At the bridge table, you soon find out that some people are inherently untrustworthy… but sometimes with the best will in the world you have to believe Zia Mahmood… don’t you?

In a recent Lederer Teams tournament John Mohan protected in the West seat after the opponents’ bidding had died in two spades. Zia’s bid of three clubs might not have been the majority choice, but it created a bit of excitement. Victor Silverstone didn’t double three clubs with his minimum hand, so Zia never got to demonstrate that his three clubs had been merely lead-directional.

Mohan obediently led a club against three spades. Left to his own devices Silverstone would almost certainly have made the contract, playing East for the spade queen and West for the diamond ace and the heart king-jack. Indeed, there is little else he can do, and both Vlad Isporski for the Spring Foursomes Winners and David Horton for Australia made nine tricks in spades in this way. However Zia won the club lead with the king and switched to the heart two!

From Silverstone’s point of view this was clearly a singleton, so he rejected the spade finesse and cashed the trump ace and king, getting the bad news. He exited with a club to the ace and Zia played the heart three, by now, a real singleton.

Silverstone won in dummy and led a spade. Zia went up with the queen, played a diamond to his partner’s ace and Mohan had no difficulty giving Zia his heart ruff for down one.

Today’s deal saw West give declarer something of a roadmap home in his three no-trump contract. The defenders did have an outside chance to defeat the game, but it was one that was easier to spot in the post mortem than at the table.

Against the no-trump game West was playing attitude leads, whereby the smaller the card led the more he liked his side’s chances in that suit. So he led the spade seven, and East encouraged as dummy’s ace won. Declarer now played the ace and king of clubs, West discarding a heart, and next tried a low diamond from dummy, which went to the five, seven and nine. West now returned the spade six to East’s king, and South won the third spade and cashed his master club.

West was squeezed out of a spade on this trick, since he could not throw a diamond or a heart, so declarer played two more rounds of diamonds. West had a spade to cash, but declarer had the rest, since the diamonds were now established.

To defeat the contract East had to work out from the auction and the size of the spade led to trick one that his partner had jack-fifth of spades. Had he ducked the second spade, declarer’s best bet would have been to win and exit in spades. But the defense should still prevail – so long as they do not cash out the spades, or West once again gets squeezed in the red suits in the ending.

At the Dyspeptics Club South has been experimenting with some of the modern conventions, despite North’s cynical comment that he would do better to master the art of crawling before trying to learn how to run sprints.

Today’s deal was an example of South putting into practice a modern gadget, whereby he showed a good club raise with short hearts by jumping in a suit where a simple bid of that suit would have been forcing. The partnership reverted to spades, and South – who had no diamond control – eventually settled for game. His four club call was in the hopes that North could co-operate, perhaps with the diamond ace instead of the heart ace, when six clubs would have been a highly desirable spot.

Having settled in four spades, South received a top diamond lead. When East discouraged, West shifted optimistically to a heart. Now declarer could draw trump, and discard his second diamond loser on the hearts.

When North asked a not-soinnocent question “Did we miss anything?” it was East who commented grimly that somebody had missed something – and it wasn’t North-South. Do you see what he meant?

South’s revealing auction had suggested at least four clubs. The only way that West could have set four spades was to find his partner with a club void. After a club shift at trick two West has the diamond entry to deal his partner a second ruff and defeat the game. This defense might cost an overtrick, but it was surely the only shot to beat the game.

On this deal from a teams-offour match, one declarer had an easy run and made a comfortable overtrick in his game contract. The play had seemed straightforward enough and he was not expecting to gain on the board. But West, his team-mate at the second table, found a way of inducing declarer into error.

Clearly the diamonds had to be developed in three no-trump, so after winning the lead of the club three lead in dummy, both declarers led the diamond two to their king. At the first table West took his ace and led another low club, but now, after winning in dummy, it was easy for South to come to hand with a spade in order to lead a second diamond. When West followed with the three, declarer inserted dummy’s nine. East won, but had no more clubs to play, and so South had 10 tricks.

The second West found a much more imaginative defense. When the first diamond was led to the king, he allowed South’s king to hold. Declarer continued the suit, and this time West followed with his jack.

From South’s viewpoint, this was entirely consistent with West having started with J-10-3 of diamonds and East with the doubleton A-8. If that were the case, it would be fatal to play dummy’s queen on the second round, so West’s jack was allowed to hold. West now cleared the clubs, and coming back on play with the third round of diamonds, cashed his established clubs for one down.

When you first learn to play bridge the power of the trump suit is sometimes difficult to grasp. One takes ruffs whenever one can – and that is not always a good idea. It is by no means obvious that as declarer you generate extra tricks more easily by taking ruffs in the short trump hand than with your long trumps. Worse still, just when you think you have the situation under control, along comes a hand like today’s, where the key is to ruff in the long hand. The deal cropped up in the annual Parliamentary match, won that year by the House of Lords, and sponsored by the London Export Company.

With the tip we have just been discussing in mind, plan the play in four hearts on the lead of the spade king. On the surface of it, the deal looks extremely straightforward. You will succeed if trumps break 3-2 but appear to have little extra chance if they are 4-1. However, you never know; once you see the point of the deal, you will win the spade ace and ruff a spade. Now try your three top trumps.

When East shows out on the second round, you should allow yourself an inward smile, because your thoughtful play at trick two has paid off. Next play the diamond ace, a diamond to dummy’s king and ruff another spade. Now a club to dummy’s ace allows you to ruff your last spade. In total you have made four outside tricks and six trump tricks – 10 in all.

Every year in the United Kingdom there is a series of home Internationals, the Camrose Trophy, the Lady Milne Trophy, and the Teltscher Trophy for Seniors.

Today’s deal comes from the trials for the Lady Milne, the women’s event, and I should start by letting you plan the play for yourself: you are in five clubs, and West leads the diamond ace followed by another diamond. How would you proceed?

At the table one should maybe not criticize declarer unduly for following an uninspired line. She ruffed the diamond lead and played the heart ace and king. To declarer’s dismay East ruffed and played a trump. Declarer could win, ruff one heart in dummy and discard one on the spade ace, but had to lose a heart at the end.

Do you see how she could have avoided this undignified fate?

South should have ruffed the second diamond and played the heart ace followed by a low heart. West can win the trick and play a trump. However, declarer is now able to win and play a spade to her king, ruff a heart with the club jack, then cash the spade ace discarding a heart. She can ruff her way back to hand, draw trumps and claim her contract.

The key here was to count your tricks. To bring the total to 11 you need only one heart ruff, so long as you score both your ace and king. The line declarer adopted was the best line for 12 tricks, but not for 11.

In bridge one should never say never, and while an even trumpbreak is normally top of declarer’s wish list, there are always exceptions. Sometimes one has to project the complete distribution, and work out that bad splits can be more productive than a favorable break. That is especially true of hands like today’s.

After a fairly sporting auction by North, Augustin Santamaria of Argentina reached a delicate four spade game, a contract that was made even more challenging by the fact that the auction had indicated the danger of bad splits. On the lead of the club jack, Santamaria took dummy’s ace and played a low diamond. East won his diamond ace, cashed the club queen, and exited with a diamond.

At this point Santamaria was in a very awkward position; he could see that if trumps were two-two, then unless West specifically had the doubleton jack-10 of trumps, the defense could promote a trump winner for themselves by leading a third round of clubs after taking the ace of trumps. Therefore when declarer led the spade seven from hand and West followed with a small trump, declarer went for his only legitimate chance to make the hand by ducking in dummy! When East produced the spade ace there was no longer any possibility of the defense producing a second trump trick. Thus the contract made, for a 12 IMP pickup for Argentina, on the way to an upset in their knock-out match from the 1986 Rosenblum Cup.

All too often, your holding in a side-suit drives your strategy in trumps. After a simple auction to four hearts West goes passive with the lead of the club nine. East wins his ace, and cannot sensibly switch to any suit, so continues with a second club.

South takes the second trick, and cannot draw trumps at once; if he plays a trump to the ace and a second trump, the defense might win and play a third round. Even if trumps split, this could leave him with a problem, as there would be only one trump in dummy to cope with two or more possible spade losers.

An alternative approach might be to draw no trumps at all, and play on a crossruff. The danger with following that route (or even drawing exactly one round of trumps with the ace) is that the defense may make their three high trumps separately.

The winning line is to give up a trump at trick three. You can win the return, then play the heart ace, and only after that will you tackle the spades. Play the spade king, a spade to the ace, and ruff a spade, and you can later ruff another spade to establish your fifth spade. The defense win the first trick, the heart you give up, and one more trump at the end, but that is all.

Be aware that today the small trump spots simplified declarer’s task here. Had declarer possessed the trump jack or queen there might have been alternative strategies to confuse the issue.

When there is a choice of entries to dummy and you need multiple entries, then, you should consider choosing as your first entry the one that does not permit the defenders to block you.

On lead against three notrump West led the spade queen. Declarer won in dummy and immediately led a low diamond towards his hand, appreciating that for his game to succeed he needed East to hold the diamond ace. East played low, the king won, and declarer entered dummy in hearts to repeat the process.

Now East rose with the diamond ace, blocking the suit, and returned, not a spade but the club king, attacking dummy’s last entry. South withheld dummy’s ace for two rounds, unblocking the club 10 from hand, hoping East would switch, but East persisted with clubs.

Although this line of defense presented declarer with two club tricks, the diamonds were now firmly blocked. South’s last chance for the contract was finding the heart queen onside. But when that finesse failed, South’s final hope of nine tricks went out of the window.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but if declarer had entered dummy with the club ace for the second diamond play, he could not have been prevented from taking nine tricks. With the diamond ace onside, this line would only fail if one defender had held an extremely good club suit.

Now if East wins the second diamond and returns a heart, South can take this in hand, unblock the diamonds, then enter dummy with the heart king to reach the rest of the diamonds.