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.

Are you a good partner? When your partner goes down in a makeable game contract, how do you tend to react? Say nothing, mutter under something inaudible or unprintable, sympathize, or apologize for your aggressive bidding?

In today’s deal North was not sure if he was in a forcing auction but felt he had enough to take a shot at game. He was right in a sense…

When West led the spade six against five clubs, after winning with dummy’s ace, declarer decided that a simple trump finesse was his best bet. It was not.

It is often right to set up a second suit before tackling trump. Instead of taking the club finesse, declarer should have concentrated on establishing the diamonds for a heart discard. Best is to come to hand by leading the club queen to the ace (the queen might get covered, or the king might drop!). When it does not, run the diamond seven. East wins with his 10 and switches to hearts, but now declarer can win, play a diamond to the ace, and ruff a diamond. Then he enters dummy with a spade ruff to discard the losing heart on a winning diamond. This line fails when West holds the guarded club king and a doubleton diamond, and so can over-ruff the third diamond and cash a heart. But then you were never making your game.

More to the point, it succeeds whenever East holds the club king and when West holds three diamonds and the club king.

The 1997 Cavendish tournament moved from New York to Las Vegas, because the prize money had become so significant that the organizers were running the risk of falling foul of the state gambling laws. That year the total auction pool was 1.3 million dollars, and the owner of the winning pair collected about $350,000.

Since the winners, Harry Tudor and Michael Seamon, had bought more than half of themselves at a cost of $15,000 this made for a pretty good investment. Here they are in action, this board being a slight indication of how the wind was going to blow for them throughout the event.

Game looks comfortable enough for North-South, particularly three no-trump by South, and the very fortunate position in diamonds means that if you reach five diamonds you can survive even on a trump lead by dropping the spade king in three rounds. That does not make it a great spot however. Seaman and Tudor were more ambitious; they reached six diamonds from the South seat after an auction that they were not prepared to release to adults of a nervous disposition. I have made my best guess at it.

They were lucky enough to get a club lead — can you spot the winning line now? Take the ace of clubs, ruff a spade, and ruff a club, then play a trump to dummy, and ruff another club. When clubs break three-three, play ace and another trump, and claim the rest, with three club discards for your losing spades.

Today’s deal is a constructed hand from the fertile mind of Tim Bourke, who sent it to me as a puzzle. Tim is a gifted composer who has worked on many projects with David Bird, and also won the International Bridge Press book of the year for ‘The Art of Declarer Play’ – for experts only!

After West has shown extra length or high cards, or both, he leads the heart king against four spades. It looks right to duck this to cut the defenders’ communications, and now comes a second heart, which you win in hand.

The diamond ace is obviously offside, and West is almost certainly at least 5-5 in the red suits. To have any chance to make this game you must therefore try to bring in the club suit. If trumps break but clubs do not, you need to ruff two clubs in hand, but can you also survive if spades do not break and clubs are 3-2?

The answer is yes, but you must be careful. Play the spade ace from hand and lead the club ace and a club toward dummy. If West ruffs in you can establish the clubs easily later on. If he discards, you win the king, ruff a club high, draw a second trump, ruff another club, and draw the last trump, conceding the last two tricks. If West follows suit on the second club ruff a club LOW. Cross to dummy with a trump and lead winning clubs. When East ruffs in, overruff and draw trumps, then run the clubs.