store/detail/larry-teaches-declarer-play-at-notrump). Today’s deal is from the book, and you are asked to form your plan in three no-trump after West leads the spade five, and East wins the ace to return the jack.

The first question is to decide how spades are breaking. When West follows with the spade three at trick two, it makes you think spades started out as five-three. You have eight top tricks: one spade, three hearts, two diamonds and two clubs. You can generate a ninth trick from a successful finesse in either diamonds or clubs. However, if you lose a finesse in either suit you will be defeated.

You have to try to combine your chances if you can. Since you don’t want to lose the lead, the best way to get two bites at the cherry is to cash the two top diamonds. This isn’t the percentage play in that suit, in abstract, since a finesse gives you better odds at even money. However, if the diamond queen drops, as it will one third of the time, you have 10 top tricks. If it doesn’t drop, you take the club finesse, after cashing the club ace to guard against a singleton queen offside.

So why to drop the diamond, not the club, queen? The reason is because you have eight diamonds and only seven clubs, so the likelihood of a doubleton queen in diamonds is higher than it would be in clubs.

After North uses Stayman and finds the heart fit, he may have a useful gadget available to him – one named after the late Grant Baze. He can jump to three spades, an artificial call promising slam interest with heart fit and an unspecified short suit, which he later reveals to be diamonds.

South’s hand fits his partner’s nicely if North has a singleton diamond, given his own outstanding trumps. If partner makes a try for slam when you have all the top trumps, you should never sign off. So he makes one effort, and that is enough for North to drive to six hearts.

It is never easy to know when to count losers, and when to count winners. In six hearts, if South can take the three club tricks and four trumps he needs to take two diamond ruffs in dummy. The problem is the entries back to hand: how is South to get to his hand to ruff a second diamond after taking the first ruff in dummy? Declarer needs to ensure that if he loses a club trick, it must be at a time when the opponents are not in position to take a diamond trick also.

The solution is to win the spade lead in dummy, cross to the diamond ace and take a club finesse. If it loses, play to ruff two diamonds while drawing trump, using the club jack as a re-entry to hand. If the club finesse holds, use trumps to come back to hand to ruff two diamonds, then ruff a spade to hand to draw the last trump.

The three little pigs have become quite proficient at duplicate bridge, though it is hard to persuade them away from their morbid fascination with MUD leads. In today’s deal, though, they revealed aspects of their personality in their play of a game on this deal.

All three of them sat South at different tables, and all played in three no-trump after receiving a simple overcall in spades from West. That player made his natural lead of the spade 10 and when dummy put up the ace, East unblocked the jack.

The little pig that made his house out of straw insouciantly took an immediate club finesse, won the third spade, and tried to drive out the diamond ace. West won and cashed out the spades for down two.

The second little pig, who relied on sticks, led a diamond from dummy towards his jack. Again, West won and cleared spades. Declarer could now test the diamonds before committing himself to clubs, but again, when the finesse lost, the defenders had six tricks.

The third little pig, who put his trust in bricks and mortar, understood that West’s decision to overcall and not make a weak jump marked him with both outstanding minor-suit honors. He came to hand with a heart to the queen, then led the diamond two toward dummy’s honors. If West had risen with the ace, South would have had four diamond tricks. When he played low, that gave declarer six top tricks, and he could now knock out the club king to claim his game.

Today you get to play four spades on the hand as shown, and then for a second time with a small change in the South hand.

On the deal as shown, I think the North hand should use Stayman rather than jumping straight to three no-trump, even though the latter contract might come home today.

After the lead of the diamond 10 against four spades, you can see three virtually inevitable heart losers. So you will need to find the spade queen onside. Is that the end of the story? Not quite. Your weak spades mean that you are virtually unable to protect yourself against a 4-1 spade break. The one singleton you can guard against is a singleton spade queen in West. So win the diamond lead in hand and lead towards the ace-jack, planning to put in the jack. When the queen pops up, you will be able to win, cash the spade jack, and finesse against East’s 10. If you start with the spade king, this option will not be open to you.

Now imagine you had the diamond six in your hand instead of the heart six. Again the defenders lead a diamond; how should you proceed? The answer is to win cheaply in hand and lead a spade to the ace, planning to play a spade back toward your K-9 and put in the nine if only small spades have appeared to this point. That allows you to make your game against any 4-1 spade break, unless a side-suit splits in totally unexpected fashion.

In the penultimate round of the 2016 European championships England and Italy met in a situation where only one of the two could qualify for the Bermuda Bowl. It was Italy who came out on top.

On this deal, for example, when England reached six clubs, West put his fingers on the devastating heart lead. But when Italy played slam, declarer, Lorenzo Lauria could win West’s spade lead with dummy’s ace, and ruff a spade. Then he drew two rounds of trump and eliminated the spades. He next ran the heart jack to East, who now had to find an exit.

When East made what seemed the natural move of exiting with a diamond, Lauria could win with the jack, lead a heart to dummy, and cash his two remaining clubs. On the last of these East was squeezed in the red suits and the slam came home.

Beautifully played, but East had the chance to do better. Can you see how?

East must win the heart and exit in spades, giving a ruff-sluff, rather than playing a diamond. This gives declarer an extra trick, but even though declarer can ruff in hand and pitch dummy’s losing heart, he cannot establish the hearts, for lack of entries to hand.

Should the defender have found this? Yes, if he believes West has seven-black suit cards, since West’s low heart play on the first round of the suit reveals he must be 3-3 in the red-suits, given the bidding. This should not detract from Lauria’s impeccable play as declarer, though.

Third hand high is all very well, but sometimes you need to know when not to follow the rules. This board came at the end of a round-robin match in the 2016 European championships last year, and saw both English pairs doing extremely well. This hand cemented their victory in a round-robin match.

In one room Andrew Robson, North, reached three no-trump. West decided he had enough to double this, since his partner had doubled one club. Robson ended with an overtrick after East unluckily decided that it would be a good moment for the lead of the spade queen. (He wasn’t entirely mistaken: had declarer held the bare jack of spades, or two small spades, instead of the doubleton spade jack, he might have been proved right.)

In the other room the auction was as shown in the diagram. The Hackett brothers were on defense, and Justin Hackett, having shown a shapely but limited take-out hand with his two club call, led a low spade. I think Jason Hackett did very well to refrain from playing the queen, but instead to put in the eight, forcing the 10. When declarer ran the clubs and led a heart toward his hand, the defenders had arranged to keep their red aces and each of them had retained three spades.

Jason could win his heart ace and shift to the spade queen, pinning dummy’s jack, allowing the suit to run on defense. So they defeated the contract by one trick, for a 14 IMP swing.

Benedicte Cronier, one of the world’s strongest woman players, stars in today’s deal from the 2016 European Championships. France were leading Croatia narrowly as this deal appeared.

South’s balanced hand influenced her to play three no-trump, but understandable as this might have been, four spades would have been easy by comparison, and had been bid and made by her opponents. So it gave Croatia a chance to pull the match out of the fire.

Had East played low at trick one when West led the diamond 10, declarer’s goose would have been cooked. Instead, East won her king and returned a low diamond, giving declarer the flimsiest of lifelines.

Cronier won the diamond return in dummy, then took the heart ace and led a low heart to her nine. That was the first of the slim chances she had to take. She next advanced the club jack from her hand, because she knew East had nine high cards in the red suits, so the club queen had to be to her left. She let it run when West resisted the temptation to cover, and next played a club to the king, cashed the spade ace and could return to hand with the club ace.

At this point she exited with the diamond queen from her hand. While East could win, and cash two more diamonds, she then had to lead a heart into declarer’s tenace. So Cronier had come to one spade and one diamond trick, together with three clubs and four hearts, for her contract.

In last year’s European Championships West led his singleton spade against four hearts, for the six, seven and ace. He ducked the first trump and took the second round, East having followed with the six and nine. How should West choose to get his ruff?

Had East played the heart nine followed by the six, that would have been suit preference for diamonds. His actual sequence of plays might have indicated no special preference. So West tried a club, and was disappointed with the result.

You could argue a diamond shift needs West to find less from partner, but why not lead your diamond ace and see if partner encourages? If not, shift to a club and hope for the best.

At another table Cedric Lorenzini, North, declared four spades. The defenders cashed two diamonds ending in West, then shifted to the club 10. (A third diamond was best, and would have defeated the game by force.)

Lorenzini saw that if trumps were 4-1, he would have to play on hearts before drawing all the trump. The defenders would then probably be able to duck a heart and take a ruff. So Lorenzini won the club in hand and thoughtfully advanced the heart king. When East showed an even number of hearts, West won the first heart and continued the attack on clubs. Now declarer could survive the bad trump break.

In the other room declarer drew two rounds of trump before playing hearts; now West knew to duck the first heart and defeat the game.

Today’s deal occurred in the European Championships from Hungary last year. In the match between England and Ireland (where there is always something more at stake than just victory points) both tables reached four spades when the first five bids were identical in both rooms. For England, David Bakhshi as West elected to try for the vulnerable game, and bid five hearts. When dummy appeared, he must have had high hopes. However after a spade lead and a diamond switch from South, ruffed by North, the 4-1 trump split took him one down, for 100 to Ireland.

In the other room the Irish West tried for a vulnerable penalty and doubled four spades. What would you have led with his hand? Hugh McGann made the right decision when he started with a trump, realizing the only way declarer could scramble any tricks was by a cross-ruff. Andrew Robson won in hand and slid the diamond nine on to the table.

When West fell from grace and played a small card, South let it run. East could win and return a trump, but declarer was now able to find a way home. He could ruff two diamonds in dummy, and the fall of the ace and queen meant he could establish the suit for 790 and a 12 IMP pick-up.

If West covers the first diamond, careful defense after that will allow East to regain the lead with the club ace and play a second trump, and now the defense prevails.