In today's deal South played in three no-trump on a low heart lead. Declarer won cheaply and was about to try to run the club suit when he noticed an inconvenient fact about his high spots in hand.

Because of his nine and 10, the suit appeared to be irretrievably blocked even if the suit was about to divide 2-1.

One possibility was to try to lose a club to West, (which he might be able to do if West had any doubleton, or if he had the bare queen). But if South lost the club to East, a second heart would come through him and that would be curtains for the contract.

South found an alternative solution when he exited immediately with the heart king, knowing from the spot card led, the four, that West could not hold more than five hearts.

At the table West somewhat naively ran his hearts, which allowed declarer to shed one of his clubs and unblock the suit. Effectively, declarer emerged with seven clubs, a heart and one of the pointed aces.

However, despite declarer’s ingenious maneuver, the defense had a riposte available. Imagine that West shifts to a spade – let us say the king, for the sake of argument. Declarer can win and play back a third heart (if he gives up a club, East still has a heart left). But West wins the third heart and plays a second spade, setting up two winners for East if a club is ducked to him.

Today's theme is one that was first created by Terence Reese, in one of his outstanding collection of deals where he encourages you to play 'over his shoulder' and experience the problems in real time.

When West leads a low trump against four spades, your first thoughts should be to win in hand and continue drawing trumps. If they broke 3-2, you could knock out the diamond ace and end up taking 10 tricks by losing one diamond and two clubs. But you knew the hand couldn’t possibly be that simple; and it isn’t – the 4-1 trump break rears its head.

Now if you ruff a heart to dummy to draw the fourth trump you run yourself out of trumps and let the defenders cash hearts when in with the diamond ace.

You might consider drawing just three rounds of trumps, then playing on diamonds. Alas, that doesn’t work. West ducks the first diamond, wins the second and gives East a diamond ruff, which again results in four losers for your side.

The problem is: how to draw trumps and not end up losing too many hearts? The solution is to draw three rounds of trumps, then lead a low heart from hand. Either defender can win, and the best defense is another heart. Ruff that in dummy, draw the last trump, then play on diamonds. You have retained the heart ace, and the three losers are one heart, one diamond and one club. Your other club loser can be discarded on the heart ace.

When this deal arose South's preempts, especially when non-vulnerable, were known to be frivolous. Hence he elected to open four diamonds, and was raised to game by North – not without some trepidation.

West hit on a spade lead, and East took his ace and returned a low spade. West won his king and attempted to cash a third spade.

Declarer ruffed in hand, and needed to establish a club winner on which to pitch his losing heart. The club finesse would have been a 50% chance, but declarer did better. He played to the club ace and ruffed a club high, then took a high diamond and went to the diamond king to ruff another club high and draw the last trump. Now a heart to dummy allowed a third club ruff, and the second high heart in dummy afforded the final entry to allow him to cash the club queen.

The key to the defense is for West to establish that the third spade is not standing up, and it is East’s responsibility at trick two to make that clear to him. With two cards left he plays the higher of his spot-cards, from three left he plays the lowest. From four, as here, he plays back the highest spot-card he can afford, the eight.

At that point West can infer the precise layout of the suit, given the auction and play thus far. West must therefore shift to a heart at trick three, thereby dislodging a critical entry from dummy prematurely.

Game on the North-South cards is a perfectly reasonable contract, though it is not mandatory for you as South to break the transfer here, despite your excellent trumps. There are plenty of weak hands with scattered values opposite where game will have no chance. Give yourself a small doubleton club and an extra heart and it would be a whole different story.

The lead of the club queen to trick one dramatically reduces your hopes of making game. You might as well cover, and East wins his ace to return a low club. When West shifts to a trump you must win the spade 10 in dummy. Next you must finesse in hearts rather than diamonds.

Now the spade ace, followed by the spade jack to the queen allows you to take another heart finesse. Then you cash the heart ace, ruff a club in dummy and now a diamond to the 10 endplays West for a diamond lead or a ruff and discard.

It may not be immediately obvious, but if you play it through you will see that should you take a diamond finesse at trick four, West will win and exit in trumps again, leaving you an entry short for all the finesses you need to take.

The key to the deal is that when you give up the lead, you must force the opponents to give you some help – and that means removing all their black-suit exit cards before allowing them to regain the lead.

Today's deal, from the semi-finals of the American trials 15 years ago featured a remarkable consistency amongst the four defenders sitting in the East seat. Put yourself in their position and see if you can do any better.

At all four tables South reached four hearts after West had opened the bidding. South won the top spade lead and played a diamond to the ace and a heart to the queen, then ducked a heart to East’s jack. Should you play a third round of spades, assisting in the elimination, or try a club?

Best is to play a club, trying to take partner off a later endplay, so long as his clubs are as good as K-J-7. If you exit passively with a spade, declarer ruffs and takes a losing diamond finesse, then ruffs the next spade and runs the club 10, covered by the jack and queen. Now he cashes the diamonds, forcing West to throw a spade, and finally a third heart endplays West to lead a club at trick 12. At one table East did find the club exit, but declarer put in the seven, and the game came home.

However, all four tables had already missed the critical play on the deal – which was to unblock the heart jack under the queen, a play that experience has shown me to be one of the hardest “routine” plays in Bridge. If you do unblock, it allows West to cash his second heart trick, and exit in spades. Now declarer must go down.

When declarer is clearly short of entries either to his hand or the dummy, sacrificing a trick to avoid providing declarer with the communications he needs may be a good investment.

In today’s deal North had just enough to raise his partner’s non-forcing response to game, against which West led the heart queen.

Declarer needed to bring in the club suit to make his contract. All would be well if the club ace was doubleton. But what if one defender held the ace twice-guarded? Could he perhaps be persuaded to release his ace prematurely?

South ducked the heart lead, won the heart continuation, and at trick three led the club queen. West pounced with the ace and returned another heart. Declarer won and continued with a second club. West played his 10, and of course South allowed it to hold. West could cash his fourth heart, but that was the fourth and final trick for the defense.

West must resist the urge to capture the club queen, surrendering a trick in the interests of killing the clubs. East will signal his doubleton, and South will no doubt continue with a club, perhaps ducking West’s low card in dummy, in the hope that East had begun life with ace-doubleton in clubs. But even if South decides that West holds the club ace and rises with dummy’s king, declarer is likely to come to no more than eight tricks unless he can see through the backs of the cards.

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.