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.

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.