This was my favorite deal from the Birmingham Nationals, when New York expert Mel Colchamiro cornered me on my way to the elevator and gave me a beautiful hand. Beware; it’s far harder than it looks, even though it is far from complicated.

Without going into too many details as to the auction — we would not want to embarrass any guilty parties — consider the play in six spades. Best defense is obviously to lead two rounds of clubs, but your generous opponents play a top club and shift to diamonds. Obviously they believe you might bid a slam off two aces; it is up to you to punish them for such an insult.

The natural thing to do is to cash the spade ace and the heart king. Then you lead the spade 10 from hand. If West discards, you need the heart queen to fall. If West follows, you must guess immediately whether trumps are splitting or whether hearts behave. That looks pretty good, but it is far from best.

The winning line is to overtake the heart king with the ace at trick three and ruff a heart high. If that suit splits or if the heart queen is bare, you have no problem in drawing trump, ending in dummy. If hearts do not behave, you need 2-2 spades — it’s as simple as that. On this occasion hearts split and spades did not — so if you play spades first, you had better guess very well!

Today’s deal offers a choice of lines in six hearts. After a top diamond lead, it is easy to count to 11 tricks, but where does the possible spade loser go? One possibility is to draw two rounds of trump and then play on spades. This works if spades are 3-3 or the hand with two hearts has two or fewer spades. This line of play comes in at about a two-thirds chance.

A better line is for declarer to win the diamond lead and play back a diamond. West wins and plays a trump, won in hand. Now comes a club to the ace, a diamond ruff high, a club to the king, and a club ruff high. Now you play two rounds of trumps. If they break, ruff a club with your last trump, cross to the spade queen, and draw the last trump, pitching a spade from your hand. You can take the last two tricks with the ace and king of spades.

However, at trick eight when you draw a second round of trumps, if you find them to be 4-1 all is not lost. You can still recover when trumps do not break, but one defender has four trumps and three or more spades. In the five-card ending you can cash your three spade winners and crossruff the last two tricks. This line comes in at close to an 80 percent chance.

As East may sympathetically point out to his partner, the lead of any suit but diamonds would defeat the slam!

In today’s deal from the finals of the US trials Paul Soloway declared three no-trump at one of the critical tables. A diamond was led, and when East won the club ace he returned a diamond, letting through 10 tricks.

In the other room (on the auction shown) David Berkowitz followed an invitational sequence facing a mini no-trump, and Larry Cohen drove to game. He had eight quick tricks on a diamond lead, but the clubs had to produce a ninth. He correctly won the opening lead and attacked clubs at once. Even if the club ace was on his right there was always the hope that the defense would not know what to do next. When Eric Rodwell took the club ace, all he knew was that his partner had a singleton club, so he was able to reconstruct that declarer had the club king-jack and diamond queen.

Since the likelihood was that he had a second top diamond, there was no room for declarer to have the heart ace, so his shifting to the heart jack gave the defense two chances. At the table, Cohen ducked the jack, so it was easy for East to continue hearts and cash out the suit. But had the trick gone to the heart queen and ace, Jeff Meckstroth would have returned a high heart from a remaining holding of three small, and a low heart from a remaining holding of 10xx.

If a high heart had come back, Rodwell would have reverted to diamonds and hoped for better luck there.

In today’s deal, after his partner shows a balanced 12-14 at his second turn, South’s two club rebid is known as “New Minor Forcing”. It is the equivalent of delayed Stayman, showing at least invitational values, and asks opener to introduce an unbid major or to show three-card support for responder. On the sequence shown, North reveals three-card spade support, making it easy for South to select the spade game.

West leads the club king against four spades. Rightly or wrongly, you elect to duck the trick and win the club queen continuation. Meanwhile, East plays high-low, consistent with jack-third of clubs or a doubleton. What should you do next, after cashing the heart ace?

If you take the diamond finesse and it loses, you may well find the defenders cashing a club, after which you will need the spade finesse to succeed. Alternatively, you can rise with the diamond ace, and take two discards on the heart winners. If so, which discards should you make from your hand?

If you discard your club losers, then take the spade finesse, or even play the spade ace and another spade, you might lose out to a diamond ruff. A far safer line is to pitch your diamonds on the top hearts.

After disposing of your diamonds, simply play a third club, and ruff the fourth club with dummy’s spade nine. You give up a trick to the spade king, directly or indirectly, but have the rest.

In today’s deal the optimal contract is six clubs, but it is often hard to locate a 4-4 fit when the auction gets high in a hurry. After North-South had a quantitative auction, it proved impossible to find their minor-suit fit.

When West led the spade queen against the slam, declarer could see that his route to 12 tricks involved getting three tricks from the diamond suit, and to do so he needed to take three finesses in the suit. As this required three entries, declarer played the club ace and king at tricks two and three. Then he took the club jack and played a fourth club to dummy’s queen.

Next he led a diamond to his jack and West’s king. He won the spade return and crossed back to dummy by leading to the heart ace. This was the entry to dummy to run the diamond nine, and he could remain in dummy for the third diamond finesse. In the end, declarer took two spades, three hearts, three diamonds and four clubs.

As an aside, note the effect of West ducking the first diamond. Wouldn’t declarer now have considered crossing to dummy to repeat the diamond finesse? When West produced the king and diamonds broke 4-2 South would have had a cardiac arrest. (For the record, declarer could lead a low diamond from hand after the first finesse succeeds, planning a later finesse – but that might lose out if West had ducked from an original holding of king-third or king-fourth.)

Would you make a try on the South cards after your partner had raised your major-suit opening? And would it matter if you had overcalled one heart and been raised to two?

Curiously, although the diamond king has become a more useful asset when you hear an opening bid of one diamond to your right, I’m not sure I would try again after partner had only raised my overcall to two. The fact that he had not produced a cue-bid raise might suggest game is unlikely to be more than a long shot.

Today, however, your game-try leads to your reaching a slightly pushy four hearts, against which West leads the diamond queen to East’s ace. East returns the club king. Plan the play.

If you win the club ace and find the king to be a singleton, you can be sure West will later get in with the club jack and switch to a spade, through dummy’s king-jack. But duck the club king, and you guarantee your side 10 tricks: one diamond, five hearts and four clubs. That is the winning play today.

Incidentally, while a spade lead would have beaten your game outright, can you see how the defenders could still have prevailed, even after the normal lead of the diamond queen? East simply ducks the opening lead and lets West win the next diamond to find the killing shift. Should East find this defense? I think so. West cannot have five diamonds, or he would have raised pre-emptively at his first turn.

In today’s deal, our final one from last year’s European Championships, Michael Kalita of Poland was declarer in three notrump. He ducked the opening lead of the heart king, then won the next heart in hand.

Now he made his best play (in abstract) in the club suit though not the best play on the hand, when he crossed to a diamond in dummy to lead a club to the queen and a club to the 10 and jack.

Bauke Muller as East now needed to cash the club ace and play a spade, hoping declarer could no longer untangle his entries, as would be the case here. In fact Muller played the heart jack without cashing the club ace. Now declarer should have succeeded, had he pitched his club loser from hand, unblocking diamonds, and then built an additional spade winner for the ninth trick.

Notice the difference if Kalita does not cross to a diamond in dummy, but simply leads the club queen from hand at trick three. Muller can duck, and win the next club, but if he cashes the club ace then declarer will catch West sooner or later in a spade/diamond squeeze. Kalita can duck a shift to the spade king, win the next spade, then cross to a diamond winner in dummy to play off the heart and club winners, and West must succumb.

So can three no-trump be defeated? Yes, but the only lead to set the hand by force is a highly unlikely club.

When Netherlands played Poland in the European Championships last summer, the Poles snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in both rooms here. They defended four spades by North in one room on a heart lead, letting declarer pitch a club loser immediately. Next declarer cashed the top spades and gave up a club. West went in with the jack and played queen and another spade, and declarer unblocked the spade jack to win the trump in hand.

Now North needed only to take the diamond finesse to bring home her game. But she led low to the ace and was down four for -200. Better defense would have been for West to win the club at trick five and lead a heart to force dummy to ruff. Now declarer would have stood no chance.

In our featured room the Dutch South, Meike Wortel, played five diamonds doubled. Had West led either of her side’s suits she would have defeated the game, but she led a spade, interpreting her partner’s double of five diamonds as showing a spade void.

Wortel put up dummy’s 10, led a diamond to the jack, then cashed the ace. Next came a top spade followed by a heart to the ace and a heart ruff, a diamond to the queen and a second heart ruff.

Now she exited with a club and, after taking two tricks there, whichever defender was on lead was endplayed, East to give a ruff and discard, West to choose between that and leading into the spade tenace.

My favorite play problem from the European Championships in Croatia last year presented itself in match 10 of the Open and Women’s qualifying. Let’s say you find yourself as declarer in three no-trump after an auction where your side has bid only the red suits. You receive the lead of the spade eight (second and fourth), put up the queen, and play on diamonds. West wins and shifts smoothly to the club queen. Should you cover or duck?

In one match the Irish declarer ducked, and a club was continued. Down one. The Austrian declarer covered with the king, and this lost to the ace. Back came a low club and declarer was faced with her second guess, and she put in the eight. Both declarers sank like a stone.

The commentators believed that after the shift to the club queen, declarer should cover (this loses by force only when West has eschewed a lead from QJ9 of clubs at trick one). When the club king loses to the ace and a club comes back, declarer should perhaps employ a form of restricted choice – though one that may be applicable only against top-class defenders.

Playing the eight wins against an original holding in West of QJ7, but loses to honor-nine-seven – whether that honor is the jack or queen. So the 10 is probably the winning play both in theory and practice.

Jet Pasman and Nevena Senior were two of the other successful defenders who found the shift to the club queen.