A small slam on the North and South cards looks a good proposition; indeed, on a good day all 13 tricks might well roll in. But the battle today was to find the safest route to 12 tricks.

During the auction, South had shown slam interest and a twosuiter at his second turn, then had used Keycard Blackwood to make sure the spades were robust enough to play slam. After winning the club lead, declarer played the spade ace then queen, to discover there was an inevitable trump loser. Now all South needed to guard against losing a heart as well. The key was to prevent East being able to ruff a heart winner then remove dummy’s last trump. South worked out that so long as East held at least one card in hearts, he was likely to be able to achieve his target.

At trick four South cashed the heart ace, then led a low heart towards his hand. East could see that if he ruffed a loser he would be wasting his trump trick to no effect, so he discarded a club. South won with the king in hand, returned to dummy in diamonds and played another heart. Still unable to ruff profitably, East discarded yet again, and South’s heart queen held.

Now came the heart 10, ruffed with dummy’s last trump. East could overruff, but that was the only trick for the defense. In essence, South had combined his heart loser and trump loser on the same trick.

Today’s deal embodies a very simple principle, but it is worth emphasizing that there are many hands where declarer knows that one of his opponents is the danger hand, and one is the safe hand. In such instances one wants to try to keep the danger hand off lead, and it may even be worthwhile to sacrifice a few percentage points in the play so as to ensure that you achieve your target.

Here West leads a club against three no-trump. East takes dummy’s jack with the queen, then returns the suit, and West clears the clubs. Now declarer has just seven top tricks. He can finesse diamonds either way, and of course since East has short clubs and West long clubs, you would expect East to have the diamond queen. But the percentages are quite close, and if you play East for the diamond queen and you are wrong, you are immediately sunk. A better approach is to play the diamond king and then plan to run the diamond 10. Of course, as the cards lie, this approach is immediately successful. But had the diamond finesse lost, you would have been able to fall back on the heart finesse, giving yourself another 50-50 chance in addition to the first finesse.

This general approach of taking your chances in order, rather than putting all your eggs in one basket, is called an echelon play. My experience is generally that the two chances are better than one.

Today’s deal came from a correspondent who supplied me with his missed chance for immortality, as usual identified a day too late.

West’s bid of three clubs was an improvisation, designed to confuse, and in a sense he was right; his side had a cheap sacrifice in spades, but the question was whether five hearts would make.

My correspondent ducked the opening spade lead, hoping East would contribute the ace; when this failed, he drew trump in two rounds and ruffed out spades for a diamond discard. However the 5-0 club break was too much for him, and he finished up losing three tricks in the minors. It was only on the next day that one of his opponents pointed out that he had missed his chance.

When the chance at trick one fails, declarer should have used trump entries to ruff out the spade ace, and then pitched a club not a diamond on the top spade. Since East was almost guaranteed to have 5-2-1-5 shape, he must therefore have a singleton diamond honor, given West’s failure to lead a top diamond at trick one. So the play is to exit from dummy with a small diamond, felling East’s ace, ruff the spade return, and play a second diamond, catching West in a Morton’s Fork coup. If he takes his diamond king there are two discards for the clubs; if not, the only losers are a club and a diamond.

Neither North nor South held back on this deal. North’s five diamond call was a cuebid in support of spades, and a further exchange of cuebids saw North at his next turn guarantee first round heart control when he bid six diamonds, since he was looking for a grand slam when South had denied the heart ace. Now South decided the grand slam was unlikely to be worse than a diamond finesse.

West led the heart five against seven spades, and declarer saw that there was no rush to take the diamond finesse. After winning the heart lead in hand, then entering dummy with a top trump, declarer ruffed a club in hand. Now he repeated the process, then cashed the remaining hearts and ran all but one of his trumps. When East turned up with only two cards in the majors, the prospects of a diamond finesse succeeding were poor, but look what happened to East when declarer discarded dummy’s small diamonds on the trumps.

In the four-card ending South had reduced to one trump and three diamonds, while dummy had two clubs and the diamond ace-king. That left East struggling for a discard from his three diamonds to the queen and the club ace-queen. If he threw a club, dummy’s ten could be established with a ruff; when he parted with a diamond, declarer cashed both of dummy’s diamonds. Now South’s diamond jack became a winner, while he still had a trump in hand to reach it.

John Armstrong’s death some six years ago robbed England of one of its finest players. He was in action on today’s hand demonstrating some neat inferential card reading.

The bidding in both rooms to three no-trump saw the lead was the lead of the club two, to the three, jack and king. The first declarer set up his clubs by conceding a trick to West’s 10.That player’s low heart switch went to the ace, and when South played low on the heart return, the defenders could set up hearts and cash the 13th heart when East got in with the spade ace.

In our second room Armstrong drew the right inference from the lead as to West’s distribution. Given that most defenders would prefer to lead a major when Stayman has not been employed, the lead from a broken four-card suit suggested that West might have no second four-card suit. Instead of continuing with clubs and setting up a winner there for the opponents, Armstrong played on diamonds at trick two.

West won the second diamond and shifted to the heart two. East took the ace and returned the three, but since West’s low heart two suggested that West might hold a heart honor, declarer rose with the king, blocking the hearts.

Next he dislodged the spade ace, and although East could play a heart to West’s queen, nothing could now stop declarer from regaining the lead. At that point he could take three clubs, three diamonds, two spades and one heart for his contract.

The European open championships in San Remo saw a couple of British teams collect medals. Today’s deal comes from the de Botton team’s successful quarterfinal encounter against a strong Dutch squad.

The Dutch North-South had failed to reach slam here, but in the other room Artur Malinowski and Janet de Botton played six spades on the auction shown.

Janet de Botton found a successful line of play. She won the diamond ace, cashed dummy’s heart ace and played a heart back towards her king. It would not have done East any good to ruff thin air, so he threw a club, and declarer won her king and exited with a heart. When West won and continued the suit, declarer ruffed high in the dummy, then cashed the spade king and ran the spade 10, finessing East for the jack. When the spade 10 held, she crossed to hand with a club, drew the last trump, and claimed the remainder.

An alternative, and perhaps safer, approach would have been a dummy reversal. Declarer wins the opening lead, cashes the diamond ace and ruffs a diamond, plays a spade to the ace and ruffs a diamond. Then he cashes the spade queen, and plays a club to dummy. Now he ruffs a diamond, leads another club to dummy, and draws the last trump, pitching a heart from hand. He can cash one further heart and club winner, simply conceding a heart at the end.

Fred Gitelman is the chief executive of Bridge Base Online, by far the best way to play bridge online. It offers the opportunity to play or learn bridge and there are several invaluable teaching tools available. Plus you get the chance to watch the top players in the world, live on Vugraph.

He showed me a nice point of technique on the following deal. You might consider it routine but as the score indicated, good technique paid dividends. As South he declared four spades, and with the club finesse succeeding, the play was all about overtricks. On a diamond lead, he had to ruff a diamond in dummy. Now he led the spade four from dummy and when East played low, he went up with the queen.

Lucky or well judged? If spades are 2-2, his play is immaterial but if spades are 3-1, the only singleton he can pick up is the jack – since if West has a singleton ace or king you have three losers whatever you do. Because you cannot influence the majority of distributions, you should play to influence the ones over which you do have control.

Of course if you had an extra trump in dummy (let’s say you had the diamond queen instead of the jack) you can use your two entries to dummy to lead to the spade nine and 10. But as the cards lie this is not possible since you had to burn one of dummy’s trumps to ruff the losing diamond from the South hand.

As declarer there are worse things that could happen to suffering a ruff. Consider today’s deal, which came up in a Swiss Teams match, both declarers reached the contract of four spades. One declarer won the diamond lead and led a low club from hand to West’s nine and dummy’s king. East worked out to hold off, and declarer was now worried enough by the threat of a club ruff to draw all the trump.

Then he led a club to the 10, but East held off again, and now he was left with a club and three red suit losers, since there was no entry to the board.

In the other room the lead was the same. The diamond king went to the ace, and now came a club to the king, ducked again. Next came the spade ace, and a spade to the jack.

But the second declarer judged correctly when he reverted to clubs. West could receive a club ruff, and cash his long diamond, but declarer could win the heart ace and cross to dummy with the spade queen to take dummy’s two club winners, on which he could discard both his heart losers.

This deal reinforces the importance of giving count as a defender when you think your partner needs to know how many cards you have in a suit. Be aware that sometimes count helps declarer more than your partner; deciding which situation you are in is not that easy a task.