In today’s deal from the Dyspeptics Club, when South jumped to three spades, North’s thoughts turned to reaching a grand slam. Eventually, the potential shortage of entries to dummy to bring in the diamonds persuaded North to settle for what he thought ought to be a safe enough small slam.

The bidding had brought South to a sensible spot, but, alas, declarer’s play let him down. When West led the heart seven against the small slam, declarer allowed East’s queen to win. With a likely 11 top tricks, it seemed that the best chance of a 12th was a third round heart ruff in dummy. So he won the heart return then cashed the spade ace — just in case — and continued with his last heart, ruffed with the nine, East over-ruffed, and down went the slam.

Untypically, North refrained from comment about the line chosen by his partner. Eventually, though, the light dawned on declarer. Can you see what he missed?

All South had to do was win the first heart, then draw trump. Next he can play the diamond jack and overtake in dummy. He can cash the second top diamond, discarding a heart from hand, then continue with the diamond 10.

If East covers, South ruffs, reenter dummy with the club ace, then discard all the heart and club losers on the established diamonds, to make 13 tricks. And if East doesn’t cover, South pitches his last heart. The club ace is an entry to the diamonds, for a club discard.

In today’s deal as South when you hear your partner raise you to four hearts, you cannot be sure if partner has a real hand, in which case you might be cold for a grand slam, or nothing but some heart support, when you might find yourself struggling at the five level.

The secret here is not to take charge and tell your partner what he has, but to cuebid and consult your partner as to whether he might be interested in slam. Once you get a cuebid from your partner, you can try for the moon, but you will not get any further cooperation today. In fact, when dummy comes down in six hearts, the duplication of values and mirror image of the North-South hands makes even the small slam far less attractive than you might have imagined.

Fortunately, the bad breaks in both black suits gives you a blueprint to bringing home an unlikely 12th trick. You win the spade lead, draw trump in one round, and lead the diamond jack from hand in case you can tempt West to cover. When West plays low, you win the king and next take your best percentage chance of finessing in diamonds to pitch a club from dummy on the third diamond. Now play ace and another club, hoping it will be East who must win the trick.

Today you are in luck, since when East takes the second round of clubs he must return a minor suit and give you a ruff-sluff. That lets you pitch your spade loser from hand.

When South opens two no-trump, North has no sensible call but to raise to three no-trump.

South covers the lead of the spade 10 with the jack, since if West has led from the ace-queen, it would be convenient to tackle clubs by leading the suit from the board. When East is able to beat the jack with the queen, South must win this, and now needs to bring in the clubs to make his game. If he loses a club trick, the opponents will surely run the spades and set him.

South must try to locate the club queen; but if he leads to the club ace and finesses through East, there will be no further entry to the long clubs, even if he has guessed correctly.

So South must play West for the club queen, but while this is necessary, it may not be sufficient. If South leads out the club king and then follows up with the jack, West will cover it. Declarer cannot afford to win in dummy, since the suit would again be blocked. It would be equally unrewarding to let West hold the trick with the club queen, since the defenders could then run spades.

The only way out of the difficulty involves a touch of deception; South must lead the club 10 at trick two, hoping West ducks, ‘in sleep’. If he does, South can cash out the clubs in comfort, and make his game.

Should West cover the 10? Probably yes, but it is the sort of play we all miss at the table, from time to time.

Today’s featured deal comes from the Women’s Trials of 20 years ago. It is an interesting exercise in percentages. Declarer got it right, but the hand is certainly a challenging one.

Against four hearts, Juanita Chambers led the club king, which gave declarer a little clue about the side suit distribution. What was also immediately apparent was that she needed something very favorable in clubs, or else the defense might take a ruff and beat her. This in turn suggested that she needed West to be short in clubs. Perhaps this also indicated that she needed the opening leader to have long hearts.

Declarer, Susie Miller, won the club lead in dummy, and cashed the ace, king and queen of diamonds, pitching a spade, then played a heart to the queen and ace. The return was the spade ace and then the diamond jack (an interesting play by Chambers to show that she had the long diamonds, and thus to make it look as if she was short in hearts) ruffed in hand by declarer.

Now came the moment of truth. Miller decided that the pre-emptive raise was likely to be based on holding a singleton somewhere, so she finessed in trumps. When the finesse succeeded, she could then draw the last trump and play a club to her hand for 10 tricks.

The fact that the defense had not played for a club ruff was also revealing, but I think declarer made a nice play; don’t you?.

The trials for the world championships in Rhodes ultimately ended unhappily from my perspective, when we lost in the semi-finals. But here is a hand from the quarter-finals, showing my partner Bob Hamman in fine form; if you want to emulate his performance, you might consider the problem he was faced with, by looking solely at the West hand.

The opponents had maneuvered themselves into three no-trump, and naturally enough he led a low club, which went to my queen and declarer’s ace. Now declarer after some thought played a spade to the ace and a second spade back to the queen and his king. What now?

Hamman found the fine play of the heart queen. As you can see, with the diamond finesse succeeding, it was critical for the defense to take their heart winners at once, or declarer would have had at least nine winners. As it was, once the defense took their heart winners as East, I could exit with a diamond, and that led to two down Meanwhile, our teammates were recording 620 from four spades in some comfort.

One can sympathize with South’s problem at his second turn to speak — his choice of two no-trump would have worked satisfactorily against most defenders. Personally, though, I would drive to game with the South cards, so would use fourth-suit forcing and bid spades. If I didn’t feel the hand was quite worth that, an invitational jump to three spades would also be reasonable.

Going into the last stanza of 16 boards in the play-off match in the 1997 women’s international trials the Wei-Sender team led narrowly, but a good card by both pairs made the final margin seem more comfortable than it really was. Kerri Sanborn proved herself up to the task of bringing home a tricky game here.

In the open room, four spades was bid after East-West had bid up to four hearts. It was not doubled, and went two down. However when Sanborn was declarer after North had opened a 14-16 no-trump, East had shown hearts and a minor, and the West doubled the final contract.

The heart two was led to the ace, and Sanborn carefully played a spade to hand, getting the bad news. Now life might look straightforward if you can find the club queen, but that is not so. Sanborn continued with a spade to the 10, then cashed the spade ace and now had to work out the club position. East’s failure to raise to four hearts implied that she did not have 6-5 distribution, so she seemed likely to hold three clubs. Sanborn played an immediate club to the jack, and when it held, she could take the spade king and crucially discard a blocking club from dummy. Now she was one step ahead of the defense, which could take only its spade, heart and diamond tricks.

Notice that if declarer plays ace and a second club at an early point in the hand, West can obtain two ruffs, to beat the contract.

The most challenging defense of the week from the US women’s trials in 1997 came Lisa Berkowitz’s way; put yourself in the East seat and see what you think.

As East you are defending to four spades after North has opened a multi two diamonds to show a weak two in hearts or spades, and South has jumped directly to four spades, to play. Partner leads the diamond king, and when you play the diamond queen, shifts to the diamond five. Your jack holds as declarer follows with the four and 10; over to you.

I do not know how to resolve the problem here. But it seems as if partner has led their middle from their remaining three small diamonds, in a position where the size of their card could be argued to be Suit Preference. Given that they had a choice of small cards, logic implies that her leading her highest of the small diamonds would ask for a heart ruff, and the low card would have called for a club.

Assuming partner might have shifted to a singleton heart at trick two, there is at least a case for the winning defense, of shifting to a trump. Berkowitz did this, and not surprisingly generated a game swing as a result, since in the other room West had led a top diamond and shifted to a heart at trick two, trying to cut dummy off from the hearts. As you can see, this was very much the wrong moment for that play.

20 years after losing the semifinals of the 1996 US trials, some deals still haunt me. This is one of them, where in the last set of the semi-finals, one of the early boards saw my partner Bob Hamman having to figure out how to beat a slam on opening lead.

Normally it is a good idea to pre-empt to the limit, but on this occasion that strategy did not pay dividends. In the other room, my team-mate as south heard West jump to three hearts, over which North’s bid of four hearts was not an unequivocal slam try, but rather simply a suggestion of at least the values to expect to make four spades. South had some extras, but decided to settle for four spades. This did not seem such a bad idea when the defense started with three rounds of clubs, holding declarer to 10 tricks.

However, at the table where my partner was West, he logically enough imagined that declarer had hearts under control. He also expected dummy to produce a side source of tricks, which meant it might be critical to set up his own side’s source of tricks. Since I could have held a longer minor with a four-card major, Hamman chose to lead a diamond.

As you can see, that cleared up the guess declarer would otherwise have had on a major suit lead as to how to play diamonds for his contract. This cost us 11 IMPs where we might have gained 11, and was the first in a series of results that cost us the match.

In the first set of the semi-finals of the US women’s trials of 1997, the squad captained by Sue Picus eliminated most of their carry-forward deficit, thanks to a neat defense by Lisa Berkowitz and Marinesa Letitzia.

Juanita Chamber’s decision to pass four hearts was not an obvious one, but Kathie Wei-Sender found herself in a perfectly playable spot. Letizia led the diamond ace, on which her partner’s diamond four suggested a club shift. The club 10 was taken by dummy’s ace, as Berkowitz followed with the seven, presumably denying the eight.

Now declarer ran the heart jack, ducked to East’s queen. If Letitzia had returned the club nine, the eight in declarer’s hand would have become established. Equally, a diamond would furnish a ruff and discard, which did not seem to accomplish anything for the defense.

However, Letitzia switched to a spade, forcing declarer to commit herself at once. Wei-Sender finessed successfully and tried a second heart, but Berkowitz took her heart ace, and returned a second spade. Declarer was now isolated from her spade suit, and the best she could do was to try to drop the club queen. When that failed, she was down one.

Since in the other room Mildred Breed was declarer in an unbeatable four spades, which could not be defeated, that was a big swing to the Picus team. They ended up comfortable winners of the match, and went on to win the trials, then captured the Venice Cup in Tunisia.