In today’s deal South could not bear to conceal his five-card major at his first turn. West’s cuebid of two hearts showed 5-5 in spades and a minor, and now South tried to make up for lost time by rebidding three no-trump at his next turn. North read him as having a far stronger hand than this and leapt to six hearts, a contract that would have been easy had South held a doubleton in diamonds rather than spades. As it was, though, slam was very tricky to play after a spade lead, since the diamond king was surely going to be offside. Can you spot declarer’s best chance?

Declarer should win the spade lead and draw only two rounds of trump with the ace and queen. Then he must rely on four rounds of clubs standing up – almost a given, since the two-suited overcall means West can hardly hold more than two clubs. After pitching a spade on the fourth club, South can ruff a spade to hand, draw the last trump with the heart king, and reduce to a four-card ending where he has three diamonds and a trump in each hand.

Now he can lead the diamond nine from dummy, planning to let it run to West to endplay that player. If East holds one of the jack or 10 of diamonds, he will be at liberty to cover the nine, but South can play the queen. Though West can win the king, he must next lead back a diamond, and dummy’s eight will win the trick.

Ben Zeidenberg is a Canadian who represented his country as a junior. Today’s deal came up in a world junior qualifying event, and it is the sort of example where it is easy to play too fast, and regret your haste later. At the table Ben had not been tipped off that this was a challenging deal, but he still found the right play when it really counted.

The contract of four spades had been reached after some optimistic bidding from Zeidenberg’s partner – but after all, what is new when you are a junior?

In four spades Ben received the lead of the heart ace, and West then accurately switched to a diamond. Dummy’s 10 won the trick, and Zeidenberg ran the spade 10 to the ace.

West gave his partner a diamond ruff, and on this trick Ben carefully unblocked the diamond king, a necessary move to set the stage for the marked finesse in diamonds. Now a second heart came back, won in dummy. Ben than ran all the trump, finishing in hand. As you can see, the thoughtful unblock in diamonds now allowed him to take the diamond finesse. He could therefore reach a three-card ending in which dummy had the king-eight of hearts and the club queen, while declarer had three clubs in hand. East, who had sole guard of both clubs and hearts, was forced to keep two hearts and thus come down to the singleton king of clubs, so declarer scored his club 10 at trick 13.

The system in use at the Dyspeptics Club rubber game include transfer responses to one no-trump. So when South picked up his usual collection of high cards and opened one no-trump, North could look with favor on his aces and kings and transfer to spades, followed by a quantitative jump to four no-trump. That was a sensible valuation of his cards. South, who had never met a 16-count he didn’t like, leapt to the spade slam, and there they were. For the record, to set spades as trump then use Blackwood, start with a Texas transfer at the four level.

At the table the play matched the speed of the bidding but not the accuracy. South won the second round of hearts, then played three rounds of clubs, ruffing in hand as West pitched a diamond. Then he tried the spade queen and jack, deciding not to overtake because of the sight of East’s spade nine on the first round. He barely had time to pat himself on his back when West ruffed the second diamond, and down went the contract.

South’s protestations of being born under an unlucky star cut no ice with North – who knew how many points that player was normally dealt. But there was a second reason too; can you see it?

South should have cashed one round of trumps, then the diamond ace and king, before ruffing the club in hand. Once that passes off peacefully, declarer can unblock in trumps then safely ruff a diamond to dummy to complete the drawing of trump.

In today’s contract of six clubs, focus on ensuring your spade winners do not get ruffed away. Trump the heart lead at trick one and cash two high clubs from your hand. When East shows up with three, he is favorite to be the hand short in spades, if anyone is, so take the spade king and lead towards the ace. If East ruffs, you can later cash the ace and ruff the fourth round of spades. If East discards, take the ace, give up a spade, then ruff the fourth round with dummy’s king (if East ruffs his partner’s winner he no longer has a trump to play).

Your target is to protect your spade honors by following suit with your second honor after the defender with the last trump. Had you cashed the ace and led to the king, East would ruff, and you must lose another spade later. Had West turned up with three trumps, you would have played spades by first cashing the ace from hand.

One other point is that you must retain a high trump in dummy to be able to ruff the fourth round of spades high. If you use dummy’s king to draw an early round of trump, East can discard on the second round of spades and later ruff the fourth round with the club 10.

The alternative approach of cashing just one round of trump before playing spades loses when trumps are 2-2 or 3-1 and you misguess who has short spades. It gains only when the same hand has singletons in both black suits.

Very few people have heard of the Vondracek phenomenon, and fewer still would believe that it is a serious bridge idea, rather than some kind of a joke. However, the concept is a serious one.

More than 60 years ago the idea was proposed in Bridge World by Felix Vondracek that when faced with a choice of trump suits, it might work better to play in the weaker not the stronger fit. The logic is that if you have sure losers whichever suit you play in, you may retain control by leaving the opponents with the master trumps. By contrast, playing the stronger suit may compel you to draw more rounds of trump.

On the auction shown, South finished up in four hearts when North thought it was just possible that South had 5-6 in the majors, and that otherwise it would be a pure guess as to which major might play better.

As you can see, four spades gets forced on repeated club leads, when the 4-1 heart break makes it impossible to set up the side suit. Not that four hearts was easy to make either, but South ruffed the opening club lead and guessed well to play three rounds of spades before playing trump.

West ruffed the third spade and played a second club, which South ruffed, in order to cash the heart ace and lead winning spades. West ruffed in, drew one more round of trump, then played a third club. However declarer could ruff, pitch a diamond from dummy on the master spade, and cross-ruff the rest.

When you sensibly upgrade your hand out of a weak two because of the vulnerability, you are driven inexorably to four spades. You have nine top tricks in aces and kings, which means that three no-trump would have been a more comfortable spot, by a considerable margin.

But this is no time for ruing what might have been. Where will your 10th trick come from? You might be able to obtain an extra winner from the hearts, or perhaps by endplaying the defenders and forcing a club lead. Is there another chance? There is, and the hidden extra chance comes from the diamond spots. You have just enough straw to turn into a single brick.

At trick one, declarer should cover the diamond jack with dummy’s king, losing to East’s ace. When East returns a trump, declarer should cash the spade ace, queen and king, then run dummy’s diamond nine, taking a ruffing finesse against the queen. If East ducks, declarer discards a heart from hand. If East covers, declarer ruffs and dummy’s diamond seven-six then force out a trick against West’s 10. The only time this line will fail is if West has found a diabolical opening lead away from the ace-jack-10 of diamonds – and if he has, he deserves to defeat you.

Note also that the defenders do best to shift to hearts at trick two, but so long as you pitch a heart when taking the first ruffing finesse, you will survive that too.

Strong three-suited hands are always hard to bid. South opens two clubs, since he doesn’t want to risk being passed out by a weak hand long in either hearts or clubs.

North temporizes with a two diamond response, then jumps to four clubs as a splinter in support of spades. North’s strong bidding should encourage South to bid a slam. Indeed, South should really consider a grand slam, since North needs very little more than he actually holds for seven spades to be an easy contract. However, his partner’s diamond cuebid isn’t the most helpful news, and after two further signoffs South contents himself with the small slam.

That is certainly a good decision today, since with this particular combination of cards in the defenders’ hands, 12 tricks is more than sufficiently hard a target. In playing six spades, South should count winners rather than losers. This is the correct procedure whenever you expect to do some ruffing in both hands.

Best is to win the diamond ace at trick one pitching a club, then take the club ace and ruff a club, followed by the heart ace and a club ruff low.

The danger of the second club ruff failing to an over-ruff cannot be avoided, but the chance of a 6-2 club break is not that significant. When the club ruff stands up, lead a heart to the king, ruff a heart high, then a diamond high, and take a heart ruff with the spade seven. East can over-ruff, but declarer’s remaining trumps are high.

Today’s deal saw South declare six spades after North had upgraded his hand to a balanced 18-19 count by virtue of his great controls. When North showed his spade support, South cuebid his heart ace, North subsequently continuing his optimistic approach by using keycard and driving to slam.

West led the club 10, and it looked logical for South to try to set up hearts, planning to come to nine tricks in the majors and three tricks in the minors. The first order of business was to win the opening lead with the ace, and lead a trump to the king. Now he unblocked the heart ace, cashed the spade queen, then drew the last trump by crossing to the spade ace.

Then came the heart king-queen, throwing two clubs from hand. Had hearts broken, South would have ruffed out the hearts and given up just one diamond trick. When the hearts failed to break, with West long in hearts, and thus potentially short in diamonds, declarer led a low diamond from the table without cashing the ace. East ducked his diamond king smoothly, and South’s diamond queen won the trick.

Now South crossed back to dummy with the diamond ace and led a second diamond back towards his jack for his 12th trick.

Had East been long in hearts, it would probably have been right to ruff a heart to hand and pass the diamond queen. That line guards against East being short in diamonds with either the singleton or doubleton 10 or nine.

Today’s deal comes from Larry Cohen’s latest book: “Larry Cohen Teaches Declarer Play at No-trump”.

In three no-trump, on the lead of the diamond five, we don’t know whether diamonds are four-four. Let’s say RHO plays the diamond queen and we duck. There is no rush to take the diamond ace even if the hold-up doesn’t seem to serve a very useful purpose.

When East returns the diamond 10, we win with the ace, West contributing the diamond four (an honest card that helps you more than it helps East). Now what? Today, diamonds don’t appear to be four-four; if they were, West would have led the diamond four at trick one. It looks as if West started with five and East with three. If that is so, playing clubs will lead to instant defeat. The defense will win the club ace and run the diamond tricks.

Instead, we should take our only chance, which consists of playing on hearts. Of course, with only seven hearts between the two hands, the odds favor finessing as opposed to playing for the drop in hearts.

If the queen is onside, you will come to nine tricks. Admittedly, if the finesse loses, you will fail by two tricks, but taking the only chance is better than giving up.

By contrast on the initial lead of the diamond two, promising a four-card suit, you would win, and drive out the club ace. You would expect the defenders to be able to score three diamonds and an ace, but no more.