Declaring three no-trump, South should win the opening heart lead as cheaply as possible, and must then assess his trick count properly in order to plan the play to best effect.

South can count on winning one trick in each major, two top diamonds, and four clubs. The total comes to only eight tricks, so one additional trick must be found; and diamonds is the obvious place to seek it.

The problem is to generate that additional diamond trick while keeping East off lead. If East obtained the lead he would play a heart through South’s king, and West would defeat the contract by running the hearts.

By contrast, if West obtains the lead in diamonds, the contract will not be in danger, since if a further heart lead comes from West, South is sure to win a trick with his king. Given this, how does South develop the diamonds so as to keep East off lead if possible? The answer is that South must begin the diamonds by taking the ace and king. If the queen doesn’t drop, South will take his chances on leading a third round of the suit.

As it happens, the diamond queen does fall on the second round of that suit, and declarer can now play for overtricks — though he should probably not succeed in making more than 11 tricks. If South had tried a diamond finesse, he would have lost to the queen, and then he would have been defeated by a heart return.

When South opens a strong no-trump, North has no reason to preclude a suit contract, so he uses Stayman. But when no spade fit comes to light, he will head to the no-trump game.

After a low diamond lead, South must employ a relatively straightforward hold-up play to make his contract. He refrains from taking his diamond ace until the third round of the suit, then plays hearts from the top. The reason for tackling the suits in this order should become clear when South next loses the club finesse to East. The defenders would prevail if East could reach his partner’s long diamond suit, since they would then take a total of four diamonds and one club. But thanks to the hold-up, East is out of diamonds.

East does his best, by returning a spade. Now if playing rubber bridge or teams, South must not risk the finesse – though at matchpoint pairs the problem might be a slightly more challenging one. Since declarer can take nine tricks by putting up the spade ace and cashing out his top winners, he should do so.

Note both that South would go down if he took the diamond ace prematurely, for then East would have retained a line of communication to his partner upon winning his club trick. Equally, had declarer not tested the hearts early, he would not be sure if he needed to take the spade finesse or not, since he would not know how many heart winners he had, and thus how many spade tricks he needed.

Today’s deal saw a battle between declarer and the defenders in a team game. One table was playing strong no-trump, one weak, but three no-trump was reached pretty quickly in each case.

At both tables West led the spade three to East’s ace and East returned the spade 10. Both declarers won the trick, perforce, and could see that they had nine tricks if clubs broke 3-3, so they correctly went after that suit first by leading the queen then playing to the ace.

When West accurately discarded a heart on the third club, one declarer simply gave up the ghost and tried for a miracle in diamonds. Down he went, but the second declarer found the best shot of exiting with a spade at trick six.

Let us first suppose that West happily cashes his spades, as happened at the table. On the last one East had to keep diamonds and clubs guarded, and now the heart ace and king squeezed East in the minors.

It looks as if it might have be a mistake for West to cash his spades, but suppose instead he had got off lead with a heart at once. Declarer simply maneuvers to duck a heart to East (as West has already had to discard a heart) and now the 13th heart is the game-going trick.

So can three no-trump be defeated? Yes: say that instead of cashing his last spade and setting up the timing for the squeeze, West exits with the heart nine. Now declarer can’t exert any effective pressure.

In four spades declarer was disappointed when West’s thoughtful defense disrupted the obvious route to his 10th trick, but he soon found another route home by relying on the minor suits to behave favorably.

Against four spades West led ace then another trump, and South saw that he had nine top tricks from four spades, four diamonds and the club ace, but his best chance of a 10th trick – a heart ruff in dummy – was unlikely to be allowed to come to fruition.

So instead he turned his attention to the club suit. Winning the second spade with dummy’s queen, South found the thoughtful play of ducking a club by leading toward his eight. Though you can succeed by playing ace and another club, the play is considerably more complex. Meanwhile, leading the low club from dummy at once gave the defenders more chance to go wrong, by squandering an honor inappropriately, as well as giving declarer some chances to establish the suit against a 5-2 club break.

What could East do on winning the first club? He made the logical play of returning a trump. Sticking with his plan, declarer won in dummy, ruffed a club, then played the ace and queen of diamonds, overtaking in dummy. Now came the club ace, and while there was still an honor outstanding, a club ruff allowed the fifth club to be established. Declarer could cash dummy’s two diamonds and long club and concede trick 13 to the defense.

If North had bid a constructive two hearts at his first turn, South would have had a close decision as to whether to invite game. However North had a borderline raise to three, and opted for the overbid rather than the underbid. His decision was reasonable, since so much hinges on whether the South cards fit, not whether he has a maximum as opposed to a minimum hand.

South would have stood no chance in four hearts if West had found the spade lead. Had he done so, the defenders would have had four winners to cash. Fortunately for South, West led the diamond jack, and now declarer could win the first diamond with the ace and immediately run his three top clubs in order to get rid of a losing spade. Having done so, a careless player might now have led trump, but that would have been fatal. East would have won the first trump trick, cashed the spade ace, and then would lead his last club.

Now West could ruff with the heart ace, and East would still get a second trump trick with the king. The defenders would score a total of three trump tricks and one spade, to defeat the contract.

South foiled this defensive plot by leading the fourth club himself before touching the trump, planning to discard his last spade if East followed suit or ruffed high. This effectively transposed defensive winners, but it meant the defenders could get their two trump tricks, and nothing else, when trumps broke 2-2.

Today’s deal from the Chennai world championships last year came from the match between USA1 and Brazil. Nickell and Katz made four hearts with an overtrick in the other room when North produced one try for slam and respected his partner’s sign-off.

However the Brazilians constructed a slam-bang auction to a slam when North closed his eyes and drove to slam. Was it a sensible idea to be aggressive? Well, slam had the merit of having play, even if not good play. As it transpired, it was critical to opt to play spades not hearts, because that allowed the delay of the guess as to how declarer, Roberto Brum, was supposed to negotiate the heart suit. The slam needs the finesse of the heart king, but once it wins, there is a guess as to how to handle the second round of the suit.

At the table West led a club to the ace and East returned the suit. Declarer drew four rounds of trump, advanced the heart jack and was happy to find the king onside. Now how do the odds work out? When they say eight ever, nine never, they mean that if all things are equal, the finesse is a fraction worse in this position. But all things were not equal here. Once the 4-1 spade break came to light, the odds tilted to West being short in hearts, so at the next trick declarer finessed the heart nine, and collected 11 IMPs instead of losing the same number.

When North opens one heart and hears South respond in spades, he might make a splinter jump to four clubs, but the singleton king is an inelegant holding for that call.

An alternative route (oldfashioned but none the worse for that) is to jump shift into diamonds before supporting spades. This kind of bidding shows a singleton in the fourth suit. A player who bids three suits without jumping might have a doubleton in the fourth suit. However, if he has jumped along the way, as here, he should guarantee either 12 or 13 cards in his three suits. Now South knows that North has a singleton club, with great strength in the other three suits. South has top spades and a perfect fit for hearts. But since he is not completely sure whether North has four spades and three diamonds, or the other way around, South offers a choice of slam, letting North correct back to the major suit.

After a club lead to the ace for a trump shift, South must win in dummy, cash the two top hearts and ruff a heart high. Then a diamond to dummy for a second heart ruff high lets declarer conclude the play by drawing trump, and claiming 12 tricks when they split.

South would not be able to follow this line if he had drawn three rounds of trump. Also note that South must use his top spades in hand for ruffing, to guard against the danger of an over-ruff. The low trumps are used for entries to dummy.

South can describe a balanced 22-24 HCP by opening two clubs then rebidding two no-trump. Some Norths will now use Stayman, preferring to play a fivethree heart fit in no-trump with so much of their hand outside the long suit. But the majority will transfer into hearts and offer the choice of games.

(Incidentally, if North does transfer, there is a lot to be said for selecting hearts not no-trump with that South hand — you can see the potential blockage in the heart suit can’t you?. However no-one would crime you for passing three no-trump.)

West will lead the spade 10, and if both North and East cover, declarer will win and unblock the two top hearts, then cross to the diamond queen to dislodge the heart queen, eventually using the spade honor as a re-entry to dummy. In coming to 10 tricks he will not realize that two serious errors have cancelled one another out.

Declarer should note that the entries to dummy are few and far between, so must duck in dummy at trick one to preserve the queen-jack of spades as a sure entry to dummy. If you cover the spade and East meanly ducks, how can you reach dummy twice — once to set up, and once to cash the hearts? You can’t.

This play would be far easier to find if you had the spade king instead of the ace in hand; but the desire to build a second spade winner might blind some people (not you, of course) to the entry problem.