How should you play four spades when West leads the diamond two? It looks natural to win the diamond lead and draw one round of trumps with the ace, but if you do the game can no longer be made!

If you continue with the trump king, the 4-1 trump break will doom you. If instead you play a heart after cashing one round of trump, East will win and deliver a diamond ruff. The club king switch will then set up a fourth trick for the defenders, to go with West’s trump queen.

Since the contract will be easy if trumps break 3-2, you should assume a 4-1 trump break and lead a low trump to trick two. If West wins with the queen and crosses to partner’s hand with a heart to receive a diamond ruff, you will be able to draw trump when you regain the lead.

If West ducks the first round of trumps, you win the jack and return the favor by ducking the next round of spades. West has to win but can do nothing to harm you. Whether he plays a club, or two rounds of hearts to force dummy to ruff, you will be able to draw trump and run the diamonds.

It is important to remember that when you can afford to lose a trump trick, lose it at a moment when the defenders can do you no damage. Here it would be dangerous to lose a late trump trick, because dummy would then be out of trumps to protect you in hearts.

Occasionally your feeling of satisfaction as dummy comes down can give way to a rude awakening when you run into a foul break. You may now need to apply the little grey cells, as Hercule Poirot would say, to try to find a lie of the cards that will let you recover.

In today’s deal West led the spade queen against six hearts, reached after some insouciant bidding from North. Declarer won and confidently led his low heart to the jack.

When East showed out, South looked unhappily at his trump nine, realizing that had this card been in dummy, the play for 12 tricks would have been relatively simple. There again, if East had held the four trumps, the nine would have been in the right place.

Needing an endplay, South realized that West would have to hold at least three diamonds, so correctly played on that suit first. When West proved to have four cards in that suit, he ruffed his last diamond in dummy.

Now came the critical guess; West was known to have started with eight cards in the red suits, so declarer now had to decide in which black suit he would have three cards. Using the clue of the opening lead, South took the spade king and ruffed a spade.

Next came both top clubs and a third club. West did his best by ruffing in with the eight, but South underruffed in dummy, leaving West to lead from the K-10 of trumps at trick 12, while dummy held the guarded ace and South the queen; contract made!

Today’s deal features two of the people most involved with setting up Senior events as a separate category in international bridge. Goran Mattsson of Germany and the late Doctor Nissan Rand of Israel won the Brighton Summer Congress a few years ago, and this deal certainly helped them.

Rand, who was always an optimist, drove to slam facing three key-cards. Mattsson received the lead of the diamond jack, and inserted dummy’s queen. Now declarer drew two rounds of trump, then continued with a second diamond towards the ace-nine. West put up the 10, and dummy’s ace was played.

South next drew the last trump and cashed the club king and ace, then ran the spade nine to East’s jack. What would you do as East now?

Noting the ace-queen-10 of spades in dummy, East returned a club. Mattsson ruffed in hand and discarded the diamond nine from dummy. Next came the diamond eight, and when West withheld the king – covering would not have helped – declarer let it run. Then South’s last diamond was trumped in dummy, for Mattsson to claim his slam.

Curiously, had East returned a spade instead of a club, one of South’s diamonds would have gone away, but not both, and the slam would have failed. West’s count signals in spades and clubs should have given East the full picture here, but note that even if South started life with three spades and three diamonds, the spade play still sets the hand.

East puts South under immediate pressure when he opens three clubs. If the North and West hands were switched, a double from South would put his side into minus 500 or 800 territory. As it is, though, once South stretches to double three clubs, North will be interested in a grand slam, especially when the heart fit comes to light. Today, though, six hearts is quite high enough.

When West leads the club two at the first trick against six hearts, South will assume that clubs strongly rate to be 7-1. His thoughts should turn at once to the chance of an endplay on one defender or the other. Which possibility do you think is the most convincing?

Declarer does not have to commit himself immediately; the play in the black suits can wait. He begins by drawing trump, then cashes his three diamond winners. When East turns up with one trump and three or more diamonds, to go with his seven clubs, he cannot hold more than two spades. Is that bad news for the spade finesse? Yes and no.

Curiously, if the spade finesse is working, there is no need to take it. Play the spade king then ace, and if the queen has not put in an appearance, exit with the spade jack to put West on play. When he wins the trick, he must surrender a ruff and discard on either a spade or a diamond return, and your club loser goes away.

Incidentally, you might even follow the same line if East turned up with two diamonds and three spades.

In three no-trump South finesses diamonds at the first trick, losing to the king. When the diamond seven comes back to dummy’s ace, West follows with the eight, perhaps suggesting he began with four or five diamonds.

South unblocks spades and takes the heart finesse. Dummy’s heart jack holds, and South promptly runs the rest of the spades. Declarer needs West to hold one of the two club honors, and he should assume that West will either pitch a diamond winner, his heart guard, or bare his club honor on the last spade.

When West discards a club on the fifth round of spades, the question is if West has the bare heart king left, or if he has come down to one club, two hearts, and the last two diamonds. Since you are missing six clubs and seven hearts, West is more likely to have started with three hearts and two clubs, not the other way round.

It therefore looks best to lead a low club from dummy toward your jack. You hope West will win the trick with his remaining club honor and cash his two diamonds. Then, however, West must lead away from his heart king, allowing declarerto make the last two tricks for his contract.

West could have avoided this end-play by discarding the heart 10 instead of the club eight. But at this point you would probably infer that he had bared the heart king. You would cash the heart ace, dropping his king, with the heart queen now good for the ninth trick.

In today’s deal South’s jump to three spades is invitational, and North has reasonable values for his initial response, so should go on to game. It is not clear whether North should try for game at no-trump, but if he were to bid three no-trump South would pass, of course, with no shortage. Since a club lead by East would give the defenders five tricks off the top, North’s decision to bid the suit game can hardly be criticized.

In four spades South must win the first diamond in his own hand, leaving dummy’s king as a later entry for a heart trick. He next draws one round of trumps, but must then try his luck in hearts.

When dummy’s heart queen wins, South can get back to his hand using dummy’s remaining trump. He then draws the rest of the trump and leads his second heart. West will take the heart ace, and must switch to clubs in desperation. This shift will defeat the contract if East’s clubs are good enough, and West can see declarer has 10 tricks if he does not make this play. The switch may surrender the overtrick, but it is surely worth the risk of investing an overtrick to have a shot to defeat the hand.

Note that West must shift to a low club in case today’s precise layout exists. If West plays the club ace and another club, declarer would survive today. As it is, though, the low club switch lets the defenders cash out the clubs for down one.

As West, you lead the diamond queen against four spades, partner discouraging with the two. Declarer wins the ace, plays the spade ace-king, dropping your queen, and crosses to the spade jack, your partner following with the nine, six and 10.

Now the club queen is run round to your king as your partner plays the five, and declarer the seven. How do you plan the defense?

South has 18 points outside hearts (the club ace, plus the top diamonds and spades). He must therefore hold either the heart king or queen. Your partner’s small club suggests an original three-card holding (he should play the six from a four-card suit). Also, the fact that he did not play the spade 10 on the first round of trump suggests he has the heart queen not the king – given that his signal in trump should be suit preference not count.

So it cannot be right to switch to hearts, playing East to hold the king. If declarer has four clubs, then he surely either has a doubleton heart or doubleton diamond; to have any hope to beat the hand, you must place him with the latter.

So, exit passively with a club or diamond. Declarer will cash his minor-suit winners ending in dummy, and lead a heart from dummy, hoping the ace is right or that he can duck the trick to you. But provided your partner is awake, he will rise with the queen or 10 when a heart is led from dummy. The defenders will then score three heart tricks to defeat the game.

With three four-card suits, North begins by bidding the suit under the singleton. This leaves him in good position for his next bid.

As expected, South responds in North’s singleton. North can now introduce his spades conveniently, over which South has a problem. He almost has enough to invite game because of his source of tricks, but with a known misfit, a call of one no-trump looks the prudent way to go. When North invites game (also a restrained action) South has plenty in hand for his acceptance.

After a top club lead, South must be careful not to duck, for fear of a spade shift, when the defenders might set that suit up. He must win; but in which hand? The answer is to win in dummy to protect South’s entries to the hearts. But the shortage of entries to the South hand means that the routine play in hearts will not succeed. South can set up hearts but won’t be able to reach them.

Instead, South can solve his problem by overtaking the heart king with his ace. He next leads the heart jack to force out the queen. East refuses this trick, and declarer continues with the heart 10.

East must take the heart queen, and can lead the spade 10. South is now in complete control, and can eventually return to his hand with the club ace to cash the last two hearts. He takes four hearts, one spade, and two tricks in each minor.