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.

In today’s deal from a team game it was possible to win the board both in the bidding and the play. The net result was essentially a stand-off, but one team missed their chance for a big pick-up.

In one room North-South bid to four spades when North guessed to use Stayman over the two notrump opening. Yes, this lets opponents find out more about declarer’s hand, but with a small doubleton club and a chunky four-card spade suit the odds are that a 4-4 fit is worth finding.

In four spades declarer received a trump lead and used a trump entry to dummy to lead a diamond to the king. Then he drew trump and set up the clubs to discard one of dummy’s hearts, eventually leading a diamond toward his queen for his 10th trick.

In the second room on the auction shown West could have earned a swing for his side. He led a low club, and when East produced the ace it looks as if should have been easy for West to duck the second club, retaining communications in defense. But declarer cunningly followed with the club jack on the first round and the queen on the second, tempting West to win the king and try to cash out clubs. Now with the defenders’ communications cut, South could simply lead diamonds toward his hand twice, to set up his nine tricks in comfort.

West should have noted that, with the club four missing, East surely had led back the top card of his remaining doubleton.

The specialty of Jeff Meckstroth is reaching impossible contracts — and making them. Here he is at the 1995 Cavendish Pairs, weaving a web of deception around his opponents.

The contract of three no-trump has some decent practical chances here, but four spades seems a long way from making. At the table Meckstroth as South, received the lead of the diamond five against four spades, won with the ace. Next came three top spades from hand, as East threw a club, and then declarer advanced an innocent heart six. After long thought West ducked, so the heart jack won the trick. Meckstroth was not yet out of the woods, however. He ducked a club to East’s jack, and when East played a low club to West’s king, he took the ace. Then he played a third club, pitching a heart as East won his queen. East played a fourth club, and Meckstroth threw hearts from both hands, leaving East to play a diamond into the king-jack.

Can you see the defense? East could have foiled this ending, in straightforward fashion, by discarding a diamond on the third trump, retaining his fifth club as an exit card.

Also, even after that error, he had one more chance, namely he must put up a club honor on the first round of the suit, then play his other honor. This allows his partner the chance of winning the third club. If South discards on that trick, West has the heart ace to cash for down one.

When I saw this deal, entitled ‘To Hook or Not To Hook,” on Bridge Winners, I thought I would like to share it with my readers.

Eugene Hung wrote it up initially as a bidding problem from the North perspective.

The first response was easy, the cuebid at the second round less so, the choice of slams at the third turn even harder.

Now switch into the South seat, where you have to play six diamonds on the lead of the spade king. As Hung pointed out, if trumps are 3-2, you can simply ruff the opening lead and draw trump. However, the opponents’ bidding suggests East has six spades and West three. Maybe you cross to the diamond ace and finesse against West holding jackfourth of diamonds? The problem with this approach is that in the unlikely event of East holding jack-third of diamonds, he can win the second diamond and play a third, leaving us just 11 tricks.

In real life, declarer quite reasonably played for trumps to break and went down when they did not.

Was this unlucky? Up to a point, though Hung concluded that the finesse play was mathematically sounder. However, as he said, the mathematical analysis is a snare and a delusion! Simply ruff the opening lead and duck a diamond at trick two!

Now you can win the return in hand to ruff a second spade, then draw trump.

If dummy’s diamond 10 were a small card, you would not have gone wrong… would you?