Today's deals from an international trials held in the US nearly 20 years ago. The declarer was the late Bill Root, one of the great players and teachers of an earlier generation, who is not remembered these days as well as he should be.

Root was declarer here, playing with Richard Pavlicek, an expert who is still with us and who has done much to contribute toward making bridge teaching online more educational and enjoyable. Root ran into an interesting variation on an old trick here, playing against some New York experts.

After reaching the normal spot of four spades on a club lead, he won the trick in hand, and played a diamond to the ace, to run the spade jack.

West won, and the defense cleared clubs and tried a third round of the suit. Root ruffed high, preparatory to drawing trumps and trying to locate the heart queen. On the auction, the fact that East appears to have two hearts would probably have led declarer astray. The percentages would have indicated that he play West, the man with heart length, for the missing queen.

However when Mike Kopera underruffed the third round of clubs as West, he made declarer’s task even harder. Now Root was convinced that Kopera was protecting something in hearts, and confidently played West for the missing queen. One down.

In today's auction you are defending against an expert, and aggressive, declarer. Dummy comes down with a satisfyingly weak hand, although the presence of two aces as its assets argues strongly that declarer must have a very powerful black two-suiter. You lead the heart king: this goes to the ace, eight, and five. Declarer now plays a spade to his jack. Plan the defense.

It looks normal to win the spade, and try to cash a heart, reasoning that no harm can come if declarer ruffs the trick. True enough, but from your partner’s signal to the first trick (yes the eight ‘looks’ big but it must be his smallest from three) declarer surely has a singleton heart, so his exuberant bidding is probably based on a two-suiter with 11-cards in the black-suits. If you win the spade king he will probably go back to dummy later with the diamond ace and finesse in clubs. If you duck the spade (smoothly, of course), he will surely use up his entry to retake the finesse he ‘knows’ is working!

If declarer’s clubs are solid there is nothing you can do, and there is surely no way declarer’s spades can be so weak that he has two losers if you take his jack with your king. Your partner rates to have one of the spade nine or 10, or possibly both. But he can hardly have better trumps, or declarer would have tackled the spades differently.

When opponents employ a gadget that defines a particular distribution, the information given can often be turned to your advantage. But South missed the point here, and suffered the consequences.

The defenders started by leading clubs, setting up a winner for themselves. South won and returned the suit, and West hopped up with the jack to play a diamond, knowing from his own holding that there was little benefit to having his partner play the suit through declarer. East took the ace and played back the suit, and South now knew that East had 10 cards in the minors, so the spade finesse was odds on to succeed. When he lost to the doubleton queen, a heart loser was inevitable later on, and that was down one.

It was only later, much later, that South realized he had misplayed the hand. After coming on lead with a diamond, what he should have done was take his last diamond winner, then play a heart to dummy’s king, and another heart towards his ace.

If East had ruffed the second heart, he would only have been ruffing a loser; if East followed suit, declarer could be almost certain that East held at most a singleton spade and West could be finessed with greater certitude.

Note that declarer cannot embark on this information-gathering process before cutting the defenders’ communications in the minors. Otherwise East might ruff the second heart and cross to his partner in clubs for a second ruff.

I confess that some days when I play bridge I tend to do what first comes into my head as the instinctively correct thing to do. This means that when alternatives might have presented themselves to me, I do not give them enough thought. So the best line goes begging. And indeed, that was what happened on today's deal.

Against two spades West led the club ace and switched to ace and another heart. I won in hand perforce, then played a diamond to dummy’s king and led a spade from the board. When East followed small, the thought that it might be right to play the nine did enter my mind, but left it again just as quickly and I played the queen.

West took his trump ace and played a third round of hearts, which East ruffed with the spade 10. I could overruff and play another trump, but East won, cashed the club king, then gave West a club ruff.

In retrospect, I concluded that I should have given that thought about putting in the spade nine a little more house room. Here it would have forced the ace, but even if it had not, the best the defense might have done would have been for West to win cheaply. From that point on, he is powerless ever to get his ruff, since I would have won whatever he returned and now played the spade king. He could take his ace, but he gets only the five tricks he started with.

Everyone knows the maxim second hand plays low, and third hand plays high.

Like all old wives’ tales, there is a certain amount of truth to the maxim, but it needs to be applied with caution, and an equally sound philosophy is that one needs to take one’s aces before they get away. Equally, aces were made to take kings! With such conflicting philosophy how can a defender ever know what to do?

Take today’s deal, where after South has opened a weak no-trump, an invitational transfer sequence leads to him becoming declarer in four spades. When your partner leads the diamond king you immediately know that you have one or two tricks to come in that suit. Declarer takes a good 30 seconds to plan the play – during which time you should be thinking yourself. Then he ducks the opening lead and wins the continuation of the diamond jack to play a heart. If you aren’t ready to follow small, your best chance of defeating the contract, and to make the play in good tempo, you haven’t been using your thinking time. Declarer rates to have about 13 points with no honors in diamonds. Whether his heart suit is the king-queen, the queen-jack, or king-jack, you must surely be best off to duck the heart. Your soft club cards make it likely (though not guaranteed) that declarer will be able to set up the hearts to pitch his clubs if you take your ace.

Duck the heart ace and you get two club tricks instead of one heart trick. Result: happiness.

A nice point on defense came up in this deal, which was played in the finals of a matchpoint event at a national championships.

Reaching four hearts is far from easy here, though if North could have been sure that a call of three hearts would be forcing over the rebid of two no-trumps, that might have got his side to the perfect spot.

At the table nobody did anything really foolish when North-South bid the hand to three no-trumps, but the contract was not a favored one when West elected to lead spades.

After the first spade went to the jack and king, East returned the spade eight, covered by the queen and ace. Now West exited with a low spade and declarer, Eric Leong, alertly ducked East’s spade seven. After that play the spade suit was dead, so Leong had time simply to knock out the heart ace, losing three spades and a heart to emerge with plus 400 for a somewhat above average result. Some pairs managed to play the heart game, and a sizeable percentage of the field did not overcall with the West cards, and allowed North to play the no-trump game, which handled far better than by South.

Note that once West has decided to play a third spade, it can surely cost nothing to lead back the spade nine, which would have the effect of scooping up his partner’s seven and would allow West to retain the lead to clear the spades. Now the defenders take four spades and the heart ace for down one.

In this deal from last year's Gold coast congress in Brisbane, the defenders extracted their pound of flesh from Kim Morrison, who had overreached to play four hearts. Michael Whibley led the trump nine to the eight and king. Declarer tried the spade king next; Whibley won, and pressed on with trumps, and now declarer ducked in dummy and won his ace, then led a diamond toward the king.

Normal defense sees West win the diamond ace and exit in diamonds, and declarer can win the king, cross to the spade jack, and ruff a diamond in dummy. He can now exit in hearts to East.

Whatever suit that player returns, declarer can arrange to run his trumps and squeeze West in the black suits to make his game. On the last trump West must either unguard his club king or pitch down to one spade to set up a spade winner in dummy.

But Whibley crossed him up by inserting the diamond queen on the first round of the suit! When Morrison took the king and played a second diamond Ashley Bach hopped up with the jack and drew the last trump then played a third diamond. When declarer misguessed the ending he eventually went two down, and the defenders had a shared top instead of stone-cold bottom.

The play of the diamond queen is one well worth adding to the repertoire; it is a desperate move, admittedly, but sometimes the situation demands it.

Sometimes you end up in a contract that seems to have no chance. It is vital not to give up under such circumstances.

At the Gold Coast Congress last year when North found his partner with a weak hand and long hearts, it was sensible not to commit the hand to no-trumps. Tony Burke realized that with no entries to his partner’s hearts and holding weak spade spots opposite likely shortage, neither suit could easily be set up at no-trumps. He therefore bid four clubs to get his partner to pick a game and Peter Gill selected hearts — the least worst of the possible games.

West, Warren Lazer, naturally if unfortunately led a club, and Gill won the queen, led a spade to the king and ace, took the club return and pitched his club loser on the top spade.

Now came the heart queen to Pauline Gumby’s ace, and she returned a spade, instead of the killing club. Gill ruffed, cashed the heart king, noting the fall of the jack, and sensibly decided to play East for both the heart 10 and seven.

So Gill led a diamond to the ace, ruffed a spade to establishing dummy’s fifth card there, then took the diamond finesse. Now when declarer led the fifth spade from dummy Gumby could ruff in at once and lose her second trump trick or discard and be held to one trump trick by the lead of a plain card from dummy at trick 12.