Today’s deal is a mea culpa from a reader whose name will be withheld. At least, as he said, he made an interesting mistake.

Declarer was given a helpful start when West led a spade rather than the more challenging diamond. He won with the queen in hand, ducked a heart to East’s 10, won the next spade with the ace in hand, and played another heart. West tranced before playing the jack and declarer won the king and continued the attack on hearts. When the defense cleared spades, declarer did not guess clubs and could no longer make the game.

South realized, too late, that had he taken the club finesse when the heart king held, he would actually have made his game.

First, suppose that West cashes his hearts: now South has three spades, two hearts, three clubs and a diamond. Alternatively, suppose West does not cash either heart winner, but exits immediately with a spade. Declarer wins in dummy and play ace and another diamond, since the diamond king must be with East. The defenders can cash a spade, their fourth defensive trick, but South has three spades, one heart, two diamonds and three clubs.

So perhaps West should cash just one heart after scoring his club king. But now if he plays a spade, declarer gives up a heart while he still has an entry to dummy. If West switches to a diamond instead, now South simply plays low from dummy for the ninth trick, because the defenders have not yet set up East’s long spade.

Had North or South been able to reach three no-trump without bidding a major, they would probably have received a favorable lead. But today West was warned off the spade lead, so selected the club jack for his opening salvo. What would you expect the fate of the game to be?

The club lead was won in dummy with the queen, as East followed with the seven, and the spade seven led to the 10 and ace. Declarer then took the losing diamond finesse. The low club return was won in dummy and a diamond played to the 10. When West ducked this, declarer seemed to be very short of tricks. But he cashed the club king and now stripped off West’s heart by leading out the ace, then played a third diamond. West had no choice but to win. Although he could cash his club winner, he then had to lead a spade, giving declarer both a cheap spade trick and also an entry to dummy’s stranded diamond king.

The key to the defense was East’s signal at trick one. When East followed with the club seven he was giving count in a position where it was clear what his attitude was (since he could not beat the queen). So West should have unblocked both the club nine and 10 on the second and third rounds of the suit, leaving himself an entry to his partner’s hand if declarer tried to endplay him.

As a defender, consider giving count (or even occasionally suit preference) if your attitude is already defined by bridge logic.

The four most regular players at the Dyspeptics Club most frequently play in set partnerships, both North and East putting up with their weaker partners simply to have someone they can shout at without fear of violent physical response. And North swears he will never give up his partner, because, as he says, he holds such poor cards himself that it is a joy to play with a man who regards a strong no-trump as less than his full entitlement of high card points.

In today’s deal South declared four spades on the lead of the club 10. Thinking that it would not matter whether he lost a club now or later, he played low from dummy. East won with the king and, since it was clear that his partner held very little, farsightedly attacked diamonds, playing West for the 10 by boldly leading into dummy’s tenace. Since he was due to regain the lead twice more with his top hearts, he was able to establish the setting trick in diamonds for the defense.

Declarer gains a tempo if he wins the opening lead with the ace. It looks now as though he can draw trump and establishing dummy’s hearts for two diamond discards — but there is a second pitfall. East may let the heart queen win, take the second heart and exit with king and another club. Now declarer is left with two diamond losers.

The correct sequence of play is to win the club ace, play the spade ace and jack, then start on hearts. Now the defense is powerless.

In today’s deal declarer did well to get an inferential count on today’s hand, but failed to draw the correct conclusions from his hypothesis.

Against four spades West cashed three rounds of diamonds, East discarding an encouraging heart 10 on the third. West shifted to the heart two, and declarer won the ace and drew trump in two rounds. Then he tried to work out the distribution of the defensive hands.

He could count West for five diamonds and all the honors in that suit. West had supported East’s hearts at his second turn to bid, so was likely to have four of them; for with only three, he might well have made a support double or have passed one spade.

All of this added up to his holding nine cards in the red suits, plus a doubleton spade, which left room for just two clubs. This meant that East must hold four clubs.

And if East held four, South’s conclusion was that the queen was likely to sit with the length, regardless of West’s opening bid strength.

Accordingly he led a club to the jack, and finished two down. What South had failed to appreciate was that he needed four club tricks in order to discard a heart. That would not be possible whatever four clubs East had, if they included the queen, without a serious defensive error.

The correct thought process is that to obtain four club tricks declarer must rely on the club queen lying doubleton in West, and cash the ace then lead low to the king.

The North hand is hard to evaluate in response to a one spade opener. However, a limit raise feels the most sensible description to me; North does not have enough to commit to game with such a balanced hand.

When West leads the diamond jack against four spades declarer puts up dummy’s queen more in hope than expectation, and captures East’s king win with the ace.

Now South is threatened with the loss of two spades, a club, and a diamond. Nothing can be done about the losers in the black suits, but South can prevent the loss of a diamond if he is careful.

Declarer must immediately run the hearts, discarding diamonds from dummy, hoping for the suit to break 4-3. Even though one opponent will surely be able to ruff the fourth round of the suit, this is unlikely to give the defenders a trick that they weren’t going to get anyway.

The defenders have only three trumps between them. If the ruff is made with the trump king or ace, this will immediately eliminate one trump loser. If the ruff is made with the only missing small trump, South may then be able to lead a trump and get both the ace and king to fall together. As the cards lie today, whether West ruffs high or low, or discards, one of the defenders’ sure tricks vanishes.

If declarer had led a trump at the second trick, East would take the spade ace, and now the defenders would get their diamond and club tricks to defeat the contract.

This was the very last deal of the NEC tournament last year, and it decided the event, since at that point in the match the Hackett team were leading a Dutch/ UK combination by just five IMPs (thus one swing could change the match result).

In one room Louk Verhees for the trailing team had opened five diamonds as East, and bought the contract there. This was never going to make, but after a spade lead and club shift declarer was home free with 10 tricks.

So the fate of David Gold’s four heart contract would determine first place and all the glory that this entailed. If it made, the Hackett team would be overtaken at the finishing line.

Brian Senior led a club, Gold called for the jack, and Jason Hackett won the ace, then paused for reflection. It looks natural to play his partner’s suit, spades. But had he shifted to a spade, assuming that his diamond tricks could wait, declarer would simply have drawn trump and used the club king to pitch one diamond loser from his hand, and made his game. Hackett worked that out. He cashed the diamond ace then thoughtfully played the diamond two, giving his partner a ruff with a suit preference card to make sure that his partner didn’t play a spade at the fourth trick, and surrender the setting trick in the process.

Not to worry: the trump ace was not going to go away. The contract went down one, and the Hackett team had held on to win.

This is my final exhibit from last year’s Gold Coast teams tournament in Australia. After North, Simon Hinge had denied real extras at his second turn, he took a flyer to raise his partner’s sign-off in hearts to game.

After the lead of the spade queen, Bill Haughie as declarer discarded a club from dummy. East took her spade ace and correctly returned a top club. Declarer won and played the diamond ace and ruffed a diamond, then cashed the spade king to pitch a club from the board. Now he ruffed a spade, ruffed a diamond, crossed to the club king, and led the fourth diamond from dummy.

When East made the natural play of discarding a club, declarer ruffed in hand, ruffed a club for his ninth trick, and with the heart king-jack still in dummy he could ruff the diamond nine with the heart 10 for his game-going trick.

Let’s rewind to when declarer led the fourth diamond from dummy, establishing North’s fifth diamond. Let’s say East ruffs in with the heart queen; ace and another heart won’t work now. Nor is a club any better, since declarer would simply continue the cross-ruff. But try ruffing the fourth diamond with the heart eight – entirely illogical I know!

Declarer must overruff; he then ruffs a club low, and leads the fifth diamond. When you discard, your partner overruffs East’s heart seven with his nine. Now you take the heart acequeen to set the game.

This defense sets the game when partner has either the heart nine or 10.

The bidding on today’s hand from the Gold Coast may look bizarre, but the Australian authorities allow unusual systems in national events, and the players are quite relaxed about dealing with even the strangest of methods. And it is the play that counts, today.

This deal saw the eventual winners, sitting East-West, do very well. Magnus Moren, East, opened his uninspiring collection to show a balanced 10-13 points. That persuaded Neville Francis as West to double the opponents’ balancing overcall of two diamonds.

At double-dummy it takes a spade lead to beat two diamonds; but after West’s normal club queen lead to declarer’s king, South started well by playing the heart king from hand. East won and shifted to trump – his choice of the diamond two meant Francis saw no reason not to win his king to return a trump. When declarer quite rationally let the diamond queen hold the trick in dummy, he found he could no longer make the hand. He had four diamond tricks, but only one trick in each of the side-suits.

The winning line is to overtake the diamond queen with the ace and draw one more trump. Then run the heart nine – overtaking with the 10 if West ducks. When it holds, you cash the heart queen to pitch a spade, ruff a heart to hand, then play the spade ace and another spade, ruffing in hand for your eighth winner (two hearts, four trumps and one trick in each black suit). A lot easier to find with the sight of all four hands!

Today’s deal comes from the 2015 Gold Coast pairs in Brisbane, and presented both the defenders and declarer with a challenging problem.

Try four hearts by South, or if you prefer you can play it from the North seat after a diamond lead (yes, a top club lead by East would leave you with too much work to do). Either way, you win the diamond ace at trick one.

You now lead the heart king to find the bad news in trump. You play low from dummy, then lead a low heart to dummy’s 10. What is your plan now?

Best is to lead a spade toward your hand, intending to cover East’s card, and put West in. His best play is to try to kill your entries to hand by leading the diamond king – but you can riposte by discarding a low spade, rather than ruffing in. Whatever West does next, you can arrange to cash the spade ace, then ruff a spade high in the North hand and draw trump ending in South. The same line of ruffing out spades works if West returns a spade at trick five.

Incidentally, when North was declarer on a diamond lead, finding the most testing defense was not easy. Quite a few defenders as West won the spade to underlead in diamonds. That resulted in a disastrous minus 450, when declarer could discard from dummy after his diamond queen scored. Of course West should have led out the king rather than underlead it, since he knew declarer would not have a losing option of misguessing.