Good sense dictates how this minor suit game should be handled. It also helps to remember as declarer that if only you need to take 11 tricks, you can afford to lose two.

To reach five diamonds, North judged well in the auction. South would no doubt have been expecting more from him in the way of honor points for his initial response, but North could see that as South was almost certainly marked with a singleton or void club by his rebid of three no-trump, the club suit was unlikely to be easy to develop in a no-trump contract.

West led a diamond, since nothing else looked attractive, and South took stock. The most realistic chance for 11 tricks is to set up dummy’s clubs; so with this in mind, declarer cashed the trump king and queen, then led a club to the ace.

The ensuing club ruff passed off peacefully. Next came the heart ace for a spade discard from dummy, followed by a diamond to the ace, extracting the last defensive trump in the process. Declarer then simply gave up a club. All that was now left for the defense was one spade trick, there being a trump left in dummy as access to the set-up clubs.

Declarer had planned the play with care from trick one, appreciating that two tricks could be lost. If declarer had ruffed two clubs in the South hand, the timing goes awry. Trump control is lost, and with that, the established club winners.

Today’s deal comes from an expert player, who was practicing online at www.Bridgebase.com. (This is the best place both to play and practice online that I know.) He reported the deal anonymously, remarking that it was a pity his non-expert partner had not been the declarer here, since it would have given him a chance to demonstrate his technique, or at least to learn a valuable lesson if he failed to do so.

North-South were in danger of getting too high here and South thought he had judged well not to press on to six clubs. Singleton honors are often difficult to evaluate, and North had perhaps been a little over-enthusiastic.

When West led a spade, declarer had to decide how to play for 11 tricks. One line was simply to draw trump from the top and, if there was a loser there, to guess diamonds. However, South spotted that provided hearts were 4-3 he had a better line.

So he won the spade king, played the heart ace and led a heart to hand, cashed the spade ace pitching a heart, and ruffed a spade. Now he played a club to his king and cashed the heart queen. When this stood up, he simply played a club to the jack. As it turned out, East showed out and declarer could draw the last trump and claim. However, if East had won his doubleton trump queen, he would have been endplayed either to play a diamond or concede a ruff and discard.

Sometimes it is better to go quietly when you are outgunned. In this deal North knew his partner was short in diamonds and gambled a second double. His partner took him seriously and jumped to game with his meager two-count, and found himself in a parlous contract. Even though the opponents’ cards lay extremely well, finding the winning line in five clubs was not entirely obvious.

As West holds the doubleton club ace, the heart king, and spade queen, declarer is in with a shout after West’s normal diamond lead. (Yes a spade lead lets the defenders organize a spade ruff).

Declarer ruffs the second diamond and plays a club to the king, the ducks a club on the way back. West wins his bare club ace and shifts to the heart jack. Declarer finesses the queen, cashes the heart ace and ruffs a diamond, then draws the last trump, pitching the small heart from dummy. Now declarer finesses in spades, cashes the spade ace and ruffs a diamond back to hand with his last trump.

After 11 tricks (two spades, two hearts, three trumps and four diamonds) he has reduced to a two-card ending with the heart 10 and a spade in hand and the K-3 of spades in dummy. To protect against the spade menace West must pitch his master heart, hoping his partner can guard the suit, but South triumphantly cashes the heart 10 at trick 12.

North could hardly believe his good fortune when he saw South open the bidding with a strong no-trump. Yet there turned out to be a sting in the tail…

At any other vulnerability North might have been suspicious, but as it was, with a combined minimum of 37 HCP, North saw no point in hanging about and closed the auction with a majestic leap to seven no-trump.

West led the club 10, captured with dummy’s ace. Hardly pausing for breath, South cashed dummy’s diamond ace then played a diamond to the king, being brought up short when West showed out. He could now count on only twelve tricks, but there were still other chances for a thirteenth – a 3-3 heart break or a red-suit squeeze. But when those failed to materialize, he had to settle for one down – and a disgruntled partner.

As the only thing that can go wrong is an inconvenient diamond break, it is surely worth embarking on a voyage of discovery, to see if you can get a better feel for the distribution.

Cash the diamond ace to start with – if either defender shows out, you can safely finesse for the jack. Then cash all three top hearts, followed by the clubs. Finally, take the spade ace then king. Today this will reveal West’s exact distribution as 2-4-1-6, so East is known to have started with jack-fourth of diamonds. The diamond nine can now be safely finessed, the king cashed, and the spade queen is the entry for the diamond queen.

The following deal was composed by Fred Karpin, and contains a somewhat subtle trap. It is based on a real-life deal from the 1930s played by Richard Frey, one of the 10 original ACBL lifemasters.

After South opened a 16-18 no-trump, North simply raised to game. West’s natural lead against that contract was a spade rather than a club. There is much to be said for leading the five not the three (second from four small) but West led the three. Declarer won in hand with the king and advanced a low diamond, hoping to get past West, assuming that if East won the first diamond he would surely continue spades.

But our West was made of sterner stuff and hopped up with the diamond king and shifted to a club. Now you would expect East to win and clear clubs, setting up five winners for the defenders; but when declarer dropped the king under the ace, East rethought the position. ‘Clearly’ declarer had king-queen doubleton in clubs, so a spade continuation looked appropriate.

Of course if East had trusted his partner, he would have inferred that West’s choice of the club two at trick three should have indicated that the right defense was to continue clubs, not to revert to spades. If West had started life with A-10 of spades and needed to put his partner in for the spade play, he would have shifted to the highest club spot he could afford. But declarer gave the defense the chance to err, and East took it.

This column is always eager to receive instructive deals from readers. This deal from Marty Hirschman featured the same contract being reached in both rooms; but the player who attacked with the best lead for the defense did not defeat the contract, while the defender who had the more difficult task did set the game.

Hirschman at the first table did not know whether to lead clubs or diamonds against four spades, and while I admit I might well have led a club to the first trick, he did better than me. He led the spade ace, and on the sight of dummy found the killing shift to a low diamond. In essence he appreciated that the only practical way he would ever set the game now was to find partner with the doubleton diamond king. While this was unlikely, at teams one should not care too much about letting through overtricks in situations of this sort.

In the other room West’s choice of the diamond ace on opening lead was quite reasonable (playing partner for short diamonds is an easy – if unlikely – way to set the game). He continued with the diamond jack, covered by dummy’s queen, and East won to shift to a club. Declarer gratefully cashed the ace and king of clubs to shake dummy’s remaining diamond. Then he played a trump up, and could claim after the trump ace put in an appearance.

Do you think East should have worked out to play a spade at trick three, treating the diamond jack as suit preference? I do.

Today’s deal comes from the rubber bridge table in London, and was reported by Brian Jackson, a player who thought he had seen it all. He had led a top club against six diamonds, being more hurt than surprised to see declarer ruff it. South now cashed the heart ace and trumped a heart. He then ruffed another club and another heart (Jackson discarding a club). This was followed by the spade king and ace, then a club ruff and another heart ruff, Jackson discarding a spade.

In the four-card ending declarer had a losing spade in each hand, and three clubs in dummy, and A-J-9 of trumps in hand. When declarer played a club from the dummy, East (who had two hearts and a spade as well as his trump 10 left) ruffed in, hoping to promote a trump trick for West. However, South overruffed as West followed suit, then exited with a spade.

In the three-card ending West had to ruff and was endplayed in trumps. Contract made. But had East discarded a spade instead on the previous trick, he could have overruffed his partner on the spade exit. Now the defenders would have come to two tricks.

However, it was my reporter who apologized to his partner. For when declarer played the fourth heart from his hand in the five-card ending, West should have ruffed in front of the dummy. Now in the ending he has one fewer trump and an additional spade, so would be able to discard, rather than ruff in, at trick 11, and thus escape the endplay.

In today’s deal South took a flyer at slam without any assurance of finding real trump support, but knowing from the fourth-suit call that responder had opening values. The two diamond call asks rather than tells, and sets up a game-force.

After the lead of the diamond 10, declarer’s back was firmly against the wall, since he no longer had an entry to dummy. Crossing his fingers, South finessed the diamond jack. When it held, he played the diamond ace and king, discarding the ace and king of spades from hand.

Next came dummy’s three spade winners, on which declarer discarded his three club losers. Everything had passed off remarkably peacefully up till now. All that remained was to negotiate trumps for just one loser – by no means a sure thing. If trumps were 3-2 it would be a blind guess as to whether to lead to the queen or the 10. One play succeeds against jack-third to your right, one against kingthird, and there were no indications in the bidding or play as to which was more likely. And either play works against a doubleton honor in East. But if trumps were 4-1 with West having a singleton, the choice between playing the queen or 10 came down in favor of leading to the queen, since that picked up a singleton jack with West, the only relevant singleton. So declarer led a trump to the queen and lived happily ever after.