This board came up on the first day of the Baze Senior Knockout Teams at Providence last fall. Neither table got it right – but I thought it a fine example of playing for your best chance. Beware! The early planning will be critical. You play in four spades as South on the lead of the club king. You can see that finding a doubleton heart ace will suffice. Can you do better?

The best line bears the cryptic name of an incomplete elimination. After ducking the first club and winning the second, you draw only two rounds of trumps, and must be careful to use one high trump from each hand. Assuming trumps split, you then ruff out the diamonds and exit with a club.

If West is left on lead in clubs with no trump to play, the best he can do is lead the heart 10. But declarer puts up dummy’s king and has a finesse against East’s jack on the second round of the suit. Equally, if East ruffs his partner’s winner, he can give a ruff and discard or lead hearts. Either way, the defenders can take only one heart trick.

The play is called an incomplete elimination because one trump is left out. Critically, you must use a high trump from each hand to draw trumps, since if you use both high trumps from dummy, West can exit with a fourth club and East can overruff dummy, preventing the ruff and discard.

Note that if the cards do not cooperate, you can always fall back on playing East for the doubleton heart ace.

On this deal from the final of the Baze Senior Knockout Teams at Providence last November, Matt Granovetter made a nice defensive play to earn a swing for his team.

In one room West had led the heart king, ducked by Fred Stewart, who had set up clubs and taken the diamond finesse for nine tricks.

At the other table Jeff Meckstroth took the opening heart lead in dummy. He played a low club from dummy at trick two, his jack losing to Granovetter’s king. At trick three, Granovetter played the spade jack, pinning Meckstroth’s singleton 10 and threatening communications between the East and West hands.

Meckstroth took the spade ace and played another club, winning the queen when Dan Morse played low. Meckstroth exited with a club to dummy’s nine and Morse’s ace. The heart nine came next. Meckstroth played the jack and Granovetter ducked. Granovetter won the next heart with the king, cashed the heart seven and got out with a diamond. Meckstroth won the diamond king with the ace and cashed the queen, but had to give up the setting trick on the final play. North-South took two clubs, two hearts and a diamond for one down.

Double-dummy, Meckstroth could have survived West’s clever play by winning the spade and playing another club from dummy, unblocking the club queen if Morse rose with the ace. If Morse played low, Meckstroth could have won the club queen, and exited with a low heart. Whether West won or ducked, there would be a route to nine tricks on careful play thereafter.

This deal is from the first semifinal session of the Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs at Providence last fall. Most of the field found spades: half played in game, half in partscore. Take a moment to decide how you would tackle the play in four spades on a trump lead.

It feels right to go after clubs – assuming decent breaks, you can come to three club winners, five trump tricks, and two tricks in the red suits. The entry position argues that you should win the opening lead in hand and advance the club king. West wins and continues with a trump, taken in dummy. Now you pass the club jack. No luck there either: West wins the club queen and plays a third trump. When you cash the club 10, you find the bad break in that suit has reduced your ten tricks to nine.

However you are not out of chances. After cashing the club nine, pitching a heart from hand, you need to find East with both key red honors (not that unlikely given his black-suit doubletons and thus red-suit length). You next lead a heart, which East must duck, and can then give up a heart to East. He can try to cash the heart ace, which you ruff, leaving dummy good after you discard dummy’s club on the diamond ace, or he can play a diamond. That allows you to finesse the queen, in order to pitch dummy’s two heart losers. Then you can cross-ruff the rest.

At work today from the Providence Nationals last fall is Steve Garner, who took his best chance on this deal from a pairs game early in the tournament.

After East’s opening bid, West decided to try to construct an auction to allow himself to buy the hand in five clubs doubled. As you can see, this was well-judged, up to a point, since five clubs doubled goes for 500, less than the value of his opponents’ game.

But having unsuccessfully tried to walk the dog, West then continued his imaginative play by leading the spade jack. This was indeed the most effective start for the defenders.

Garner won the spade ace, cashed the heart ace and king to get the bad news, ruffed a club, then led a diamond to the ace. A second diamond picked up that suit without loss, then he carefully exited with a spade, not a trump.

East won the trick but had only clubs to lead, and had to concede the ruff-sluff. Why was it important to lead a spade, not a heart? The point is that East could have set five hearts by pitching his spade honor at trick three on the second trump. Although he had failed to take advantage of his first opportunity, had Garner played a third trump, might East have woken up and taken his second chance? We’ll never know!

Double-dummy experts might care to look for the line to make five hearts by force after a spade lead. Hint: don’t draw all the trump.

Since the Fall Nationals are about to start, all the deals this week come from last November’s Nationals from Providence.

Down at the half in his Senior Knockout Teams match, John Lusky first took a somewhat aggressive action in the bidding then found the way home in his slam, which in the end constituted considerably more than the margin of his team’s victory.

Facing a strong no-trump with some heart support, but nonetheless a hand that wasn’t worth a cuebid at its second turn, Lusky elected to use keycard for hearts and bid on to slam. He was hoping, of course, not to buy too many wasted values in spades.

Having won the opening spade lead with the ace in dummy, how would you have advanced from there? Lusky played the club king and a club to the ace, then ran the heart 10! When it held and both opponents followed, he ruffed his club loser, unblocked the heart king, returned to hand with the diamond ace and drew the last trump. The way the cards lay, he couldn’t misguess diamonds, so that was 13 IMPs to the good guys.

His logic was that with East marked with long spades, West was favorite to have heart length, and thus the queen. When one defender shows real length in a side-suit, finessing the other defender for the trump queen becomes much more attractive.

Incidentally had trumps been 4-0, Lusky would have needed to find East with a singleton diamond honor, so that he could set up the diamonds for three tricks.

All the deals this week come from the Fall Nationals, a year ago in Providence, Rhode Island. This deal comes from a qualifying round in the Keohane North American Swiss Teams. On this deal, declarer is in danger from both opponents, but can navigate his way between Scylla and Charybdis.

Let’s say you manage successfully to negotiate away from the lures of diamonds (not that five diamonds is a bad spot) to play three no-trump. You duck the heart lead — king, two, jack, nine) and if the defenders continue hearts you will take a diamond finesse. Then if it loses, you will later play clubs from the top to try to keep West off lead.

Instead, the defenders shift to spades at trick two. You win, and cash a top diamond then a top club, and take a losing diamond finesse. If a heart comes back you revert to the above-mentioned avoidance play strategy to try to keep West out.

But the defenders meanly win the second diamond and play a second spade. You duck, and now with spades 5-3 the defenders have two choices, both bad. If they continue spades, you now simply take a club finesse, not caring if it loses since West will not have a spade to play. If the defenders revert to hearts, you play clubs from the top again. This way you make game not only when either finesse wins but also when the club queen is offside doubleton, as here.

Today’s deal features an old idea in a new setting. When East opens two hearts you elect to overcall two spades rather than jump to four spades, which ought to be a stronger hand than this. Incidentally, just for the record, a jump to three spades is a strong jump overcall not a preempt. One doesn’t preempt against a preempt – one needs the space for constructive bidding. The defenders lead the heart eight against four spades, and you win the ace. Plan the play.

Your thoughts should be that if East has the diamond king, there are no real prospects of making four spades, since the club ace is clearly going to be offside, unless you can duck a club to West. But there is a better chance, which is to rely on West holding the diamond king. So play a spade to the ace at trick two, then lead the diamond queen from your hand. When West covers, you duck!

At this point West is out of major-suit cards; he can do no better than play a second diamond. Now you throw your heart nine on the diamond ace, then lead the heart queen and ruff East’s king with a high trump. Lead the spade four to dummy’s five, which allows you to lead the heart 10. East covers and you ruff, cross to the spade queen, and throw a club loser away on the established heart seven.

You can lead a club to the king as a try for the overtrick.

Today’s deal is from one of my readers, who preferred to remain anonymous. It came with the comment that the writer did not object to his partner’s going down if defeat was unavoidable. But it was irritating when they gave up before they started, in a contract that they could have made with just a little imagination.

At the table my correspondent was North, and admitted to having raised his hearts with some trepidation. Still, support with support, they say. South duly went on to four hearts, against which West led the club queen. East took his ace and switched to the spade three.

Now what? At the table, declarer played low: West took the spade king, gave his partner a spade ruff, and the diamond ace became the setting trick. This really was a little wooden on South’s part. With the spade two on view, that spade three had all the hallmarks of being a singleton. By far and away the best chance was to find East with a singleton spade and all the possible entries.

Playing on these assumptions, South should win with the spade ace, cash the ace of trump and the club king, ruff the winning club jack, and lead a low diamond from the table. East must play low on this and, after winning with his queen, declarer exits with a trump to end-play East. A club gives South a ruff and discard, while a diamond return established dummy’s king as a home for the spade loser, and the 10th trick.