Today’s four spade contract may appear to hinge on the heart finesse. But while the heart finesse is necessary, be warned that it is not sufficient.

At the table the defenders cashed their three top clubs, then shifted to diamonds. Declarer won the diamond ace, led a spade to the queen, then drew trump ending in hand and advanced the heart queen. West covered, and declarer tried to cash out the hearts. When they failed to break, he could not avoid losing trick 13, no matter which hand he finished up in.

Once West turns up with trump length, it is rather more likely that he has short than long hearts, including the king. The right line is to lead a heart to the jack at trick five, then lead out the spade queen. Next, overtake the trump jack with the king. When West turns up with spade length, lead to the heart jack and draw the last trump, then rely on hearts breaking 3-3. As it is, though, the sight of the heart king on the second round of the suit allows you to cross to the spade ace, unblock the heart queen, and go to dummy’s trump 10 to cash the heart ace.

Had West turned up with short trumps, you might well have led out the heart queen on the second round of the suit, subsequently playing East for a doubleton eight or nine of hearts, rather than trying for the 3-3 heart break.

When a contract seems to depend on a reasonable break in a long suit, you should always consider what other chances you might have if the key suit doesn’t behave.

In today’s deal South was constrained to open one diamond. Thereafter he tried to apply the brakes, but North had the bit between his teeth, and would not let his partner out below six notrump, against which West led the spade king. The contract was certainly reasonable, but South didn’t give it his best shot.

After winning the spade in hand, South returned the spade jack and threw a diamond from dummy. West led a third spade and this time dummy discarded a heart. Declarer next tried the king and another club, but when West showed out he was in deep trouble, since he had discarded potential winners from dummy. He ended up a trick short.

Try the effect of leading your low club to the ace at trick two. The next club lead exposes the position and now, when South leads the spade jack from hand, he knows to discard a club from dummy. With the heart finesse right, there are all sorts of additional chances for the 12th trick, either from the diamond breaking, as they do here, or from a squeeze on either opponent, since there are threats in all four suits.

Furthermore, if the clubs had proved to be 3-2, declarer could still have set up his 12th trick from the spades, with no need to rely on either red suit.

Today’s deal from a recent Cavendish pairs emphasizes that bridge can sometimes resemble one of those Russian dolls where you keep peeling off the layers to find something interesting and unexpected below.

Let’s look at a simple story first. Against three no-trump as West, Ton Bakkeren took two top spades, then shifted to the club two when his partner pitched a discouraging heart. Declarer took Huub Bertens’ nine with the ace but eventually had to play another spade, and ended up with only seven tricks when the club finesse lost.

This turned out to be a major swing for East-West, the eventual tournament winners, even though many Wests found the right defense of shifting to a club — but that was far from the end of the story.

As East, how should you defend if your partner shifts to a low club, and declarer plays low from dummy, then ducks your club nine? Since partner is marked with the three top spades, you know declarer has the club ace. Might you not be tempted to go passive and exit with a heart? That was the way Steve Landen played as declarer. When the defense duly shifted to hearts, he knocked out the spade queen and claimed nine tricks.

But that is still not the whole story. Say that as West you know declarer has four diamonds and four spades. If you are going to play a club, why not shift to the club jack at trick three? That was the defense Bob Hamman found, and now declarer had no chance.

In today’s deal the question marks in the diagrammed hand represent the queen and ace of hearts. It will be your task to identify the correct play in the trump suit when declaring four hearts.

You reach the heart game after East has opened one club, and has competed to three clubs. The defenders lead and continue clubs; you ruff the second one, West showing a doubleton. Now a spade to the king and a trump to East’s three and your….?

Here if East had the doubleton heart ace he should have risen with the ace and played a third club for the trump promotion. Unless you have a good reason to assume to the contrary, you should probably believe that your opponents would be good enough to find this defense. Presumably the best reason for their not following this line of defense was because East did not have the heart ace in the first place. So play a trump to the jack – a play that also caters for most of the 3-1 breaks too.

Of course your approach may vary depending on which of the opponents is threatening the overruff. You can imagine that on a different day it might be the case that if West gets on lead with the heart ace he could lead a suit to allow East to overruff dummy. In that scenario you might well lead a trump to the king, since playing a trump to the jack and ace would still lead to defeat for you.

Today’s deal illustrates an idea that you might well consider impossible, namely that a player can fall victim to a “one-suit squeeze”. You don’t believe me? Read on.

Against four spades West tried to cash two diamonds. South ruffed, and saw that with the heart ace surely wrong, the main chance seemed to be a 3-3 club break. However, there was nothing to be lost by getting a count of the hand first. Declarer drew two rounds of trump, crossed to the club queen, and ruffed a diamond high. At this point West had shown up with three diamonds, two spades and from his strong bidding he rated to have six hearts. It was clear that the clubs were not breaking, so the only hope lay in an end-play in hearts. South played off the rest of his trumps, throwing a club and a diamond from dummy, and cashed the club ace and king.

The position with three cards to play was that dummy and declarer each had their three original hearts left, while East had the heart eight and two minor winners. West had to find a discard from his four remaining hearts, the A-Q-J-6.

If he parted with the six, declarer would play a low heart from each hand to throw West in to lead a heart round to his king, so West discarded his heart jack. Now declarer led a low heart from dummy and covered East’s eight with the king. West won but had to concede the last trick to dummy’s heart seven!

South correctly decided that his hand was inappropriate for a one no-trump opening, so he opened one heart. North was playing the forcing no-trump, with a direct raise to two hearts constructive. So he responded one no-trump, planning to raise hearts later. When South raised to two no-trump, suggesting 18-19 balanced, North decided to take a shot at four hearts. Thus the standard contract was reached in convoluted fashion.

West was on lead with what he considered one of the more routine defensive problems. He led out a top club and decided that it was safe to continue with the club ace and another club.

South ruffed the third club, cashed the heart ace-king to find the bad news, then crossed to the diamond ace to ruff the fourth club. Then he took the remaining top diamonds, discarding a spade from dummy. West discarded, but that simply postponed the evil day for a short while. Finally a heart endplayed West, forcing him to lead into the spade tenace. A neat route to ten tricks, don’t you think?

Very competently played by declarer, but West takes the blame for missing the point of the defense. After one top club reveals the layout of the clubs when East follows with a small club at trick one, West should see the endplay looming. He should switch to a diamond at trick two, and now when declarer wins in hand and leads a low club, West can let East take the trick and shift to spades.

Seven years ago in the open and women’s finals of the World Mind Sports Games all four tables South opened five clubs, ending the auction. And at all four tables West did extremely well to lead the diamond ace.

In the open final, both Wests now switched to the heart nine, declarer rising with dummy’s king. The English East, Jason Hackett, guessed to cash the diamond king to beat the game. At the other table, Alfredo Versace for Italy tried to give his partner a heart ruff and the game rolled home.

Would declarer have played dummy’s king when he had a holding of Q-5 himself and had no special reason to expect a bad heart break? My experience has been to play opponents not to make brilliant plays, and to pay off to them if they do.

In the women’s final, the Chinese East/West defended just like the Hacketts, but the English West chose to switch to the heart queen. Had this been covered by the king and ace, East would surely have tried to give her partner a heart ruff, but there was a twist in the tale. Declarer did not cover the heart queen.

Now what should East do? If declarer should assume that West would only switch to the heart queen when holding a singleton, then South should indeed duck, forcing East to overtake with the ace in order to give West a ruff. East trusted South to be brilliant, and duly overtook the heart queen to play a second heart. Oops!

Today’s problem comes from a book by Eddie Kantar, Take All Your Chances. Kantar has the remarkable ability both to entertain and provide excellent teaching deals in a relaxed and humorous style. I recommend his books both for beginners and those with higher ambitions. In today’s deal you declare six spades on the lead of the heart jack. Plan the play (and consider what you would have done on a diamond lead).

After a heart lead it looks natural to take the diamond finesse – but if it fails you can almost kiss goodbye to any chance of making the hand. Far better is to win the lead, draw trumps ending in hand, then play a low club towards dummy’s queen without releasing the club ace. If the club queen loses to the king, you can later take the diamond finesse for your contract. That gives you two 50 percent chances instead of one.

After a diamond lead you need to determine if West would favor an attacking lead against a small slam – especially when declarer rates to be strong. I’d expect East to hold the diamond king not West. So I would win the diamond ace and ruff a diamond, then draw three rounds of trump and strip off the hearts. Unless the defenders’ discards indicated to the contrary, I’d ruff out the diamond queen, then cash the club ace and lead a low club to the queen. This wins whenever the club finesse succeeds or East has an unlikely doubleton club king.

When this deal came up in the final set of a knock-out match the pair sitting North-South were some way behind, which might partly explain (if not fully justify) the reason that North jumped to the grand slam. He expected that his partner would have extras for his combination of the cuebid and jump to slam, and he was hoping that the auction had made the club finesse a favorite to succeed. In a sense he had done well, because if the club finesse had lost, even six spades would have been in jeopardy.

On the lead of the diamond 10, declarer could see that the club finesse was necessary but it was by no mean sufficient. He would also need clubs to break 3-2.

After winning the opening lead and drawing two rounds of trumps, declarer could cross his fingers and take the club finesse. Then he cashed the club ace, and after that declarer’s remaining club was thrown on dummy’s heart winner.

The clubs were ruffed out, and the last trump was drawn with dummy’s jack. Declarer found himself taking six trump tricks, two hearts, a diamond and four clubs, 13 in all.

Of course when he came to score up the board, North-South discovered that the pair in the other room had stopped in game, so all the additional effort was unnecessary. By the way, in six spades on a diamond lead it looks right simply to play for a diamond ruff in dummy and to take the club finesse.