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.

At the Gold Coast congress in Brisbane, Australia, last year, four hearts was clearly the best game for North-South. However Howard Melbourne found the killing trump lead, and declarer won in dummy to lead a spade to the eight and jack. After much thought Melbourne kept up the good work when he found the shift to a low club. Declarer rose with the ace to play a second spade and Barbara Travis won to lead a second heart. Now declarer won in hand and advanced the spade queen, ruffing it in dummy when West followed low without pause for thought.

That was one down when spades did not break — but declarer had been guilty of careless play. When East produced the spade king after having ducked the first spade, who had the spade ace? It was dollars to doughnuts, as one of my journalist colleagues is fond of saying, that West had the spade ace.

Meanwhile the blame was not all with South. East could and should have settled the issue in favor of the defense by rising with the spade king at trick two to play a second trump. This might not she been enough to defeat the contract had the cards not lain as they did. Still, looking at the doubleton trump, East should know that it could hardly be wrong to let partner win the second spade in order to give them the chance to lead a third trump – a play East knows she cannot perform for herself.

The Gold Coast congress is very different from a US event, in that they have separate categories of open, novice, intermediate and seniors but everyone plays the same deals.

In round eight of the Intermediate Teams qualifying, Ian Lisle sensed that his foursome was behind in the match against the squad captained by Margie Knox. The action he took here made the difference between winning and losing. Lisle was playing with his wife, Vicky.

In six diamonds he took the opening spade lead with dummy’s ace and ruffed a spade. He played a diamond to dummy’s queen and ruffed another spade. He then cashed two more trumps, leaving dummy with one.

The contract makes with a successful heart finesse, but Lisle didn’t think that this would work. There were only 11 high-card points out and West was likely to have most of them for the two spades overcall, which was known to be on only a five-card suit.

Lisle decided to forget about the heart finesse and hope that West held a singleton or doubleton heart king. Accordingly, at trick seven, Lisle played a heart to the ace and followed with the heart queen.

West won the heart king and had two bad options: to lead away from the club queen or give declarer a ruff-sluff. He chose to play a club, which Lisle ducked round to his jack. Slam made for plus 920 and a big swing to his side instead of an equal swing away, since the other table played the diamond game.

Bob Scott and my old friend John Wignall were the early leaders of the pairs tournament at the Gold Coast last year in Brisbane Australia, form where all this week's deals come. The first board out of the box certainly didn't hurt.

When East led a trump against Scott’s ambitious game, (one could hardly argue with the choice of any card in his hand) that was one hurdle over. Scott’s spade seven held, and he played a second trump. East won and should surely have exited with a low club, but he cashed his club ace, receiving encouragement, then erred again by taking his heart ace before playing a second club. Scott rose with the king and led the heart 10 from hand, ducked smoothly by West. Scott overtook and ran the trumps, to reduce to a four-card ending with a trump, two hearts, and a diamond in dummy, and the ace-queen of diamonds, a heart and the club 10 in hand.

Best now would have been to cash the last trump and pitch the heart from hand. West gets caught in a triple squeeze where he must pitch the diamond king or club queen, or unguard the hearts.

Scott erred when he pitched his club 10 instead on the last trump, and now West could pitch the club queen, which he did after much squirming. Scott then cashed the heart queen, and decided the tempo indicated he should play East for the diamond king. So he led a diamond to his ace for his 10th trick.

A recent deal from the Gold Coast Congress in Australia presented some interest to me. With South declarer in three no-trump on a top club lead from West, how challenging a deal do you think this is?

I was surprised to see that no fewer than a quarter of the field went down in three no-trumps after a club or diamond lead. If that doesn’t tickle your curiosity, it should, since this is almost a sure trick problem (you can’t guarantee the contract since the opponents might have four hearts and a spade to cash, and 5-2 diamonds might embarrass you).

After a club lead by West, the hand with the entry problems is clearly North rather than South — the spade honors should always allow you to reach the South hand late in the day. So win the club lead, unblock diamonds, then cross to the club honor in dummy, and cash your two remaining diamond tricks. When you lead a spade toward South, the defenders can win but they cannot cash their four heart tricks because of the blockage.

Just for the record, if North is declarer on an initial spade lead by East, life is far harder. South covers the jack, and West does best to duck. Now the only way to make the game is for declarer to play on hearts at every turn to cut the defenders’ communications in hearts. That way, the defenders will eventually have to allow declarer into one hand or the other.