Today’s deal is a defensive problem. Cover up the West and South hands and look at it from East’s point of view at trick one. The composer envisaged a position where partner had the trump ace, not the club ace, amongst his assets, and ingeniously suggested encouraging spades at the first trick. His expectation was that partner would continue with the king and a third spade. Then when declarer wins and plays a heart, partner would win his ace and continue with a fourth spade, to promote the heart queen into the setting trick.

As the player who posed the problem admitted, of course, this defense wouldn’t have worked so well if the club and heart aces were switched – as in the diagram. Partner would have scratched his head and asked why East had just directed him to present declarer with his contract on a plate when he would appear to have had no chance to succeed on a passive defense.

But East’s justification was that even in that situation four hearts would have been makeable, if declarer plays West for the diamond queen. Even if West exits with a heart at trick two, declarer draws trump ending in dummy, and leads a club to the queen, king and ace. He ruffs the club return and runs the trump, coming down to a singleton spade in hand, and squeezes West down to the bare spade ace, to keep his diamond queen guarded. Then South cashes the diamond king and endplays West with a spade to lead diamonds into his tenace.

West led the heart queen against four spades, and East was on the ball when he overtook this and returned a trump. With sure heart winners in hand, and the knowledge that South had at least four hearts, this was the indicated line of defense. When declarer continued in his search for heart ruffs by winning the trump and playing on hearts, East won the trick and led another trump. Declarer won in hand, ruffed a heart, took a heart discard on the diamond ace, and finessed in clubs. Unlucky! The finesse failed and there was still a heart to lose.

As the cards lie, South had missed his chance to make the hand at trick five. Had he taken the club ace and followed up by leading another club, it would have given South his 10th trick in due course. But this line would have failed if East had been able to win with the club king and lead a third round of trump.

The solution that involves less risk is to try the club finesse earlier, at trick three. If it wins, there is no problem for declarer in giving up a heart and ruffing a heart for his 10th trick; if the club finesse loses, West has no more trumps to play as the cards lie (and if the spades are 2-2 the contract is still secure).

As the cards lie today when West takes his club king and returns a diamond, the clubs can be unblocked, a heart eventually ruffed, and the club jack enjoyed for the game-going trick.

When at first sight a contract appears to depend on a finesse – an even money chance – it is worth investigating for ways to improve those odds.

After North’s splinter raise to four diamonds (showing gamegoing values) South asked for aces then looked for a grand slam, by trying to find the club king opposite. He shut up shop in six hearts when North could not cooperate, and West led a spade against the small slam. Declarer rose with the ace, then immediately ruffed a spade. There was a two-fold purpose to this exercise. The first was to begin eliminating the spade suit. The second was to test whether a defender held king, queen and just one other spade, so that a club could be discarded on the spade jack.

No spade honor put in an appearance at trick two, so South continued with a trump to dummy for another spade ruff. Declarer cashed the diamond ace, ruffed the diamond three, then trumped dummy’s last spade.

Having eliminated all the irrelevant cards, declarer now played the diamond queen in the hopes that West held the king. He did, and instinctively played that card. Instead of ruffing the diamond, South discarded a club from dummy and faced his hand.

West was now endplayed into either returning a club into South’s tenace, or giving a ruff and discard, whereupon North’s last losing club could depart. Of course, had East turned up with the diamond king, there would still have been the club finesse to fall back on.

In today’s deal from a team game, one table played in three no-trump after West had shown clubs and a second suit, while the other table reached four spades on an unopposed auction

The South in three no-trump received a top club lead. As he did not want a heart shift, he took the lead and crossed to dummy with a diamond to the ace, East playing the jack, then ran the spade 10, which West ducked. A low spade came next and when East showed out, declarer took the ace and led out the spade jack, prepared to overtake if West ducked. West won and shifted to a heart, but South now claimed his nine top tricks.

In the room where South reached four spades, he too received a top club lead. Declarer won the club lead and started trump in the same way. West won the third trump and, mindful of East’s signal, shifted to a heart. Declarer ducked, and when the defense went back to clubs, he ruffed the third one and drew the last trump, squeezing East in the red suits.

Although at double dummy four spades can never be broken (so long as declarer leads trump from hand at trick two), there was a defense to the line chosen at the table which was so unlikely that I can’t blame West for missing it. He must duck the third spade! Now when he wins a spade or club trick he must play another diamond. This breaks up the timing for the squeeze.

One simple law for declarer is that you should win a trick if you fear a shift. Still, there is always an exception. Walid El Ahmady and Tarek Sadek of Egypt are both highly resourceful declarers, and on this deal from the Cavendish pairs Sadek was able to bring home an impossible game by breaking the rules.

Three no-trump appears to be hopeless here for North-South except on a spade lead. Sadek received the lead of the heart queen.

If declarer wins the first heart for fear of a club shift, then runs six diamonds, East keeps his top clubs and two spades, and has an exit-card in the form of a low heart.

Better is to duck the first heart, win the next, and run diamonds. But in the five-card ending the defense can still just prevail so long as West keeps four clubs, and East discards all his hearts to keep two spades and three clubs.

Sadek went one step better; he ducked both the heart queen and the jack! Now he won the third heart, pitching a spade from dummy, and ran the diamonds. On the last diamond East was down to two spades and three clubs, and had no escape. If he kept two spades and the top clubs he would be thrown in with a club. If he bared his spade king, declarer would have the ninth trick in that suit, and if he discarded a top club, ace and another spade would endplay him to concede the ninth trick in clubs. Very nicely (and bravely) done.

This deal involves a nice point of technique. When it came up in a French pairs event, the best play was not always found. The reporter of the deal was one of the unlucky Easts, as the declarer at his table knew what he was doing. Still, at least he had the consolation of a good story!

Our reporter’s partner led the club king, and after winning with the ace perforce, declarer drew trump. You can see what happens (as it did at several tables) if declarer goes all out for the overtrick and hopes that the spade jack will fall in three rounds. It does not fall, and South ends up by losing two diamond tricks when that suit also fails to behave.

Instead, judging that he was in a good contract, and one that would not be reached by the majority of the field, South looked for the safest line for 12 tricks and decided not to worry unduly about the overtrick.

At trick five South advanced the spade nine and covered with dummy’s 10. If East had taken this, declarer could have claimed 12 tricks immediately. However, after some reflection East avoided that trap and ducked. It did not help: next came a diamond finesse, losing to the queen.

The club return was ruffed and the spade queen overtaken in dummy to allow a diamond to be discarded on the third top spade. When the spade jack did not fall, the lead was on the table for a second, and successful, diamond finesse.

In today’s auction South’s three no-trump rebid showed a balanced hand and 25-27 points. North’s four clubs was Stayman (similar to three clubs over a two no-trump rebid) and his subsequent raise of four hearts to five invited a slam, suggesting nothing to cuebid, thus good trumps. South should perhaps have passed, with his minimum 25-count, since slam could hardly be better than the spade finesse. But how would you play six hearts when West leads the club 10 to East’s ace and a club is returned?

Declarer saw that he would need the spade finesse to be right. Not only that, if East held four spades to the king, declarer would need to take the spade finesse three times. He cashed the king of trump and continued with the jack of trump. When West followed suit it was safe to overtake with dummy’s ace.

Do you see the point of this play? Declarer was trying to set up the maximum number of entries to dummy in the trump suit. East showed out on the second round of trump and declarer took his first spade finesse, pleased to see West follow with a low card. The four of trumps to dummy’s nine provided a second entry to dummy, and a second spade finesse followed. A trump to dummy’s queen returned the lead to dummy, and now declarer finessed for a third time in spades.

This same overtaking play would have been possible had dummy held the heart eight instead of the nine, so long as East has a singleton heart nine or 10.

Often the application of good declarer technique produces no positive result, because the lie of the cards means that there is no advantage to be gained from superior play. However, that was not the case with today’s deal. Take your place in the South seat and plan the play in your grand slam.

Superficially, it looks as if the contract depends on either the diamond finesse or a 3-3 heart split. If declarer simply plays out his top two hearts from hand then crosses to the heart ace, he can pitch his losing heart on the spade king and take the diamond finesse. That line combines your chances; but can you do better?

Better technique would be to cash all the black-suit winners followed by the heart king and queen before crossing to dummy with the heart ace at trick 10. As before, if the 13th heart is good, then the diamond queen is discarded on the spade ace, otherwise the heart can be discarded and the diamond finesse taken.

However, consider what happens when it is East who holds the long hearts. In the two-card end position, declarer leads a diamond from the dummy, holding the ace and queen in his hand. When East plays low, declarer knows that his last card is a heart; therefore West must hold the diamond king. There is no point in finessing, so declarer rises with the ace — and down comes the king.

Thus the show-up squeeze also lets you make the slam whenever West started with the bare diamond king and short hearts.

When South upgrade his hand out of his strong no-trump range of 14 to 17, North treated his hand as worth a club raise. This combination of actions led to NorthSouth stretching to a thin, though not hopeless game.

When West led a low spade to the first trick, declarer could see that he was very short of entries to dummy to play hearts. So he carefully put in dummy’s spade nine to the first trick. East won his ace as South unblocked the 10, and had one chance to defeat the game — though it would have required great defensive cooperation. He must shift to a diamond to let West win and go back to spades. Instead, though, he made the more normal play of continuing the attack on spades. West ducked the second spade, so declarer won dummy’s queen and led a low heart to the jack and West’s queen (ducking does not help today). That player cashed his spades as South pitched diamonds from both hands. When West exited with a diamond, declarer won in hand and cashed off the four club winners to discard his last diamond.

Now declarer could run the heart nine from dummy and repeat the finesse when East ducked, to score three hearts, four clubs, and one trick in each of the other suits.

Curiously, if declarer does not have the heart seven (switch the heart five and seven, for example) he cannot play the heart suit for three tricks on best defense, because of the entry problems to dummy.