Today’s deal comes from the Gold Coast pairs, held in Brisbane last February. The first round of the evening featured two of the top seeds taking on one another. Zoli Nagy declared the first deal, and the defenders had the chance to make him find a nice play.

David Lilley as North had already done well for his side by stopping low. Nagy won Matt Mullamphy’s spade lead in hand (Ron Klinger accurately putting in the 10) and returned the suit, ducking West’s nine. After some thought, Mullamphy exited with a third spade.

Nagy ruffed away the ace, then led a diamond to the king, and a club to the jack and queen. Mullamphy returned a diamond, and Nagy won in hand, cashed the heart ace, and played a top diamond. Mullamphy ruffed, and had reached a five-card ending where dummy had four trumps and a losing club left.

Mullamphy chose the simple line of cashing the club ace and playing a spade, but declarer could ruff high and lead out a top trump, losing just one trump trick further, for plus 110.

Had Mullamphy played a winning spade before cashing the club ace, declarer would have needed to discard dummy’s club, rather than ruffing in. Were he to ruff low, East would obtain a cheap overruff. If declarer were to ruff high in dummy, East would discard a diamond. Then, when in with the heart king, East could put his partner in with the club ace for a fifth spade, to promote the heart eight to the setting trick.

Would you prefer to defend or declare four hearts on this deal from the Gold Coast pairs in Brisbane last year?

At one table South reached four hearts doubled, on an auction where East had opened an extremely aggressive weak-two bid in spades. West led out two top clubs. Declarer ruffed, drew trump in two rounds, then ruffed a spade in dummy and tried a diamond to the king, being more hurt than surprised when it lost.

Sue Ingham displayed superior technique when declaring four hearts on the defense of two rounds of clubs. She ruffed, drew just one round of trump, and then played ace-king and a third spade. What happened at most tables was that West took the opportunity to ruff in – and found himself endplayed. He could exit with the club queen, when declarer would ruff, ruff a spade to dummy, and cash the club jack to pitch a diamond. Or he could lead the diamond ace, when declarer would claim the rest.

You may ask what would happen if West doesn’t ruff in? Declarer can ruff in dummy, ruff a club to hand, lead his last spade, and now West must ruff in with the heart jack. Declarer discards the last club from dummy, and the defense is again stymied. If West doesn’t ruff in, declarer scores the second spade ruff and surrenders two diamond tricks but no more. He makes 10 tricks either way.

The winning defense, found by Ross Harper, was to shift to spades at trick two. Now declarer can no longer find a way home.

Today’s deal from the Gold Coast teams in Brisbane last February embodies a basic principle of declarer play. If you want to ruff things, don’t play trump. Only play trump if you have a side-suit on which to dispose of the losers you might otherwise need to ruff.

At the table Arjun De Livera opened two hearts as South, showing hearts and a minor, and was raised to game. At doubledummy West must lead a low trump, won in dummy. East must split his diamond honors on the first round of the suit, then when declarer goes to dummy with a spade to play diamonds again, East must steel himself to duck. That lets West in to play two more rounds of trump to kill the second diamond ruff.

At the table, though, West wasn’t psychic and led a top spade. De Livera should have remembered the rules, but he played a round of trump himself. After one round of hearts, he realized his mistake and switched to diamonds. When East quite understandably rose with the diamond ace, the defense was over, so long as declarer reverted to the recommended plan of ruffing losers in dummy.

The simple winning line is to take the spade return and ruff a diamond in dummy, then ruff a spade back to hand to ruff the last diamond. That is 10 tricks; four hearts in hand, two ruffs in dummy and four plain winners.

For the record, declarer in the other room also played trump at trick two after an initial spade lead. Perhaps it is a harder hand than it looks. Or maybe not…

Today’s deal features a maneuver that would not occur to many people. East had decided to remain silent during the auction because of the vulnerability, on a deal where his side might have taken 10 tricks in diamonds. Still, in a sense he had done well by not directing his partner to lead spades. While a diamond lead would have defeated the opponents’ slam out of hand, West led the heart queen, leaving the contract’s fate in the balance.

When East showed out, declarer set to work to find a way to dispose of his losing diamonds. He cashed a second high trump, then played on spades, hoping for one diamond discard from that suit and one on the clubs. However, West ruffed the second spade and lost no time in switching to diamonds.

Down one was arguably an unlucky result for declarer. Still, he could and maybe should have done better. It may not be so easy to see, but South should have played on clubs before spades. For declarer to have a chance to succeed, West needed to hold at least two clubs. When West turned up with four clubs, South could have ruffed the fourth round of clubs, crossed to the spade ace, and taken a second discard on the fifth round of clubs before West could ruff in.

Of course, had both East and West followed to two rounds of clubs, it would have been normal to play on spades next and go down; but testing two rounds of clubs before spades could never cost.

Should the deals that appear in this column feature regular plays that my readers ought to get right, even if they don’t? Or should they feature plays that are unusual in nature, so that the reader will congratulate himself if he does find the answer? If not, maybe he can console himself with the thought that the solution was too artificial to be found at the table.

Maybe this hint will help the reader crack today’s hard nut. You play six spades on a top diamond lead and win in hand. If trumps are 4-0, you have no chance, but if trumps are 2-2, you have seven spade tricks and five plain-suit winners. Not surprisingly, therefore, the task today is to make the contract against a 3-1 trump break. After winning the first diamond you cash the spade king. Both opponents follow with small trumps; what now?

You can cash the diamond king to throw a heart if you like, but that is an unnecessary risk. The best play is instead to try and set up clubs. However, the only way to make the hand by avoiding a defensive trump promotion is to lead the club four at once, rather than playing ace and another club.

East will win the first club and shift to the heart eight. Declarer rises with the king, and next cashes the spade queen, the club ace and then the spade ace. Now he ruffs a club, crosses to the heart ace and ruffs a club. The heart ruff is the entry to dummy’s established club nine.

In three no-trump on a heart lead, South’s first plan is to develop the spades to make his game. If he can set up three spade winners, he will then need only one more trick; and he may then try to get that trick in clubs.

The first step is to win the first heart trick in dummy in order to play on spades. When West wins his ace, and returns a heart, declarer can see that two additional tricks will be needed, and the clubs don’t rate to do the trick. Hence South must try to develop two diamond tricks.

South should try to make West win the first diamond, to knock out the danger hand’s entry before the hearts are established. If East wins the first diamond, he will establish the hearts; and West will eventually get in with his top diamond to run the hearts.

South must tackle diamonds by leading a low diamond from dummy, since East should be given the chance to err by ducking. If East slips up, West will be forced to duck the first diamond or his hand will be dead, and South will make the contract without further difficulty. Having stolen a diamond trick, declarer can succeed by changing tack again, by playing on clubs. He emerges with two spades, a diamond, and three tricks in each of the other suits.

Had South led the first diamond from his own hand, West would let East win the first diamond. Now the defense would clear the hearts while West retains his entry.

South could not see what could go wrong in three no-trump. He counted four diamond tricks, two aces, and three spades, once the ace was knocked out. When South played low from dummy at trick one, he soon found out. East won the lead and returned the suit, and West could win the spade ace then cash out the clubs for down one.

We may all be familiar with the position where dummy holds ace-doubleton opposite 10-fourth, when a small card of this suit is led through dummy. The danger is that if the suit breaks 5-2 and the long hand holds an entry; the correct play is to rise with the ace in order to block the run of the suit. The point is that East is almost certain to have one of the top three honors, otherwise West would have led the king. If the suit breaks 4-3 there is no danger, and if is 6-1, when East obtains the lead he will have no card to return.

But today’s situation is analogous: East is really quite likely to hold two out of the K-Q-J-10, since with for example K-J-10-8-x, West’s recommended lead would be the jack (though a small card might be right, I admit).

So by rising with the ace, once again you are heavy favorite to be able to block the suit. You can now knock out the spade ace safely, regardless of which defender holds it. Unless the club suit breaks 4-3, East will have a doubleton double honor and the suit will be blocked.

This deal from a team match, offers a mixture of discovery and technique. West led a low spade against three no-trump, ensuring a trick there for declarer. How should South play? First, he should count the opponents’ high-card points: they have only 14, and West must hold most of them. East can hold a queen, but not much more. By playing the spade jack at trick one, declarer learns whether East holds the spade queen or not.

If East covers with the queen, declarer can safely finesse West for the ace-queen of diamonds, making one spade, three hearts, two diamonds, and three clubs. Declarer need not rely on hearts coming in for four tricks.

If the spade jack holds, declarer should cash three high hearts. Now, should the jack come down, declarer uses the club king as an entry to lead a diamond to the king. If West has J-x-x-x of hearts, declarer cashes three clubs ending in his hand, and leads a diamond to the king, then plays another diamond. If West has the ace-queen of diamonds, he will be endplayed into giving declarer another spade or diamond trick (declarer may appear to be squeezed on the fourth heart, but he will survive by focusing on West’s discards on the clubs). This play picks up the singleton diamond queen with East.

The danger with playing low from dummy at trick one is that if East produces the 10, declarer will not know which line to pursue, and he cannot safely test hearts before deciding how to play diamonds.

Today’s deal saw a tricky player present an opponent with a losing option. Put yourself in the West seat and cover up the East and South cards, to see if you are the pheasant or the pheasant-plucker.

At the table, West led the heart three against three no-trump. East won the trick with the king as declarer played the six. East returned the heart seven, on which declarer contributed the queen. West won the trick with his heart ace (do you agree?). And what should the defenders do now?

Did you lead out the heart 10, assuming that the defenders could run the hearts on defense? That is certainly the logical interpretation; but before you try to cash out the hearts, remember which hearts are missing. The answer is that the four, five and nine have not put in an appearance. Since your partner would return the lowest from a remaining holding of three cards, (or even perhaps from four, to avoid accidentally persuading you he had just two left) his remaining holding when he led back the seven had to be the doubleton 7-4 or 7-5, the former perhaps being more likely given declarer’s play to trick one.

It must be safe to exit with the spade jack (declarer can hardly cash nine tricks from the minors unless partner has the spade ace). On winning with the king, declarer can do no better than run the club jack to East’s king. When East shifts back to the heart four, the defense runs three more heart tricks to set the game.