When North bid three diamonds after his partner transferred to hearts, it showed a nonminimum with heart fit. That got South to four hearts, against which West led his singleton trump. That turned out to be his least damaging lead.

Declarer next led out a second high trump, discovering the three-one break. At that point he ran the club jack to West, who found himself endplayed. If he returned a club, declarer would get a free finesse. If West, instead, returned a diamond, declarer would let it ride around to his queen. West chose the least of the evils by leading ace and another spade.

Declarer could now infer that West has the missing club honor or he would surely have exited in clubs. He could reach dummy with a third round of trump, to ruff the spade jack in hand. Next he cashed the club ace, and threw West in once more with a third round of clubs.

Caught in a second end-play, West could no longer get out safely. If he led another spade, dummy would ruff, while South discarded his losing diamond. It is for this reason that dummy must still hold a trump when the end-play takes place. This in turn explains why declarer left a trump outstanding at trick four when he took the first club finesse.

Since West knew that a spade return would be absolutely hopeless, he had finally to open up diamonds in the four-card ending, and South could run the lead round to his queen and claim 10 tricks.

Today, you will be faced with two problems. First play three no-trump on the given hands after the lead of the spade jack. Then play the same contract, but with the club eight not the seven in hand.

With the given cards, your best chance comes from the clubs. Cash the club ace and continue the suit, if both follow. Even if East has king-jack-third, and shifts to a low heart you will simply play low from hand. Then the best the defense can do is to take two heart tricks and two clubs.

But say East had four clubs, as here. Now if you play a second club the defense will win the race to establish West’s spades. So your only hope for a ninth trick is in the heart suit.

Best is to lead a low heart towards the jack. This works when East has the ace or West has the heart queen. Here, West will rise with the queen and play a spade. You will win and force out the heart ace by playing a low heart to dummy’s jack. As indicated above, if East had the heart queen you would need him also to have the heart ace.

So what difference does the club eight make? You can ensure your contract by leading a club toward the queen initially. If East has four clubs he does best to win and return a spade. You win and lead a club to the nine, then use diamond entries to dummy to finesse in clubs and establish the suit for your nine tricks.

When North is only worth a simple raise of spades at his second turn, South contents himself with a bid of four spades. Since both players have minimum opening bids, there is no reason for a slam try (a jump to four hearts would be a splinter – appropriate if South had king-fourth of diamonds, say).

After winning the heart lead in dummy, South can see that he might lose a trump and three diamond tricks. One discard on dummy’s high heart seems irrelevant. South may be able to discard another diamond on dummy’s fourth club, but only after trump have been drawn.

South’s best play might be a deceptive move at trick two. He should lead the heart ace from dummy and discard the low club from his hand, creating the impression that he is weak in clubs.

Declarer now takes the trump finesse. West wins with the spade king and is likely to return the club 10. South can now win the club ace, draw the remaining trump, and cash the club queen. He then enters dummy with a trump to discard a losing diamond on the club king. When both opponents follow to the third club, dummy’s last club takes care of a second losing diamond.

West’s best chance to defeat the game comes if East can signal suit preference on the second heart — and maybe on the first trump as well. A high heart at trick two, and maybe the spade six on the first trump might tip West off to South’s devious plan.

These days Bergen raises have become very popular, though I’m not a huge fan myself. After an opening bid of a major by his partner, responder jumps to three hearts with preemptive values, and uses three clubs or three diamonds to show various sorts of four-card raises.

Here you sit East after North makes a three diamond call to show a limit raise with four trump, and South has accepted the invitation. West leads the club four to your ace. Plan the defense.

At the table East correctly diagnosed that the lead was a likely singleton, so he gave his partner a ruff, but this left West with no way to take two more tricks. That player tried the effect of ace and another diamond, but declarer claimed the balance.

East should have foreseen that if he gave his partner a ruff immediately it would set up a lot of tricks for declarer. Best defense was first to switch to the diamond queen – playing partner for the diamond ace or both the diamond king and trump ace.

If declarer ducks the queen, you can give partner a ruff; if he covers, partner can put you in again with your diamond jack, and only now do you give him the ruff.

By the way, if you were to ask me how to play the direct raise to three of partner’s major, I could happily live with it showing mixed (6-9 HCP) values, while using three clubs and three diamonds either as limit with three and four trump respectively, or just as natural and invitational.

Zia Mahmood famously contributed a BOLS Bridge Tip entitled ‘When they don’t cover, they don’t have it’, Curiously though, he failed to use his own good advice on this deal from the 2010 Philadelphia world championships. Plan the play in three notrump on the lead of the diamond five. You play dummy’s ace and East encourages with the jack.

A simple analysis is that you have eight top winners and need one of the spade or heart finesses. But if you pick the wrong suit, the defenders will surely run the diamonds against you. If you trust your opponents to make helpful discards, you should run the clubs and see which if the major suits your LHO appears to be guarding.

(For the record, in situations of this sort, you should delay asking what discards your opponents play until they have both let go a card. There is no reason to tip them off if their discards might affect your play – they are more likely to be honest if they think you don’t care!)

But let’s assume you are playing against competent opponents, who may gauge the position and try to disguise their holdings in the majors.

How about winning the opening lead and advancing dummy’s spade jack? It may be very hard for East to follow low without a flicker – if he has the king and doesn’t cover he could easily have presented you with an unmakeable contract.

If East plays low without apparent discomfort, rise with the ace and later finesse against the heart king.

When Larry Cohen retired from serious tournament bridge at what many would regard as a ridiculously young age, it was to focus on writing and teaching. Today’s deal is from his latest book: “Larry Teaches Declarer Play at Suit contracts,” available at his website.

Against four spades, South receives the lead of the heart king. He is facing two heart losers, a diamond loser and whatever he might have to surrender in trumps. The percentage play in trumps, missing five, is to lead low to the ace and then finesse the jack. If the suit behaves perfectly, declarer can draw trump and then start clubs, throwing away hearts. But, if he takes the spade finesse and it fails, he will lose four tricks off the top.

What about playing on clubs first? That might work, but if the opponents ruff the second round you are down, and even if they trump in on the third round of clubs, there may well still be residual problems.

The best plan is to partially draw trump. Win the heart lead and take the spade ace and king. If the queen happens to fall doubleton, you draw the last trump and run the clubs, to make at least one overtrick.

What if everyone follows with low spades on the ace and king? Don’t play a third round, but start on the clubs and throw as many hearts away as you can. When the opponents ruff in, it will be with their good trump trick, and you have 10 sure winners.

At the world championships in Lille, the US team lost a very close knock-out match to the eventual winners, Sweden. The Americans had a respectable lead until this deal.

In one room Bob Hamman played five spades as West, and went down when he quite reasonably misguessed trumps, to end up minus 200. In the other room Jeff Meckstroth as North had to decide whether to run from four notrump doubled to five diamonds. Had he done so he would have lost 300 – no triumph, but better than the calamity that actually occurred.

Per-Ola Cullin as West found the killing low heart lead to his partner’s ace. The spade six came back, to the jack and king, and now Cullin cashed the heart king before going into a long huddle. He could cash the spade king, to assure defeat of the contract – or he could try for more, risking a disaster for his side.

Cullin had to decide whether to gamble on his partner Peter Bertheau holding the heart queen and another spade. If he was missing the heart queen, Rodwell was surely going to take 10 tricks. If Bertheau had started with the heart queen and only one spade, the contract would be down fewer than it should.

After long thought, Cullin eventually got it right and played a low heart to his partner’s queen. Another spade through declarer meant an end result of seven down, for the unusual result of plus 1700, and a lead in the match that Sweden would never surrender.

Reaching six diamonds on this deal from the Lille world championships of 2012 is far from easy, though on a heart lead you would have to run the lead to your queen to survive. Others received a trump lead and spade shift, so had no problems. But let’s say West leads a low club; what next?

It looks natural to get the women and children off the street as fast as possible. To protect against 4-0 trump breaks, you need to lead towards the diamond king-queen rather than starting with the diamond jack. When East wins and shifts to a heart, you suddenly have a problem.

Did you notice that a heart shift was going to jeopardize your entries? (Don’t worry if you didn’t — there was nothing you could have done to avoid this). You might as well put up the heart queen now more in hope than expectation — you won’t get any value out of your queen, if you don’t.

When West covers, you take your heart ace and play a trump to the queen. Had trumps split 2-2, you would have been home free, but as it is you need to unblock spades before drawing the last trump.

By cashing only two spades you have left the suit temporarily blocked. But now comes the point of the deal: after drawing the last trump, you pitch your remaining spade honor on the club king and have unscrambled the blockage. You now have two homes for your heart losers, one on the spade jack and on the spade 10.

The world championship encounter between Germany and Ireland at the Mind Sports Games in Lille four years ago saw Ireland win the board at both tables in the bidding, then back it up with accurate declarer play.

Where the German South passed, the Irish bid unopposed to two spades, West opening one heart and raising one spade to two – a style I wholeheartedly agree with. South started with the diamond ace then shifted belatedly to spades. Declarer, Tom Hanlon took the king with his ace, crossed to hand with a heart ruff and ran the diamond jack, pitching a club. He emerged with eight tricks.

In the other room Adam Mesbur opened the South cards, to reach three no-trump. When West led the heart six, declarer won with dummy’s king and played the diamond nine. East correctly covered with the queen, and declarer took the ace and played a spade toward the king. When the king held the trick, he played a spade to the 10 and West could do no better than win with the ace and return a spade to the queen. A heart towards the queen left West little option but to go up with the ace and exit with a heart.

Declarer won in dummy, played a diamond to the 10, cashed the diamond king, and exited with a heart to endplay West. That player had two hearts to cash, but in the three-card ending he was forced to lead a club round to the queen, and declarer had his ninth trick.