When I saw this deal, I was reminded of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. After all, how could anyone go down in three hearts with trumps and diamonds lying so favorably?

It was East who reported the deal, remarking that perhaps he should have pre-balanced with two spades at his second turn – but as he commented, if his partner couldn’t balance, maybe his side would do better to remain silent.

In three hearts declarer, a very skillful player, won the spade lead in his hand and led a low heart up. West, Chris Compton, ducked smoothly, a task not many defenders would have been up to. It seemed twice as likely to declarer that West had been dealt a doubleton jack or 10 in hearts than that he had begun life with the doubleton king. So South cannot be blamed too much when he inserted the heart seven on the first round. Later he crossed to dummy to led the heart queen in an attempt to pin West’s remaining honor. This maneuver is known as an intrafinesse, but today all it succeeded in doing was losing an extra trick to the now bare heart king.

Accordingly, the defenders collected two hearts, two diamonds, and one club for down one.

It occurred to me that a weaker player would never have seen the possibility of the intrafinesse and would simply have led a heart to the queen at some point. It was lucky for East-West that they were playing the deal against an expert.

It is almost a cliché that when you have only eight tricks in a contract of three no-trump, you should play off your long suit. South used this advice to good effect on this deal.

When North opened one diamond East went out on a limb when he overcalled two clubs. Even at favorable vulnerability, space-consuming overcalls can be taken only so far. Rather than play for penalties, South quite reasonably decided to try for game. When North repeated his diamonds, South advanced with two no-trump, and was raised to game.

West started with the king and another club. East allowed declarer to win the second round with the queen, imagining he had three club tricks, the heart ace as a sure entry, and that he had diamonds under control.

South saw the prospects of success were small, as East surely held the heart ace for his overcall. His only chance lay in finding a way to exert pressure on East – which required him to guard diamonds. That meant he must hold both five clubs and four diamonds.

Since South had no side entry to hand, it would be no good to him if East held the doubleton spade jack. So at trick three declarer boldly finessed the spade 10. When this held the trick, South could cash three more spades. On the last spade East, who had already pitched his small heart, was forced to part with a winning club. So declarer could force out the heart ace, and East had only two winners to cash; contract made.

In today’s deal, North-South had only 23 points between them and no huge fit, so game would seem a long way away. However, the young Polish player Piotr Butryn had no trouble both bidding and scoring up his game.

When West led the spade jack, East needed to overtake with the ace and return a heart to set the game. At the table, though, the spade jack held the first trick. West continued with a second spade, ruffed by declarer. How would you play?

One possible line would have been to cross to dummy with the heart ace to run the club jack. However, once East has the spade ace, the odds surely favor West holding the club king for his overcall. Additionally, even if the club jack held, what would you do now? Would you take another trump finesse or switch your attack to a red suit, choosing between a diamond finesse or hoping to guess well in hearts?

Butryn went for a different line. He cashed the diamond ace and king. When this dropped the queen, he simply played clubs from the top and claimed his contract. Had the diamond queen not dropped, he would have played a third round of the suit, hoping that they broke 3-3. Then he would have won the return, crossed to dummy with the heart ace and finessed in clubs. Had the king been with East and the suit broken 2-2, he would then have made his game by discarding a heart on a diamond, then ruffing two hearts in the dummy.

One of the problems with which a declarer at no-trump is faced is when to win, and when duck, as well as which entry in the opponent’s hand to knock out. Today’s deal embodies this sort of problem.

Here you play three no-trump on the lead of the spade jack. You must duck this, to protect yourself against a possible 6-2 spade split, when West has only one ace, and you misguess which one it is. At trick two comes a spade to the ace. What next?

The play that works against most normal breaks is to cross to hand with the club ace and to lead a low diamond out of your hand. If West takes the ace, declarer has nine tricks in the form of four diamonds. When West ducks the diamond ace, the diamond queen wins in dummy and declarer shifts his attention to hearts, taking three tricks in hearts and clubs, two spades and one diamond, for nine tricks.

If East can win the first diamond and clear the spades, declarer will go down. But when West has overcalled on a relatively weak suit you would normally assume that he needs to have a reasonable hand. This makes him favorite to have both the red aces, since there are essentially no other significant high cards missing.

Had you led a diamond from dummy to the king and ace at trick three, West would have cleared spades, and one way or another West would have regained the lead to cash out his spades.

After North stretches a little to volunteer a free bid of one no-trump, South is worth the reverse to two spades. Then when North suggests a minimum hand by giving preference to three diamonds, South can make a shape-showing bid at his third turn. Now North knows that what little he has is in the right place. Therefore, he jumps to five diamonds, against which the defense by leading the heart king and continuing the suit. Declarer has three seemingly inescapable losers — but nobody ever made a contract by conceding one down. Let’s see what happens as the hand is played out.

Declarer ruffs the second heart, and cashes the diamond ace-king, hoping for the even trump break. He leaves the defenders with the master trump, and leads a spade to the ace, then takes a second heart ruff. Now a spade is led to the queen, and declarer takes a third heart ruff.

On this trick East is squeezed in an unusual fashion, since if he pitches a spade, it lets declarer run that suit to take care of dummy’s club loser. So East discards a club on the fourth heart. Declarer now cashes the club ace-king, then takes the spade king. Had spades split, declarer would discard dummy’s club loser. As it is, he ruffs his fourth spade in dummy, conceding the last trick to both the club queen and master diamond.

This sort of play, where East is squeezed in three suits one of which is trump, is often referred to as an elopement.

South’s opening bid of two clubs followed by a rebid of two no-trump shows 22 to 24 highcard points, with a balanced or semi-balanced distribution. Occasionally you may have to make the call with a flaw such as a singleton honor or two doubletons, but you strive to avoid this if you can. North has enough to raise to game, but no reason to consider playing anywhere but three notrump.

When the defenders lead a fourth-highest spade, South sees that he will win three hearts, two diamonds, and one spade. He therefore needs three club tricks to make sure of his game. The best way to get three club tricks is to finesse twice through East. Hence, South must get to dummy twice to lead clubs. South should see that the heart ace is one entry, so he needs to construct a second entry to dummy.

The spade jack is the only high card South can utilize, and there is only one way to create an entry from it. South plays dummy’s seven at trick one, then must unblock his spade queen under the king, at once. He can then reach dummy twice, and duly take two club finesses.

South should fail in his contract if he neglected to throw away the spade queen at the first trick. West would save his spade king for South’s 10 but would duck if South contributed the spade queen at the second trick. South would therefore be unable to reach dummy with the spade jack, and could then take no more than two club tricks.

At the Yeh Bros Cup Teams last year, Team Ish from the USA did not set the tournament alight, but Chris Willenken of the USA and Dennis Bilde of Denmark worked some magic here – and won the bestdefended hand of the year from the International Bridge Press Association.

Against three no-trump, Bilde’s lead of the diamond nine travelled round to the queen and ace. Declarer tested clubs to find the bad news, West pitching two hearts then a diamond. Willenken now shifted to a low spade to declarer’s ace, and a heart was ducked to the jack and king.

Willenken could see the endplay looming on him. To get out of his own way, he exited with the spade 10. Declarer won in dummy, pitching a heart from his hand, and cashed the last two club winners, finishing in hand.

Willenken pitched a diamond on the first, and the spade king on the last one, which had the effect of potentially establishing the spade nine in dummy for the fourth round of the suit. However, in the four-card ending declarer could do nothing but duck a heart to East, and this squeezed dummy in the process.

West had come down to J-8 of spades and the diamond eight. So when declarer pitched a diamond from the dummy, reducing to two spades and one diamond, Willenken could exit in diamonds, to the now bare king, and West could take the last two tricks in spades. Had declarer bared dummy’s spade nine, Willenken would have led a spade to his partner to cash his two winners.

In this deal from the 2015 Yeh Bros Cup teams from England and Japan both reached three notrump, on the defense of a low spade lead round to the 10 and queen.

At one table, Paul Hackett guessed diamonds and ran the suit, West pitching a heart, East a heart then a club. Paul now took dummy’s two top hearts and led a spade from dummy, covering East’s five with the six. West could not underlead in spades, since Paul still had the jack left (and had East put up the eight, South’s six would have been larger than East’s remaining spot, the five). So all West could do was cash out his spades and surrender the last two tricks to declarer in clubs.

In the other room, the first trick went the same way when Paul’s son Justin Hackett was West. Declarer also cashed out the diamonds, guessing the queen correctly, but here Justin discarded a discouraging club 10 as West. Now but when South tried to strip out the hearts and endplay West, Justin had a heart left to reach his partner at trick 12.

There is a legitimate defense, though; let’s go back to trick one. When partner leads the spade seven, you know declarer has two honors in spades. Don’t waste a high spade spot at trick one and do not pitch a spade on the run of the diamonds. Then your 10-8 of spades ensures your partner can pitch a heart on the diamonds. If necessary, your partner can put you in with a spade, should declarer try to endplay him by playing on spades after stripping off the hearts.