Over the last 20 years Alfredo Versace of Italy and his partner Lorenzo Lauria have taken their places in the very top echelons of Italian world champions. Last summer in the warm-up for the Spingold Knockout Teams, Versace encountered this neat play problem, and found an elegant solution.

Against four hearts West led the spade two. Versace made the critical move when he won the spade ace and ruffed a spade. East followed with the 10 and king, and Versace then drew trump in three rounds (West having the singleton jack). Now he led a diamond, perhaps intending to put in the seven, had West followed with a small card. In fact, though, the trick went to the jack, queen and king.

East now had to shift to the club seven. This went round to West’s ace, and back came a third spade. Versace ruffed, then led a diamond to dummy’s seven as West discarded. In the four-card ending, East had been stripped of his major-suit cards, and was down to one club and the 1-0-6-4 of diamonds. Whatever he led next, he had to concede the rest, one way or another. As you can see, the spade ruff at trick two was essential to remove East’s exit card in this position.

Of course, not every story has a happy ending. Versace’s +620 held the loss on the board to five IMPs. His teammates at the other table had saved in five clubs and had been doubled to go minus 800 after the defense found the spade ruff.

In today’s deal the route to three no-trump looks too easy. There must be a catch here… right?

When South responds one heart to his partner’s opening, North rebids his long suit. Now South, with a full opening bid and stoppers in all the unbid suits, can bid game in no-trump; no other contract looks appealing, and slam is a long way away.

After a small spade lead by West, South puts up dummy’s spade queen at the first trick because the queen may win a trick now, but can never win a trick later. (If dummy had queen-third of spades you would duck, naturally, to preserve your second spade trick if West had led from the ace.)

As it happens, the queen holds the trick, and South knows that West has led from a long suit headed by the ace. It is now necessary to develop the long diamonds without allowing East on lead. If that happened, East would continue the attack on spades, and West would then defeat the contract by running his suit.

Once you see the problem, the solution is relatively easy. At trick two you should lead a low diamond from dummy and finesse the nine. If this finesse should lose, the rest of the suit would be good, and West could do no harm.

As it happens, the finesse wins. The rest of the suit is good, and South is off to the races. If South had played the diamonds from the top, he would have lost a trick to East’s jack, and the spades would then defeat him.

It is important to understand how South can describe a strong balanced hand by his first two calls. With 15 to 17 points, South can open one no-trump, whereas with 20 to 22 points, South would open with two no-trump.

However, with in-between hands, in the range of 18 to 19 points, the solution is to open one of a suit, then jump rebid at notrump. North can raise to three no-trump, since he has eight points in high cards, which should be more than enough for game.

When dummy comes down, South sees he needs four club tricks to make his game. He can only do so if East has the club king. Moreover, since there is only one entry to dummy, South must manage to take all of the necessary club finesses without wasting entries.

Best is to begin clubs by leading the nine from dummy. When it holds the trick, the queen can be led next. Once this also holds the trick, a third club finesse can be taken, and the contract can be brought home.

It would be wrong to lead the club queen first. If South drops the small club under dummy’s queen, he must win the second club in his own hand, and then cannot return to dummy for the third club finesse.

It would be no better to lead the queen and contribute the 10 under it. East would duck the first club, then cover the club nine with the king. This leaves South with a losing club for the fourth round of the suit.

At the table, in six diamonds on a trump lead, declarer drew trump and led ace and another spade, hoping to guess the suit. This was essentially a 50% line, and it failed when he put in the 10. Can you do better?

One improvement is to play a low spade up after drawing trump, planning to put in the 10 if West ducks smoothly. Even if you misguess, you may recover with a major-suit squeeze. This comes to roughly a two-thirds chance.

Another approach is to go after hearts. Lead low to the ace, low to the king and then play a third heart. This works when hearts break or East has a singleton or doubleton honor, or when West has some specific doubletons. But if hearts don’t behave, you have virtually no chance. This line comes in at sixty percent. Granted, if you prefer to back your judgment after two top hearts to go after spades, you may survive a 4-2 heart break.

But on balance I prefer drawing trump, cashing off the clubs, then leading to the heart ace and playing a heart back to the seven. If hearts are 3-3 you are home, and if West has a singleton honor, honor-fourth or four low cards, you have the 12th trick. And you still have a chance if West has either a doubleton honor or doubleton heart nine. He must win the second heart and then lead spades for you – giving you the contract half of the rest of the time. The combined chances amount to close to 70 percent.

To say that South had been given a complete blueprint of the deal below in his contract of five clubs would be only a slight exaggeration. After the bidding and the play to the first trick, he could pinpoint every high card in the defenders’ hands. The good news is he was given the opportunity for a rather unusual play; the bad news is that he thought of it too late.

Against five clubs doubled West led the spade ace to the three, queen and six, then rather woodenly led another spade. As it turns out, a heart switch would have been more purposeful. South ruffed and led a trump to the two, 10 and jack. East returned a heart to dummy’s ace and, although the finesses against both of East’s kings were right, there was only one entry to the table. East was able to cover whatever card was led from dummy, and wait for the setting trick in the other minor.

Can you spot the winning line? If you place East with every missing honor card, then declarer should start trump by the highly unusual maneuver of leading the nine from his hand. East can win with the jack and lead a heart, but the difference now is that declarer can make his second play in trumps the lead of a club honor from dummy. Whether East covers or not, there will remain a vital entry on the table to lead the diamond jack, and avoid a loser in that suit.

At the Dyspeptics Club it might be grudgingly accepted by South and West that their partners might be technically superior players, but they would never gratify them by admitting that to their face.

However on today’s deal South struck a blow to establish his bona fides by a neat line of play, which gave the defense a chance to go wrong.

In theory West found the way to hold declarer to eight tricks in three notrump, and continuing with another high diamond. This appeared to limit declarer to three club tricks, unless East had the singleton or doubleton club king.

But South found a way to present the defenders with a losing option when he won the second diamond, and ran the club queen, then the nine. Next he crossed to the club ace as West discarded the spade nine, before exiting in diamonds.

Now West embarrassed his partner by cashing all the diamonds, reducing everyone to five cards. What was East to keep? He had come down to three cards in each major, and had to decide which suit to unguard. Seduced by his partner’s earlier high spade discard, he pitched a spade, and South scored the last five tricks with three spades and two hearts.

Was East’s play a mistake? Yes I think so, since West would surely have discarded a small heart from an original holding of three or four small cards or even from jack-third of hearts. His failure to pitch a heart suggested he was holding on to jack-fourth of hearts.

Against three no-trump East takes the first spade with the ace and returns the spade seven. Declarer follows small from hand and West’s jack captures dummy’s 10.

Now West knows he can take two more spades if he can put East in to return a third diamond. But East’s play of a high spade at trick two suggests an original three-card holding – so South would still have a spade guard left if West leads out the suit from the top. East would return a low spade at trick two if he had three spades left.

Since West knows South has about a 12-count at minimum there is room for East to hold one significant card. If East has the club king, he will surely win a trick with that, since declarer cannot come to nine tricks without establishing the club suit. So the question is when it matters which red suit to play.

The simple answer is that the sight of the diamond ace in dummy means it must be right to play a heart. Even if East has a diamond suit that included the king, a diamond shift now wouldn’t help – declarer would have three red-suit winners and six clubs. But as the cards lie, playing a high heart now lets East win and revert to spades, for the defenders to cash out their five winners.

Had dummy held the heart ace and diamond king, West would have shifted to a high diamond, using similar reasoning to hope to find East with the diamond ace (or club king).

When South invites game at his second turn, North accepts the invitation, of course. After West’s top diamond lead, some Easts might simply encourage the lead – but better is to overtake with the queen, perhaps planning to shift to clubs. Naturally South wins trick one; what next?

They say that many homeless bridge players are walking Charing Cross Embankment — because they forgot to draw trump. However, just as many are walking the streets of New York because they drew trump too soon.

South needs two spade tricks to make his game. If he draws three rounds of trump and then starts the spades, the opponents will duck the first spade and take the second, and the rest of dummy’s suit will be shut out.

South instead takes just the king and queen of trumps, leaving dummy’s trump ace as the entry to the spades. Then he leads out the spade king, on which West gives count, letting East duck. When East wins the second spade he cashes his high diamond, and now West gives high suit preference to tell his partner to play a third spade for the trump promotion. If West had the club ace but no promotable trump, he would follow low on the diamond, letting East play a club through. Again, unless East ducks, declarer will be home.

As it is, a third spade from East promotes the heart jack, and dooms the contract. Maybe a more deceptive line for declarer is to draw just one trump and lead a spade to the jack.

Against four spades West leads out the diamond king and ace. You ruff, then cash the ace and king of trumps. However, East discards a diamond on the second round of trump. How will you play from this point?

In abstract, the best way to go after clubs is to finesse twice, which will yield an extra trick from the A-J-10 so long as East holds at least one of the missing honors. However, if you score the three heart honors separately you will have only one entry to dummy to take two club finesses, which may not suffice for your purposes. Curiously, though, if you make three tricks in clubs, you only need two in hearts. The way to maximize your chances is to sacrifice one trick in hearts to gain a second entry to dummy. There is one more point: since you don’t want West to ruff the second round of clubs, you should concede a trump to West’s queen at trick five.

Obviously, West will exit with a third round of diamonds. You ruff this in hand, play the heart king to the ace and lead a low club to the 10. West will win and play yet another diamond. After ruffing this, you will cross again to dummy, this time with the heart queen. You will lead the club jack next, running it if East follows with a low card.

This plan will always give you three club tricks whenever East has a club honor. No other approach offers the same overall chance of success.