Given that the solution to today’s deal feels a touch artificial, you may not be entirely surprised to discover that it derives from a very old par contest problem. In those deals you rarely run into a favorable break or a winning finesse, so be warned that if your intended solution might fail, it probably will!

When West leads the diamond king, you can do better than taking the club finesse immediately, planning to ruff a club in dummy. That is a perfectly reasonable line; after losing the club finesse you would regain the lead and would draw two rounds of trump with the ace and king then hope to ruff out the clubs. But the lie of the cards is very hostile to that approach, and today you would go down like a stone.

Instead, the solution is to focus on dummy’s delicious spade spots. At trick two your shortage of entries to dummy means that you must cash the second diamond winner, unblocking your spade ace. Next lead out the spade queen and discard a club from hand. It will not do West any good to duck this (there are lies of the cards where if West had four spades it might help to duck the first two spades then win the third and lead a fourth to kill a discard, but not today). As it is, he wins the spade king at once but cannot stop you coming to 12 tricks via three spades, six hearts and three minor suit winners.

If you enjoy a touch of humor in your bridge deals, you may relish ‘Bridge Behind Bars’, a book from Master Point Press that sees experienced author Julian Pottage in harness with Nick Smith. The bridge is set in the fictional prison of Great Yarborough.

The hands are often instructive, and, unsurprisingly the ethically challenged players offer some amusing vignettes. But as you will see from the deal below, the bridge is far from perfect.

Here West led the club king against five diamonds doubled. Declarer ruffed the opening lead and led a diamond to dummy’s nine, ruffed a club, then played a diamond to dummy’s king before ruffing another club. He then drew the last trump and led out the spade ace followed by a spade to dummy’s 10. East now shifted to the heart ace and another heart, thus presenting declarer with his contract.

Can you see how both East and South might have done better? When East was in with the spade king, he could have saved the day by refusing to cash the heart ace and exiting with a low heart instead. He would then have had two heart tricks to come.

However, declarer could have prevented this. Knowing from the bidding that East holds at most two spades, he should have played low on the second round of the suit. East would win his king, but when he then exits with a low heart, declarer can win in hand with the 10 and finesse West’s spade jack, setting up the 10 for a heart discard.

Most players are aware that duplicate pairs and rubber bridge require somewhat different approaches, but they often fail to make the necessary adjustments when switching from one to the other. Today’s deal is a case in point, where West, a keen pairs player, made a rare trip to the rubber bridge table.

North opened one spade, South showed his hearts and ended in four hearts. West led the club king, gave the matter some mature consideration, then cashed a second top club before switching to the diamond 10.

This proved fatal for the defense when declarer took full advantage by timing matters perfectly. The diamond 10 was covered by the queen, king and ace, then declarer drew just one round of trump with the 10 before leading the club jack. West covered and dummy ruffed. A second round of trump to the ace enabled South to cash the club 10, on which he threw dummy’s losing diamond. Declarer trumped the diamond seven in dummy and now lost only one more trick to the spade ace.

From West’s point of view it was perfectly true that a club loser might disappear if declarer held both the diamond ace and king. However, unless the defenders could come to a diamond trick, they would surely not defeat the contract. To cash a second high club first might save an overtrick at best — quite possibly correct tactics at pairs, but it proved a catastrophe here, as it let North-South clinch the rubber.

I do not always name the guilty players in my column; and since this deal was provided to me by the unfortunate victim, I will content myself with saying: “No names, no pack-drill”.

It does however feature a Belgian junior player, Eric Debus, getting the better of a world championship runner-up. After the aggressive two no-trump opener, the final contract seemed normal enough.

West led the club king, which held, followed by a second club won by East, who switched to spades. Declarer won, drew trump, cashed the spade king and exited with a spade, which East won with the queen. What would you do now with the sight of all four hands?

For East, the hand was an open book. He knew the full distribution, and he knew that South had to hold both the diamond king and jack even to come close to his two no-trump opener.

That being so, he knew that offering a ruff-sluff would be the standard defense here, since it could not help declarer, who was known to hold a 4-4 fit in diamonds. However, he envisaged that if he did so, declarer was favorite to win and play him for the diamond queen, a line which would succeed this time. Accordingly, he switched to the diamond 10 himself.

Declarer reasoned his opponent would not be foolish enough to shift to a diamond with an honor in the suit. He put up the diamond king then led low to the ace, playing West to hold the doubleton queen. He will know better next time.

In today’s deal, the answer to the question of whether you trust East or West more may well affect your line of play on the deal.

Declaring three no-trump you receive the lead of the spade five. First (easy) question: which spade do you play from dummy?

The correct answer is that declarer must play low from dummy to ensure himself a spade stopper. Should he play the king, he may lose his stopper if East can win and return the suit to his partner’s Q-10. So you play low and East wins the spade ace, then returns the spade six. You are forced to win dummy’s king as West follows with the seven. What now?

Finding the club queen dropping in two rounds is necessary but not sufficient. Which red suit should you play at trick three? If spades are 4-4, go after hearts, if 5-3, take the diamond finesse, then use the club seven as the entry to repeat the finesse.

The answer is to play on diamonds, not hearts, because of the spade spots played at trick two. The key issue is that that the missing spade five and two suggest spades were originally 5-3 not 4-4. Had West followed with the spade two at trick two he would have given the game away, wouldn’t he? And note that had East managed to return his LOW spade from his remaining doubleton, you might well have gone wrong. It was far easier for West to lie than East.

The time to plan as declarer is at trick one, when dummy appears, and not in the post mortem. All too often declarer plays on auto-pilot at the start of the deal, and by the time he realizes his mistake, it is too late.

In today’s deal the contract was the same at both tables, reached via an identical auction. When South opened one heart, North raised to two, suggesting constructive values, since he had not gone through the forcing no-trump. That was enough to convince South to rebid four hearts.

The lead at both tables was the spade nine. At one table, in a knee-jerk reaction, South played dummy’s queen, which held. The contract was now dead in the water; because West had the diamond ace, declarer ended up with four minor-suit losers.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the way to 10 tricks involves losing a spade, even though the king is onside. There are six heart tricks, plus the two black aces. Therefore two more spade tricks will bring the total to 10.

That being so, as the second declarer showed, it is essential to play the spade four from dummy at the first trick. Win with the ace, draw trump leaving the ace in dummy for a later entry, then play a second spade. East wins with the king and switches to the diamond queen. But now, after the defense take two diamonds, South can win the club switch, enter dummy with the heart ace, and discard the two losing clubs from hand on the established spades.

Today’s deal comes from an online site. Oren Kriegel of the US Juniors posted the hand, indicating that the winning line had been missed at the table.

Against the doubled slam West cashed the diamond ace (on which declarer unblocked the queen) and led a spade.

Declarer was now in with a chance to make; had West played either red suit at trick two it would have given declarer no hope. Declarer ruffed the spade, cashed the club king to get the bad news, and next played a heart to the king, ruffed a second spade, then cashed his two remaining clubs.

Now he needed to get to dummy to draw the last trump. The winning line is to overtake the diamond 10 with the jack in order to lead out the club ace. On this trick declarer discards his blocking diamond king. The effect of all this overtaking and unblocking play in the diamond suit is to leave dummy with the master nine, but West now guards the fourth round of the suit.

However, as the last trump is led out West comes under pressure in the four-card ending: declarer has ace-queen fourth of hearts left, while dummy has a losing spade, a small heart, and the 9-6 of diamonds. What does West keep? Whether he pitches a heart or unguards diamonds, declarer has the rest.

The reason a spade shift at trick two was fatal to the defense was that it gave declarer another entry to dummy to reduce his own trumps and play the dummy-reversal.

When the opponents open, the bidding the range for a one no-trump overcall goes up to a bad 18. However, in today’s deal South upgraded his hand to being worth an initial double followed by a call of one no-trump, for which the range is a good 18 to 20 HCP. That persuaded North to drive to game. His jump to three hearts suggested precisely four hearts – with a longer suit he would have bid hearts before introducing his diamonds.

Against three no-trump West led the club two, ducked round to East’s king. The club three was returned — correctly, since otherwise declarer would have established the diamonds and made two spades, a heart, four diamonds and a club. This play had the effect of dislodging dummy’s entry to the diamonds.

On winning the club ace, declarer placed his opponents’ clubs as 4-3. Of course he could make nine tricks if East had at most a doubleton diamond king, but was there anything better? There was, as declarer demonstrated.

His first move was to play a heart to the 10 and queen, which marked East with both red kings. West exited with a club, which was taken by declarer’s queen. South now continued with a low diamond to the nine, which East had to duck or the suit would be set up. Declarer next ran the diamond queen and, after it held, he took a second heart finesse. He ended up taking two spade tricks, two hearts, three diamonds and two clubs for his contract.

If you were North at the helm in three no-trump, the best play on a spade lead might be to win and take the heart finesse rather than ducking. Even if the heart finesse lost, you might still come home against 6-1 spades, and if you ducked the first spade a club shift would probably doom you.

But that is not the problem today. As South you get to declare four hearts, and West dutifully leads the spade king. You hop up with the ace and lead the heart 10, optimistically hoping for a cover. Next comes a heart to the queen, but though the finesse succeeds, you still do not have 10 tricks, since the club ace rates to be offside. The auction has suggested that, given East’s overcall, he is slightly more likely to have the club ace than West.

However, you should still survive by running five trumps, keeping two spades, two clubs and three diamonds in dummy. Then lead the diamond king and a diamond to the ace. As you lead the last diamond from dummy, East will have had to reveal something about his shape; if you believe he has come down to one club and three spades, ruff the diamond and lead a club to dummy, collecting a spade trick at the end. If he comes down to two spades and two clubs, exit with a spade to the jack, hoping that East will have to lead away from his club ace at trick 12.