I was reminded of today’s deal by the fact that its hero was Brian Platnick. With John Diamond, Brian was one of the pairs I took an interest in mentoring when he was a junior – more years ago than he would care to remember, no doubt. Brian and John were part of the US national squad in Wroclaw this September at the World Bridge Games that were eliminated in the knock-out stages, having finished second in the US trials in the previous two years.

This deal came up in a Vanderbilt Trophy match where Brian’s team won by just 11 IMPs, so it turned out to be critical in their eventual success.

Both tables reached four hearts by South after a transfer sequence. At one table, three rounds of diamonds let East ruff. This looks to be a good idea for the defenders, since it obtained a quick trick for them by getting a ruff that was not with a natural trump trick. Moreover, it left declarer with a losing diamond in dummy. However, the late Henry Bethe as declarer could take a diamond ruff for his ninth trick, with a spade finesse for his 10th, for plus 620.

At the other table, Platnick as West found the killing trump shift at trick two. Declarer followed a reasonable line when he simply cashed the spade ace and king, and Platnick ruffed in, to play a second trump. That left declarer with all the diamonds to lose and nowhere to discard them, which led to down two and 13 IMPs.

After a major-suit opening a simple raise usually shows seven to 10 points. Here, North has a maximum but only three weak trumps and the undesirable 4-3-3-3 distribution. South might drive to game or merely invite it, but either way it seems right to bid three diamonds. North indicates his balanced distribution and the weakness of his trumps by suggesting no-trump, but South overrules him.

After three rounds of spades, trumped in hand, South really only has to worry about his fourth diamond. He can achieve nothing by ruffing clubs and spades in hand – indeed all that might accomplish is the loss of trump control.

So declarer first tries to get a discard on a high club by leading to the king. When the ace turns out to be with East, there is no discard available.

When a club comes back, South wins in dummy, and can now afford to draw two rounds of trump, but must then leave one trump out in order to test diamonds. This line carries no risk, since if the diamonds break three-three, each opponent will follow suit and South will then be able to draw the last trump.

As it happens, the diamonds break four-two. Today’s South’s only chance to prevent the loss of a diamond is to ruff his last diamond in dummy. This can only be done if the player with the last trump also has length in diamonds, which happens to be the case.

Lucky? No, South has merely taken all his chances in sensible order.

South has an absolute maximum for his opening bid of one no-trump. North adds his own points to those shown by his partner, and since he has 11 points, he knows that his side has enough for game, but not for slam. Since North has no reason seriously to consider playing in a suit, he merely raises at once to game in no-trump.

When West leads the spade king it asks for the unblock of a high spade honor, or a count signal. This lead style is often called ‘strong king’; by contrast, one signals attitude on the lead of an ace or queen.

So East follows with the jack at trick one, and now South must employ a basic maneuver to make his contract — the hold-up play. He must delay playing his spade ace until the third round of the suit.

The reason for this play becomes clear when South next loses the club finesse to East. Declarer’s goose would be cooked if East could get to his partner’s long spade suit, for then the defenders would take a total of four spades and one club. Thanks to the hold-up, however, East is out of spades.

East does what he can, by returning a diamond. South must not risk the finesse. He can take nine tricks by putting up the diamond ace and cashing his good cards. South would go down if he took the first or second spade, for then East would be able to lead a spade to his partner upon winning his club trick.

Today’s deal may look like another normal strong no-trump auction but it is worth considering if North should simply blast three no-trump in response, and conceal information about declarer’s hand from West.

Personally, I think North should use Stayman here. Whenever you have a little shape such as a doubleton and a weak three-card suit, you rate to want to find a fit if you have one.

Whether the defense starts by cashing three rounds of hearts or not, declarer will need to find the spade queen to make his game. The three heart losers won’t go away whether the defenders cash them immediately, or later.

Since you can pick up queenthird of spades in either hand, the best play here might look like a guess. But it isn’t. And no, the queen doesn’t lie over the jack, nor should you finesse into the defender you like more. There is a solid bridge reason to negotiate the spades correctly.

Pause to consider if you can guard against a possible 4-1 trump break in either hand. Here, the possession of the spade eight is the critical clue. You can’t guard against four spades to the Q-9 in West but you can pick up that holding in East. So start spades by leading to the ace and crucially, follow up by leading the spade jack from dummy, leaving yourself the option of the second finesse against the nine, if necessary. If you play low to the spade 10 on the second round, you will have blown it!

The Blue Ribbon pairs, consisting of two days of qualifying and a one-day final, has traditionally been regarded as one of the ACBL’s most challenging pairs game.

In today’s deal from the second semi-final session of last year’s event, while it is normal for the two defenders to look out for one another’s interests, one player was forced to stab his partner in the back.

Steve Beatty and Tom Carmichael were respectively North and South here. Because of the friendly position in the heart suit, nine tricks would have been easily available at no-trump in the form of seven hearts and two aces. But against four hearts, East-West could have taken the first five tricks on a cross-ruff, for down two.

However, the defenders didn’t find their cross-ruff. West led a club to the ace, Carmichael pitching a spade. Declarer led a heart to the jack and played two more rounds of the suit. Now he exited with the spade queen to West’s ace. South could ruff the club return and pass the spade eight round to East.

In this ending East could not lead a spade without setting up two tricks for declarer, so he played a club honor – which did not cost a trick but had the effect of stripping West of his exit card.

Carmichael ruffed the club, then played a low diamond from hand, ducking when West contributed the 10. West now had to lead a diamond around to declarer’s queen, for his 10th trick.

This deal from the second final of the Nail Life Master Pairs is another example of the catch-ascatch-can of bridge, where the fate of a contract goes back and forth between declarer and defense.

South reported his own inadequacies as declarer with a plea for anonymity. I suppose we should thank him for his commitment to honest reporting!

As South narrated it, he observed that West was clearly unhappy to sell out to three clubs. West led the spade king to dummy’s ace. At trick two, declarer guessed well to lead the club three, covering East’s six with the seven. The 4-0 break had therefore been partly nullified, but there was a lot more work to do.

A heart went to the king and the ace, and East played back a diamond to West’s 10. Next came the diamond ace, East discarding a low spade, and a diamond ruffed with dummy’s club 10, while East discarded a heart.

At the table, declarer now played a trump, and East split his honors. Now declarer was left with two trump losers whatever he did.

Better, though, was to ruff a spade at once, then cash the top hearts and ruff a heart in dummy. In the three-card ending, South can lead any card from dummy and duck East’s club honor, to endplay him in trumps.

You might note that East had his chance to beat the contract legitimately. He must pitch two hearts on the diamonds, and now East can overruff dummy on the fourth heart.

Russ Samuel gave this column the following interesting deal from the first final session of the Mitchell Open Board-a-Match teams at last year’s Fall Nationals from Denver.

On the auction shown you reach five diamonds doubled as South, and ruff away the spade ace at trick one. How should you proceed?

It seems logical to cash both top diamonds at once, to avoid accidents. When East discards, he must surely be the favorite to hold the rest of the high cards, given his opening bid. You should therefore cross to the club king to ruff a spade, then run the clubs. West cannot benefit by ruffing in, or he would have to lead a heart to your advantage, so he discards a spade on the fourth club.

You have now reached a position where you have only diamonds and hearts left in each hand (two trumps in dummy, one in your hand). It doesn’t work for you to throw West in with a trump for a ruff-sluff, since you are out of trumps in hand. West would exit with a spade, knocking out dummy’s last trump. The opponents will then get a heart, a spade and a diamond for one down.

Instead, in the five-card ending you lead a heart to dummy’s king. East must win and give you a ruff-sluff (you ruff in hand and discard a heart from dummy) or lead a heart for you to run around to the 10. Either way, your second heart loser vanishes.

This deal was played in the first qualifying session of last year’s Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs. Most tables sensibly played three no-trump, rather than try for four hearts.

So how did the play typically go? South wins the spade queen lead in hand and now must go after hearts sooner rather than later. At our reporter’s table, declarer advanced the heart jack, so it was easy for West to win and cash out the spades, finishing in the East hand. When a club came through declarer’s tenace South misguessed and played the ace, finishing down one.

Was declarer’s play right? The odds on the club finesse and the heart 10 falling are roughly even. So one can hardly criticize declarer for his play, one way or the other.

However, I wonder if declarer might have done better by leading a low heart from hand at trick two instead of the jack. If West (quite reasonably) misjudges the position, and plays the heart ace, declarer is home.

Equally, though, if West ducks the first heart, then a heart back to the jack would disclose the 5-1 heart break, and now at least South would know he needed to take the club finesse to make his game.

Additionally, if West doesn’t take his ace, but the heart 10 happens to be falling in two rounds, then you have eliminated your need to guess which finesse to take. Accordingly, the low heart at trick two looks like the right play all round.

Even the experts don’t get them all right. Witness what happened on this deal from the first semifinal session of the Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs, when a multiple world champion reached four hearts after a strong no-trump auction where East had been somewhat frisky with his overcall.

When West led his singleton spade, North went up with the spade ace and played a heart from dummy to get the bad news. He won the heart ace and played the club ace followed by another club. Now West had no choice but to win and play a third club, ruffed.

Declarer next threw West on lead with the third heart, but after a diamond exit though South no longer had a diamond loser he did still have two spades to lose, for down one. West could avoid being endplayed in diamonds by unblocking his king at the critical moment.

At the point declarer ruffed the third club, he should have found his way home. Since he needed to find the diamond king onside, he should have led a diamond towards the queen at once. West must win and can do no better than exit with a diamond. At this point a trump to declarer’s king allows him to cash the diamond ace, pitching a spade. A third round of hearts puts West on lead to provide a ruff-sluff and dummy’s last losing spade goes away.

In essence, declarer loses a diamond trick he could avoid, but he gets a discard and a ruffsluff to more than compensate for that.