This deal came up last year and saw two Australasian pairs challenging one another in a very delicate game. See if you can do better than the declarer at the table.

Four hearts in abstract is not terrible here for North-South, but it is hardly easy to get to. However, a misunderstanding about the meaning of North’s first double led South to a game where a bad break in one red suit or the other was virtually guaranteed.

West, led a diamond and East won his ace to return the suit. Declarer did well to win, lead a heart to the ace and finesse in hearts, but had made the fatal mistake of blocking the diamond suit by playing the king from hand at trick two and by not cashing the diamond queen before taking the heart finesse.

So he played a spade and the defenders returned the suit. Now declarer eventually ran into an overruff in clubs.

Had South unblocked in diamonds he could have discarded dummy’s losing club on the fourth diamond. He would have taken three diamond tricks and have drawn two rounds of trump (he would not even have needed the finesse) with the lead in his hand.

Declarer now ruffs a club, and leads a spade to the queen and ace. Whether West plays a spade or a club back, declarer ends up scoring all his three remaining trumps separately, plus the spade king.

The key is to get the club ruffs in before East can discard his clubs on the spades.

In today’s deal from a team game one declarer followed a traditional route to success, and played by rote, while the other took time to foresee developments and found the route to success.

At both tables North-South bid aggressively to the heart game and both Wests led the spade nine to the king. One declarer played a diamond at once, to set up his discard. West rose with the ace, and played a second spade, and now declarer could no longer succeed. He rose with the ace to play a trump, but West won his ace and thoughtfully underled his club ace, to allow East to cash his spade winner. Had declarer tried to take his discard early, East would have been able to ruff away the diamond winner.

In the other room South intelligently cut the defenders’ communications, by leading a club to trick two. West won the club queen and played a second spade. South rose with dummy’s spade ace, and ruffed a club. Then he led a diamond towards dummy’s honors, and West correctly ducked, realizing declarer would have played diamonds earlier had he started with a singleton diamond. South won the diamond king and ruffed a club, then led a low heart towards the 10.

West had to win the heart ace and exit with a heart. But South won this on the table with the 10, ruffed the last club, and led a diamond towards the queen. West could take his ace but had only diamonds left, so declarer had the rest.

Today’s deal was originally played in the International Championships in Budapest in 1937 and featured the player who would be my (and most knowledgeable people’s) first choice for the best woman player ever, Helen Sobel at her best, as declarer.

South reached three no-trump after a forcing two no-trump response on the lead of the spade seven. You might care to match wits with Sobel by covering up the East and West cards, and seeing if you would have duplicated her line.

Sobel made two winning plays on the first trick; calling for dummy’s spade 10 from dummy and then ducking East’s queen. Had she not put up the 10, East would have followed with the eight. Now whether declarer won or ducked this trick, the defenders would have been ahead in the race to establish five tricks. And had she taken the first spade, the defenders would have had communications in place to set up spades.

At trick two, after taking the continuation of the spade king with her ace, she played the club queen, hoping the club honors were split. East took this with the king and played the spade nine, taken by Sobel’s jack while she discarded a heart from dummy, as West also pitched a heart.

Then came the club 10. West won and exited with a club, taken by the jack. The diamond ace came next, followed by a diamond to the queen, and the fall of the diamond 10 meant the 4-1 split could be overcome.

With 17 points and a chunky five-carder South has too much to open one no-trump. A competitive auction sees him show his extras and reach three no-trump, on a low heart lead to the king. East shifts to the club 10, covered by the jack and queen. West reverts to hearts, and the defenders clear the suit.

South now needs to run the diamonds to make his game. If he has to give up a diamond, he will go down like a stone. The problem is whether to lead out the diamond ace and king in the hope of dropping the queen, or to take a finesse through East.

The general rule here is “Eight ever, nine never” meaning: play for the drop missing four cards. However West is known to have at least a five-card club suit. Moreover, West is also heavy favorite to have started with four hearts. This leaves room for only four cards in spades and diamonds combined. Rules have their place, but they are no substitute for rational thought.

South can afford to take one high diamond but then must run the three top spades, to find out the rest of West’s shape. When West follows to three rounds of spades and one diamond, it is clear that the rest of his cards are clubs and hearts. Declarer therefore finesses through East for the diamond queen.

If West had followed to only two rounds of spades, it would have been a guess as to whether he had a second diamond or a sixth club.

The three little pigs have taken to playing duplicate pairs and this board tested their skills in a tricky game contract.

At the table when the first little pig (who built his house out of straw) ended up in four spades, he received the lead of the club two. He won in dummy and took the trump finesse and was equally hurt and surprised when West led the heart queen — a thoughtful card — to his partner’s ace and received the club ruff. The second heart winner led to declarer’s defeat.

The second little pig, who built his house out of wood, saw the danger of the club ruff. He won the club in hand and took the diamond finesse, and when it held, he came to hand with the spade ace and took another diamond finesse. That let him cash the diamond ace to pitch a heart; but when he played a second spade, West could win and lead to his partner’s heart ace, to get the club ruff. That held South to 10 tricks.

The third little pig, who used bricks for his home, realized that the risk of the club ruff could be neutralized. He won the club in hand and finessed in diamonds, then came to the spade ace and finessed in diamonds again. One heart went on the diamond ace, and the second heart could be pitched on dummy’s losing diamond. West had a surprise trick, but no longer had an entry to his partner for the club ruff, so declarer had 11 tricks.

This deal sees South hear his partner make a limit raise in hearts. While he has a promising hand, the likelihood of slam being better than a finesse is very small. Rather than give information away by cuebidding, it is sensible for him simply to raise to game and give West a blind lead.

West nonetheless finds the best lead, of the spade queen, and South sees that he must develop dummy’s clubs without allowing East to get in. The danger is that East would lead a diamond through South, and set up too many winners for the defense.

The clubs allow for the straightforward finesse or ruffing finesse, but there is a danger in winning the first spade and drawing trump, then taking the ruffing finesse in clubs, discarding a spade in the process. The defenders’ communications remain in place, so West could win the club king and lead a spade to his partner, for the killing diamond shift.

The secret is to hold off on the first spade, take the second, draw trump, and lead to the club ace. Now the club queen is led through East for a ruffing finesse. When East puts up the club king, South can ruff and use a trump entry to dummy to take his discards. But if East had played low, South would have discarded his last spade. Even if West had the club king and took this trick, he would be unable to get East in with a spade, thanks to the duck at trick one.

After three passes, both Souths in a team game had no ambitions beyond game facing a passing partner, so they opened and closed the auction with a call of three no-trump. This normally shows a solid seven-card minor and few high cards in the other suits. But third or fourth in hand, other considerations apply.

At both tables the opening lead was the club jack, won by South’s ace. One declarer led out diamonds from the top, then played a third diamond to East’s queen. East appreciated that the most likely chance of defeating the game lay in hearts, and returned the three. South rose with the king, captured by the ace, and West continued with the heart jack, so the defenders emerged with five tricks. It wouldn’t have helped if South had divined to play low on the first heart.

The second declarer worked out the necessity to keep East off lead, so he entered dummy with a spade and led a diamond. When East played low, he inserted the nine as a form of a safety play. He was prepared to invest a diamond trick to achieve the avoidance play he wanted.

West won with his jack, but could not attack hearts profitably from his side of the table. He returned a club, and South soon wrapped up 11 tricks. It would not have helped if East had put up the queen or 10 of diamonds. South would have won in hand, then returned to dummy and finessed again – and now he emerges with 12 tricks.

The textbooks don’t tend to spell out how to cope with a balanced 31-count. In an unopposed auction the use of the Kokish relay (using a two heart rebid after opening two clubs as a puppet to two spades, to show various balanced hands or unbalanced hands with hearts) may help you. Details are available at
www.bridgeguys.com/Conventions/kokish_relays.html.

But on today’s deal South couldn’t try out this gadget, because West opened three clubs. With no idea whether to go high or low, South put on his rose-colored glasses and found the delicate slam-try of six no-trump.

After the passive lead of the diamond seven, dummy’s spade king provided declarer with a sporting chance. There were 11 top winners, with the club finesse likely to be a broken reed after West’s pre-emptive opening. Similarly, the chances of finding either major suit breaking seemed slim.

South tried these possibilities in order. Neither major suit behaved, and when the club finesse failed, he was out of chances. In the ending East knew to discard his useless spade, to win the last trick with his heart jack.

A curious line of play would, however, have led to success. Suppose that at trick two, declarer had advanced the club queen from his hand? By surrendering the inevitable club loser early, he keeps control of the clubs and rectifies the count for a squeeze. Four diamonds and the club ace will squeeze East in the majors to generate the 12th trick.

Reading through the columns of the late Omar Sharif I spotted this confession from the Macallan Invitation Pairs tournament. Omar played this board against Nicola Smith and Pat Davies, who eventually finished second – probably the best performance by a Ladies Pair in any invitation pairs event.

Against three no-trump Smith led the spade jack, ducked to Omar’s king. Sharif led a club to the ace, and a second club. Smith ducked this trick, and took the next club as Davies pitched two spades. At this point it was obvious to West to switch to a heart, and that defeated the hand.

It was only later that declarer realized what he could have done. If he crosses to dummy with a diamond at trick two, to play a club to the jack, it would have been nearly impossible to duck this trick. Now the shift to a heart would have been that much more difficult, since West would not have seen a discard from her partner.

By contrast, when I declared three no-trump against Sabine Auken and Daniela von Arnim, I received the same spade lead, but Auken astutely won her ace and shifted to hearts.

I won the third round of hearts, and decided that East appeared to have nine cards in the majors, which made her partner more likely to have club length. So I crossed to hand with a spade, to run the club jack. I repeated the finesse in that suit, and now could pick up the clubs for five tricks, to make my contract.