With an extremely unpleasant lead problem against six no-trump, West opted for his singleton club, which turned out to give nothing away. Put yourself in declarer’s shoes and consider how best to develop a 12th trick.

It looks natural to win the club and play two rounds of hearts. The 6-1 break comes as a shock, but declarer still has plenty of chances. He cashes a second club, then runs three rounds of spades and two clubs, and when West discards on the club and spade winners declarer knows his entire shape

Once the count of West’s hand is known, leading up to the diamond king is no better than a toss-up; but can you see how to improve on that?

Declarer must take care to cash the fourth spade (pitching a diamond from hand) then run the clubs, ending in hand, to come down to a three-card ending where he has the ace-10 of hearts and the bare diamond king in hand, and three diamonds in dummy. West must keep two hearts or else the hearts run, so can only keep one diamond.

Now declarer exits from hand with the diamond king, and if West began with either one or both of the diamond honors, the defenders cannot avoid conceding two of the last three tricks, thanks to dummy’s diamond nine.

This position is called a vise; it was first analyzed by Terence Reese nearly 60 years ago, and here it gives you something like a 75 percent chance of success.

When you open two clubs and rebid two no-trump you show a balanced 22-24 HCP. This is not forcing, but North has enough to raise to three no-trump today.

When the defenders lead the diamond king you duck, and see East follow with the diamond three – the defenders play that the king asks for count, so you should assume East has one or three diamonds. How will you plan the play?

One possibility is to take every finesse in sight, but you can do better than that if you can endplay West to lead suits to your advantage. It is tempting to try to do that by throwing him in with diamonds; but you do not know for sure who has the diamond 10.

A better alternative might be to duck the first two diamonds, and win the third, cash the club ace, then the three top hearts, and lead to the club jack. If West follows with the queen on the second round you might consider ducking this. In practice, though, West rates to follow low, and you finesse, cash the king of clubs, and exit with the fourth club to West. That player can cash his long diamond, the defenders’ fourth trick, but in the two-card ending he will have to lead away from his spade king, to give you your ninth trick.

Two points to note: maybe if West did have the doubleton club queen he should unblock the queen under the ace – easier said than done! And as the cards lie, maybe West could find the false-card in clubs on the second round?

Playing two over one, your partner’s sequence shows 18-19 with a doubleton club, and you take an optimistic shot at six clubs. You cover West’s lead of the diamond jack with the queen, but East plays the king, and you win your ace. How do you generate enough tricks from the spades to bring you up to 12 tricks?

You need to take at least three spade tricks, preferably four, without losing the lead. With the odds stacked against, you must identify a distribution that will allow you to get what you need.

Win the first trick, draw trump pitching a heart from dummy, and lead a spade to the queen. When it holds, you have surmounted the first obstacle. Cash the spade ace and ruff a spade. When the king drops, you can cross to the heart ace and cash two more good spades, discarding two of your losers. Had the spade king not fallen, you would have needed to take the heart finesse and ruff out the spades. Then you could have crossed to the heart ace to cash the fifth spade and discard a red-suit loser.

If you take the ruffing finesse in spades instead, by leading to the ace then running the queen, you are limited to a maximum of three spade tricks, even if East holds the king. The defense can cover the queen or jack, so you only get three tricks from the suit, even if everything goes as well as could be hoped. The key to making the slam is to maximize the value of your intermediate spade honors.

Every year there is a junior tournament between England, France, Netherlands and Belgium for schools, girls and juniors. This deal proved to be the key in the England Juniors’ win over the Netherlands.

When West led the diamond seven against four spades doubled, East played three rounds of the suit. South, Ben Norton, ruffed the third one high, West following what seemed to be good technique by discarding.

He chose a high club to show an even number to signal count. But this proved to be a bad idea, because it tipped declarer off to the club position. Declarer realized West surely had some length in spades along with a doubleton diamond, and his discard of a club was not consistent with him holding the queen. Declarer realized that it might be a good idea to extract any trump East might hold, so he first led a sly spade 10 from his hand.

West might well have inferred that declarer had semisolid spades (since he had earlier ruffed in with the king) but could see little danger in ducking. South showed him the error of his ways by switching tack. He played ace and another club, putting up the king. When the queen fell, he could discard his heart on the third club, ruff a heart back to hand, and draw trump for plus 790.

In the other room East-West had bid on to five hearts doubled. This went two down for minus 300, so the swing was 10 IMPs to England instead of 9 IMPs the other way.

Do the experts play better now than they did 80 years ago? I would certainly concede that bidding techniques have improved dramatically. Even so, given that experts still reach plenty of bad contracts, the majority of expert hands consist of avoiding mistakes rather than being brilliant.

Also, we can now discover that some of the most admired deals from the past were flawed, though that is not true of today’s deal, which was played by Charles Goren. As you can see, the auction featured the use of four-card majors – though even using five-card majors, some might open the South hand one heart.

Against three no-trump, the club king was led and ducked. Next came the club queen, and Goren ducked again. Now since he had no entries, West decided to shift to the diamond 10, won by dummy’s ace. Goren next led a heart to the ace, and tried a spade to the queen and king. Back came the diamond queen, and Goren ducked again, rectifying the count, by losing four tricks early, and improving his ability to count out the hand. After winning the next diamond with the king, Goren cashed the heart king, then the club ace and the spade ace-jack.

At this point West could be counted out to have begun with four spades, two diamonds, and five clubs, so could not hold more than the two hearts he had already followed to. So in the two-card ending Goren could lead to the heart 10 and claim the rest.

As South, you have a very powerful hand but not one suitable for a two club opening. It is better to take it carefully, by bidding your suits in economical order. When North makes the simple raise to two hearts you might just jump to game — but since you need so little to make slam, why not try a delicate two spade call?

This is a long suit game-try, which means it asks North to value his hand on the basis that his partner has honor-third or honor-fourth in spades. North has a decent hand (four trumps and respectable high cards plus a nice spade holding facing length) enough to jump to game. Now South should be prepared to take a shot at slam in the knowledge that his partner rates to be reasonably suitable for his purposes.

When West leads the diamond jack, the simple line for South of winning, then laying down the heart ace, would turn out very badly today. Still, you can afford to be more careful in a slam can’t you?

Trick one goes to the queen, king and ace of diamonds. You cash the club ace, then cross to table with a spade and throw the losing diamond away on the club king.

Now the only danger is 3-0 trumps. Agreed? You can protect yourself against anything if you lead a low trump from dummy and simply cover East’s card. Check it out if you do not believe me. When you put the heart nine on East’s eight you will simultaneously make your day and spoil his!

Today’s deal was played by John Schermer in the top bracket of a regional knock-out. You may care to consider it first as a single-dummy problem. Against five clubs West leads the diamond jack, covered, and back comes a diamond. All follow; plan the play.

Schermer deduced that West was likely to have two clubs, since his choice of a doubleton jack lead suggested he did not have shortage in any of the side-suits. Also, if trumps were two-two, there would be more endplay chances.

So he took the club king and led towards the ace, collecting West’s doubleton queen. Now Schermer asked himself why West had led diamonds not spades, given that he presumably had the heart ace (since he had not led the suit).

One plausible explanation was that he also had a significant spade doubleton.

With the idea that East had started life with the spade king and 5-3-3-2 shape, Schermer now made a play I’ve never seen before, after cashing the third diamond. He led the spade queen from dummy, covered by the king, and ace, putting West in the hot seat. When that player did not unblock his jack, he was endplayed with a spade. West had to lead hearts, and that set up the discard declarer needed for his losing spade.

Had West unblocked the spade jack under the ace, Schermer would have crossed to the board with a diamond to lead a spade up to his nine, and again held his spade losers to one.

Today’s deal comes to me from a friend and collaborator in various bridge ventures, Neil Cohen. Neil had played the deal in a pairs competition online, so his focus was slightly different than the problem I will set you. This is to try to make nine tricks in three no-trump after West has shown hearts and a minor over your strong no-trump. North’s two no-trump call was designed to show the values for three no-trump with a heart stopper.

As Neil put it, using a baseball analogy, if you read West for the club ace, you can make nine tricks on a double steal.

Win the diamond lead in hand and lead a club to the king. (This is the first steal — West must duck or you can run the clubs for three tricks.) Then give up a club to East. Now, win the diamond continuation and lead a heart towards dummy’s king. This is the second steal, since West must duck again, or you will have nine tricks in the form of three spades, two hearts, three diamonds and a club. Once the heart king holds, you switch back to clubs, and make two clubs and one heart to go with your six tricks in the pointed suits.

Of course the simple club finesse would be an equally valid way to make the hand; but given the vulnerability and the fact that West has come into the auction facing a passed partner, the actual lie of the cards is perhaps slightly more likely.

I noted with regret the death of Albert Dormer, who was for many years the bridge correspondent of The Times of London. Playing with Alan Hiron – the then correspondent of the Independent Newspaper — they won the World Senior Pairs Championship in Geneva in 1990.

Albert was for many years the editor of the International Bridge Press Association, and worked with Jimmy Ortiz-Patino, helping to run his bridge-related activities.

Dormer sat East on today’s deal, and made no mistake in defense to four spades. West led the heart ace to the three, eight and king and continued with a second heart. Declarer won on the table and led a trump to West’s ace. West was still uncomfortable with the idea of opening up either of the minor suits, so pressed on with a third round of hearts, expecting Dormer to ruff and kill any possible discard on the heart 10. Farsightedly, though, Dormer did not ruff, instead discarding a club. Now declarer had no resource. He could throw a club as well, but any attempt to cross-ruff would fail, while leading another trump would allow the defenders to play a third round. Now there would be only one club ruff available in dummy.

At the other table, after a similar start to the play, East happily trumped in on the third round of hearts. Declarer over-ruffed, and now had no trouble with playing the cross-ruff, losing only to the king of trumps.