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.”

One of the most interesting bridge sites on the Internet is bridgewinners.com. A few weeks ago, one of the contributors posted a deal, and compared it to a play made by Zia. The latter deal had been reported in an earlier New York Times column, which was no longer accessible. But an indefatigable reader reconstructed the hand, and I thought it so entertaining that it was worth exposure to a wider audience. Here it is – from 25 years ago. Just look at the North and South hands please, to give yourself the full enjoyment of the deal.

Zia played three no-trump on a low heart lead to the ace, with East returning the heart six. Plan the play, assuming hearts are 4-3.

Zia won the heart king and took the diamond finesse – which held, as one might expect against good players whether the king was onside or not. At this point it would be simple to cross back to hand with the spade queen and repeat the diamond finesse; but if that lost, the defenders would win and cash out hearts. Now you would need spades to break to make your game. Alternatively, if you play ace then queen of diamonds, West ducks, and you will need to pick the position very precisely to come close to making your contract. Seeing this, Zia led the diamond queen from dummy before cashing the ace.

If West ducked this, declarer would simply go after spades. If West took this trick, declarer’s communications to hand in spades to cash out the diamonds could not be attacked.

At a recent Las Vegas tournament I was greeted by an old friend with a hand written on a scrap of paper. Why is it that the better the deal, the smaller the scrap and the more illegible the handwriting?

My friend told me that this was a missed opportunity on his part but did not tell me which seat he had been occupying. At the table against four spades West started with the club ace and a second club to East’s king. East played a spade, knowing that there was no way declarer was going to run it to dummy. Declarer won the spade ace, cashed his other top spades, and played diamonds. East ruffed the queen but was endplayed into leading a heart. Had he not trumped, declarer would have been able to ruff the diamonds good and then either throw East in with a spade, or simply cross to the heart ace to play an established diamond, discarding his last heart as East ruffed with his winning trump.

Had West switched to a heart at trick two, declarer would simply have won the ace and discarded his club loser on one of dummy’s diamonds before conceding a spade and a heart.

Can you see how the defense can prevail? East must play his club king under the ace, and then West must cash the club queen before switching to a heart. Now, whatever he does, declarer must lose two clubs, a heart and a spade. At the vulnerability, one might find this play, I suppose, assuming that West’s clubs rate to include the queen.

At the table, the opening lead against five diamonds was the spade two. The original declarer played the queen from dummy, ruffed away the spade king, then led a diamond to the jack. Next came the spade jack, covered by the ace and ruffed. Declarer played a second trump to dummy and tried to endplay West with the spade 10, discarding a heart from hand, but West won the 10 and played back a spade. That left declarer dependent on the heart finesse, and when that failed he had to go down one.

It is better to play the spade nine or seven from dummy at trick one. The logic is that the contract is cold unless the heart ace is wrong. If it is, then both spade honors rate to be on declarer’s right.

Suppose declarer puts in the spade seven. When East covers with the eight, declarer ruffs high, crosses to table with a medium trump to the jack and leads the spade queen. East covers and South ruffs. A medium diamond to the king sees the spade jack, covered yet again, and ruffed by South. The club ace, king and queen then sees South lead the spade nine, throwing a heart from hand. When West wins the 10, he is endplayed, obviating the need to play East for the heart ace.

Finally, if East turns up with all four high spades, declarer can discard a heart from hand on the fourth round of spades, and still make his contract if the heart ace is onside.

Today’s deal comes from the World University championship, played in Taiwan a few years ago. It contains an important point of partnership agreement – but it also emphasizes the point that one can only go so far with signals and discards. No matter what message the signal carries, the partner of the player giving the signal has both to interpret the signal and then decide what to do next.

Graeme Robertson, representing England, led the club ace, and his partner followed with a middle spot card at the first trick.

How should you signal here? You could certainly argue that this position should be suit preference. The point is that West may want a ruff in clubs – and whether he does or not, East can’t know that he doesn’t. Additionally, continuing clubs looks unlikely to be necessary, since it can hardly promote a trump or kill an entry to dummy.

However, according to this partnership’s methods, the seven was simply a regular count signal. Robertson inferred that his partner had six clubs. He sensibly decided that his partner could not hold more than one card from the top two hearts or the diamond ace. The play that covered the most bases was to shift to the heart 10, this being the card that the partnership would lead from an interior sequence. His partner was able to win the diamond ace and return a heart to allow the defenders to take four winners.

This won him a game swing and the award for the best played/defended hand of the tournament.

One of the most difficult aspects of defense is a position defined neatly by Bill Pencharz as ‘overkill’. When defending notrump, most partnerships’ signals are set up to try to work out when to continue a suit or not. But when they hold every high honor in a suit, they may sometimes confuse the position with one where they hold rather less. Does that sound abstruse? Maybe; but this is an example.

Against three no-trump your partner West leads the heart queen, in partnership style consistent with a holding of kingqueen but not a sufficiently strong holding to encourage an unblock. You encourage with the seven and declarer wins the ace. Declarer now plays a low diamond and partner plays the queen. How are you going to help partner do the right thing?

The problem is that you would also encourage from an initial holding of J-7-x, when it is right for partner to continue with a low heart. On declarer’s play of the diamond suit it cannot possibly harm the defense for you to overtake with your diamond king – after all, either partner has the diamond ace or your king of diamonds is dead meat.

Once you are on lead you can safely continue the attack on hearts with a low heart from your side. As you must have at least four hearts for this play (from J-7-x you would have played back the jack), partner shouldn’t go wrong now, whether he has an original three- or four-card holding.