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.

The Dyspeptics Club is a place where the kibitzers come as much for the post mortem as they do to watch the bridge. Zero Tolerance is not part of the club’s bylaws, and while the members draw the line at physical violence, verbal outrages are considered the norm, and some would say, positively encouraged.

In today’s deal South played four hearts by winning the top spade lead in hand, drawing trump, then playing the club ace, king and a third club. West had supinely failed to unblock his club queen on the second round of the suit, so he was forced to give the lead to dummy and declarer had 10 tricks.

As South waited for applause from his partner, and East gnashed his teeth at his partner’s incompetence, North wryly remarked that if South was half as good as he thought he was, he would still be twice as good as he actually was. Why was he unhappy with his partner?

Declarer must duck the spade queen; he wins the next one with the ace, cashes the club ace and king, throws a club on the spade king, then ruffs the clubs good. Next he draws three rounds of trump ending in dummy, so that he can cash the established club as his 10th trick.

Incidentally, if West has a 3-3-5-2 shape with all the high diamond honors, declarer might still succeed. He strips out all West’s black cards and after drawing trump leads a low diamond, to endplay West to lead a diamond round to the king.

In today’s deal three no-trump would have been the easiest spot, and maybe South should have tried that contract at his final turn to speak, if he was going to move on over three hearts.

Against four hearts West took his three top diamonds. That was the easy part of the defense; what would you do next?

At the table West spotted the danger of the clubs as a parking place for losers, and shifted to the spade king. This entry-destroying play is known as a Merrimac coup. Declarer won the spade ace and ran the trump, forcing West to work out what to keep in the four card ending.

At the table East discarded spades, but West relied on his partner to have five spades and came down to a bare spade jack. Declarer noted that both opponents had kept clubs, and decided from the signals, and West’s tempo that he was guarding something in spades, so worked out to drop the jack of spades in the ending. Nicely done — but a shame that the defense lost their way.

The primary responsibility lay with East to make it clear what his spade holding was. After discouraging on the first spade, his first discard should be the nine (implicitly denying the 10). Since South is now marked with the spade queen and 10, West can work out to pitch clubs on the basis that if declarer has the club jack, he should make the hand on a squeeze or by taking two club finesses, whatever West does.

After the Forest Duplicate finished, the Three Bears met up with Goldilocks in the local tavern. As they sat outside (Baby Bear nursing his lemonade) Papa Bear showed Goldilocks the North and South cards on today’s deal.

“I must be the most unlucky player in the world” he said. “I won the opening spade lead in hand and took a diamond finesse. East won and shifted to a low club. When I finessed West won and reverted to spades. Down two!”

“You think that’s unlucky?” said Mama Bear heatedly. “I covered the spade 10 at trick one to block the suit. East won and played a club. I finessed and West won and reverted to spades, and I went the same two down.”

Baby Bear recounted his tale of woe next. “I covered the first spade and finessed in clubs at trick two. My West shifted to hearts at trick three! I finessed of course, and now the defenders cleared hearts. When the diamond finesse lost I was down THREE!”

Goldilocks sympathized with all three of them. “You were all terribly unlucky – up to a point.” When asked what she meant, Goldilocks told them how she had played the hand. “I covered the first spade, then went up with the club ace at trick two and played on diamonds. When East won and played a club, I lost just a spade, diamond and club trick. There was nothing the defenders could do to defeat the game.”