Ian McCance’s “The Setting Trick”, published by Master Point Press, offers a range of problems. You will be able to pat yourself on the back for solving any of the problems in the book. If you fail the challenge, you will be even keener to redeem yourself on the next.

Today’s deal comes from the book, but I have edited a couple of spots to make the point a little sharper.

Against three hearts, West led the club four and South’s king fell under East’s ace. East could see that attacking declarer’s trump holding might well pay dividends so long as South had started with just five trumps. East therefore returned a club at trick two, which South ruffed, as West unblocked the club 10 on this trick to ease the defenders’ communications in clubs.

At this point declarer led a diamond to dummy’s king. He continued with the heart 10 – and the critical moment of the deal had been reached. Danish International Jens Auken described this sort of moment as the kill point.

When West ducked the heart 10 smoothly, it gave the impression that East had the ace and queen, or at the very least the trump queen. Falling for the bait, declarer repeated the heart finesse. Now West emerged from the bushes, winning this trick, then cashing his master heart. Having denuded dummy of hearts, West took out South’s last trump by playing a third round of clubs. The defenders still held the spade ace as their entry to allow them to run the clubs on defense.

Today’s deal comes from the 2017 match between England and Ireland in the UK home internationals series. Tony Forrester found a highly imaginative defense here, to defeat a cold game.

In one room the English pair had stayed out of game, and had played three spades. So the Irish looked likely to pick up a sizeable swing when they bid to the delicate four heart contract.

Forrester kicked off with the spade king, and when it held he shifted to the diamond queen, in case declarer held the singleton jack. Declarer, John Carroll played a trump now. When his king won, he ruffed his losing diamond in hand and played a second trump to the ace.

Now Forrester’s partner David Bakhshi won, and returned a diamond. Carroll took this, and drew the last trump, then had to decide which black suit to develop. Since Bakhshi had suggested an even number of spades at the first trick, it looked as if spades were 4-2. So Carroll discarded two spades from his hand, and played a club to the ace. So far so good, but when Tony Forrester dropped the club king under the ace it led declarer up the garden path.

Carroll took this card at face value, and played Bakhshi to have started with precisely 3=3=3=4 shape. He cashed the spade ace, ruffed a spade in dummy, and in the three-card ending exited with a club from dummy, attempting to endplay East in clubs. However, when Bakhshi won the club he could lead a diamond, and let Forrester win the last two tricks.

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.