It is logical for South to open two no-trump, showing 20-21, and for North to bid what he thinks his partner can make, by jumping to six no-trump. The 5-4 diamond fit never gets mentioned, but in fact no-trump plays just fine.

After the lead of the club 10 to the queen, declarer can almost count 12 winners, but he sees there may be one small catch. He can pick up a 4-0 diamond division on either side, provided he knows which defender has four diamonds. Is there a way to thwart a potentially malign fate here?

South can improve his chances by delaying the decision in diamonds as long as possible, specifically by ducking a spade at trick two. West plays low and declarer puts in dummy’s 10, letting East take the trick with his queen. After winning the club return, declarer cashes his black suit winners, and when East discards on the third spade he discovers that West started with five spades and three or four clubs.

This means that there is now a far smaller chance that West has four diamonds, than that East has the length in that suit. In all such situations, play the defender with the more vacant spaces (in his hand not his cranium) for length in a side suit.

Accordingly, declarer leads a diamond to the king. Then he can play the diamond 10, covered by the jack and queen. He can return to dummy with a high heart and take the second diamond finesse against East’s nine for his contract.

In the auction in today’s deal as South you break North’s transfer to hearts, to show four trumps and a non-minimum. Then over the four diamond cuebid you show your spade control, and jump to slam when his partner denies a club control. Rustic perhaps, but the final contract is a good one.

Against six hearts the defenders lead a trump. When dummy comes down it would be easy to relax, and to try to rely on taking the double finesse in spades – which give you at least a 75 percent chance of coming home with 12 tricks. But you can do better. While there may be more than one line that succeeds here, the neatest play involves an elimination, which brings you in at close to a 100 percent chance of success.

You carefully rise with the ace, unblock the diamond honors, come to the heart king (preserving dummy’s five) then cash the diamond queen to pitch a club, and play ace and another club, ruffing high in dummy.

Now you lead the heart five to the six, ruff the last club in dummy, and have reduced to an ending where both the North and South hands have three spades and a trump. When you lead a spade to the 10 and queen, West must surrender. He can either lead a spade into the tenace or give you a ruff-sluff if he has a minor suit to exit with. Whatever he does, you have the rest.

Jean Besse was Switzerland’s greatest bridge player, who wrote intelligently about the theory of the game. In one article he referred to the irrelevant small cards as neutrinos and explained how you had to be careful not to give away unnecessary information to declarer to allow him to count out your hand by voiding yourself prematurely in a suit.

This deal from the 1993 Epson Simultaneous Pairs (held at the top of the Post Office Tower in London) demonstrates the principle to good effect.

When North-South reached six no-trump, West elected to make a passive heart lead. Declarer cashed the club ace and king, then ran the hearts as East discarded diamonds. West threw three diamonds, and now declarer played a spade to the queen and king. West carefully returned a low club and declarer misguessed by inserting the queen, East throwing a spade, and South a diamond.

So far so bad, but at this point the diamond ace forced a spade out of West. Declarer now knew that both defenders only had one spade left, since East was guarding diamonds and West clubs. He could thus play a spade to his ace in complete confidence, and drop West’s jack.

Did you note West’s error? Since she was going to have to pitch a spade sooner or later, it would have been right to discard it on the sixth heart. Then declarer does not get the complete count on diamonds and eventually has to guess spades.

This deal came to me from a reader, Scott Nason of Dallas, who remarked on his partner’s presumptuousness in driving to a slam missing two keycards – and then some. But he also accepted full responsibility for failing to bring home the optimistic contract. Could you have done better?

When Scott’s LHO led the heart two Scott rose with the ace, feeling confident that this particular West would not have led small from the doubleton king. The king fell from East, so the first hurdle had been crossed. But don’t relax; you need to plan the rest of the play.

Without any bidding from the opponents, the best line would probably be to play a spade toward hand, and put in the jack if RHO plays small. (If East is good enough to duck dummy’s singleton while holding the ace, you should pay off to him.) If the jack fetches the ace, the plan is to pitch a club on the king, and take the diamond finesse for the 12th trick.

But, since West had actually made a one-spade overcall, I think the best line is to play a heart to hand and put the diamond queen on the table. It is covered by the king, so you win the ace, and play a diamond to the jack. Now lead a heart to the board, and cash the diamond ace, pitching the spade jack. Then, ruff the last diamond and exit with the spade king to endplay your LHO.

If Scott had done all of that, he would have had a deal to remember.

South’s opening bid of one no-trump makes it easy for North to bid game. If North’s five-card suit were a major, he might transfer, but since it is a minor, he should raise to game in no-trump.

South is relieved to see a heart opening lead, since the defense has not gone after his weak point, spades. Nonetheless, declarer has to plan what might happen if the defenders get on lead early in the deal. South will win just four club tricks if the club finesse loses; if that is the case, he will need to make something out of the diamonds to bring home his contract.

If South tackles clubs at once, East may work out to win and shift to spades. Then when South goes after diamonds, East will win and cash out the spades.

One possible way to avoid this revolting development is for declarer to win the first trick in dummy and go after diamonds immediately. If East has the diamond ace, he may well play low on the first round of the suit – even if he shouldn’t.

What is more, if East does fly up with the diamond ace, he may continue the attack on hearts, since the play so far is entirely consistent with declarer having king-third of hearts.

As it happens, when East ducks the first diamond, South can safely switch to clubs. The rest is easy. The general principle is that it pays to steal the ninth trick early. The opponents are less likely to let you get away with it later on, when they have had a chance to work out what is going on.

When West opened one heart, South and West passed, leaving South to reopen with two spades, an intermediate jump. Even if you play pre-emptive jump overcalls in most positions, this is one where it is clearly advantageous to play intermediate jumps — 12-16 points and a good six card suit. With less, one can bid one spade, with more you can start by doubling, then bid your suit.

The two spade call let North jump to game, and put West on lead with no really attractive option. When West opted for a passive diamond, declarer won in dummy with the king and took the spade finesse. West won his king and decided to go all out to set the game; he shifted to a low heart, and the defenders cashed out for down one.

That was astutely defended, but South should have worked out two things. One, East had to have a top heart (or West would have led one), and therefore West had ALL the other key cards — so the spade finesse was a broken reed.

Declarer should have cashed the spade ace at trick two. If the spade king had not dropped, South could have taken the club finesse at once to get rid of a heart loser. If the spade king dropped, declarer might take the club finesse at pairs, but at teams he might settle for trying to ruff out the club king in West, making 11 tricks if it fell in three rounds, and making 10 if it did not.

Chris Willenken brought home a difficult contract in the Round of 64 of last year’s Spingold Trophy from Washington. Against four spades, reached on a somewhat unusual but very revealing auction, West led the diamond eight, covered by the king and ace, and East returned a trump.

The trump return and the auction had suggested that West would have a natural trump trick. Declarer could see nine tricks in the form of one club, one diamond, two ruffs, and five trump winners. But where would trick 10 come from?

Willenken decided that his best shot – assuming his view of the enemy distribution was correct — was to endplay West into leading a heart in the endgame, so he won the trump switch, ruffed a heart in dummy, ruffed a low club in his hand and ruffed another heart. When East followed with the heart king, Willenken was sure West had started with a 3=6=2=2 pattern.

So Willenken ruffed another club in hand, cashed the trump king and crossed to the diamond queen. In the five-card ending West was down to four hearts and the trump queen.

On the club ace, declarer pitched a heart, and the ending Willenken envisaged had materialized. West, realizing that ruffing the club ace would leave him endplayed, discarded a heart. Willenken then ruffed a club in hand (West again discarding a heart) and exited with his now bare spade jack to West’s queen, ensuring he would collect the gamegoing heart trick at the end.

Fans of Dave Barry’s sidesplitting column will no doubt be familiar with his use of a submission coming from ‘an alert reader’ — which usually precedes a tall but true tale.

In this case, our reporter is Ira Herman, who gave this splendid take on an old theme, but one with a surprising tweak. After North opens four clubs to show a strong heart preempt, you declare four hearts on the lead of the club king. Plan the play.

At the table, South did what the majority of declarers would surely have done, escaping punishment thanks to a careless defense. South pitched a diamond on the club ace, then led a heart towards dummy’s honors.

All East had to do was win the heart ace and play the diamond king and a diamond to West’s ace for a third diamond to promote East’s heart 10. West, however, failed to find the killing play and declarer emerged relatively unscathed, with only his pride damaged. How should he have done better?

Declarer should have played a second club at trick two to pitch a diamond. This might, I admit, expose you to a ruff against a 5-1 diamond break, but the actual danger from the 4-2 diamond break is surely far higher?

Once you pitch a diamond from dummy, the defenders’ communications are irreparably cut. You cannot be prevented from crossing to hand with the spade king to lead a heart up in due course, and from that point onward you can be assured of making 10 tricks.