Steve Bloom is one of the best players you may not have heard of. Steve is a professor of mathematics in New York and rarely plays outside the national tournaments.

This is a deal where he asked me and my readers to plan the play in three no-trump on the lead of the diamond three. Since you may need two entries to develop the clubs, it seems natural to win the diamond in hand, and play ace and another club. If the defenders hold up, cross to the diamond queen and drive out the club king. What could go wrong?

Well, maybe the defenders will win the second club and lead a heart, removing your entry to your ninth trick. It won’t necessarily be obvious to them to win that second club, but, if they do, the winning defense should be easy.

So maybe you should win the diamond queen, and start on clubs, cashing the ace then overtaking the club jack if West plays low? This works if clubs are 3-3, the club nine is doubleton, or if West started with king doubleton – reasonable, but hardly a guaranteed route to success.

Let’s start again. Win the diamond in hand, and advance the club jack. If it is ducked, cash the club ace, cross to the diamond queen, and clear clubs, and claim nine tricks. If they win the club jack and lead a heart, you win, cross to the diamond queen, then come back to the club ace to cash the diamond king, before returning to dummy in spades and running the clubs.

One of the most satisfying ways to generate extra tricks for the defenders comes when they maneuver a trump promotion – or force declarer to do the dirty work himself. In today’s hand the trump seven became a master, even though declarer had a nine-card fit and a combined 100 honors.

North/South were playing a style where a two-spade rebid would have been non-forcing. After his very aggressive three spade call, both players got rather carried away on the deal, eventually settling in the delicate slam. Of course had they not done so, there would have been no story.

West kicked off with the club 10 to the queen, king and ace. With both major suits behaving in such friendly fashion, declarer could have succeeded by establishing dummy’s hearts and playing for an even trump break. His actual line seemed to improve on that chance, however.

South won the club ace and ruffed a diamond. He then crossed to his heart king to trump another diamond, then cashed the heart ace and ruffed a heart with the spade eight – a luxury that it turned out he could not afford. He then ruffed his last diamond, and in the five-card ending he led a winning heart from dummy.

When East ruffed in with the spade queen, it let declarer discard his losing club. Now with the remaining trumps 2-1, declarer seemed to be in control. However, West discarded the diamond king on this trick, and at this point another diamond from East promoted a trick for West’s spade seven.

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.