Today's hand occurred in the quarter-finals of the 1995 Marlboro Venice Cup between USAI and USAII. The match was eventually won comfortably enough by USAI, who lost the finals to Germany.

Both tables finished up in the inferior contract of three no-trumps rather than the excellent five diamonds, and received the lead of a spade round to the king.

It is worth giving a moment’s thought to what declarer’s best line is now. Would you rather play a straightforward percentage line, or go for the psychological line? I suppose a lot depends on the quality of your opponents. The unsuccessful declarer for USAII decided to postpone the decision of which minor to play on till the last minute. She cashed four rounds of hearts, on which West, Carol Simon, threw a (discouraging) diamond 10, and an encouraging club two. After a lot of thought, South decided to believe the defenders, and took the diamond finesse, to go two down.

At the other table the declarer was Rosanne Pollack, who could see that if the hearts did not behave, the simple diamond finesse would not be enough; she decided instead to play for the combination shot of laying down the diamond ace at trick two, then taking the top hearts. Finally she took the club finesse and ended up with 11 tricks. I think USA I earned their swing on this board, don’t you?

Of late there has been quite a fair amount of intellectual discussion on the question of whether bridge at the top is more about preventing your opponents playing well than about whether you should play 'elegant' bridge. "Win ugly, but win" might epitomize that strategy.

One issue under discussion is the merits or demerits of responding to a suit opening bid when you have a very weak hand. It is certainly arguable that it is a good idea when non-vulnerable against vulnerable opponents, and especially when playing a strong no-trump, since partner rates to have 12-14 points so often when he opens a suit.

Berry Westra and Enri Leufkens (part of the Netherlands team that won that country’s first ever world team title) certainly engineered a coup on this hand as a result of the sub-minimum response. The field was evenly split between those East-Wests who sacrificed in five clubs and went two down, and those who defended four hearts unavailingly, the diamonds taking care of declarer’s second spade loser.

However on lead to four hearts Westra had heard his partner at his second turn make a bid to show a good hand with three spades and at least five clubs; so he led the spade seven. Leufkens took the queen, and underled his two top clubs, so Westra won the club queen and played a second spade. Now the defenders had established their extra winner, and declarer had no chance to avoid going one down.

Since it is Christmas Day, here is a hand from my collection of bridge curios. Which of the five basic game contracts – three no-trumps, four hearts, four spades, five clubs or five diamonds – can be made against any defense?

Let’s start with three no-trumps. If South is declarer, then any lead from the West hand leads to defeat. And if North is at the helm, any lead from East apart from a low diamond does the damage.

Let us consider a contract of five clubs by South next, a contract where 10 tricks can be garnered, regardless of the lead, but not 11. Again, only a low diamond lead from East will allow North to get home. Five diamonds fares even less successfully, since no more than nine tricks are available there.

Four hearts certainly has play, but a club or diamond lead followed by accurate defense thereafter should suffice to defeat that contract. So what are we left with?

Remarkably, the only game that can be made, against any defense, is four spades.

A trump lead might look best, but declarer takes the trick and cashes his six plain winners ending in hand, followed by a heart ruff, overruffing West if necessary. Then comes a diamond ruff with the spade 10 as East helplessly follows suit, and a final heart ruff with dummy’s remaining trump. That makes 10 tricks.

It was Richard Pavlicek who initially devised this deal – my thanks go to him.

You may sympathize with South's bidding on this deal, but perhaps you should be more critical of his play.

South had a difficult reopening problem over West’s three club preempt. A bid of three hearts would have been feeble, a jump to four hearts would have been unilateral, and three no-trumps might well have led to a contract at the wrong strain and level. In the event he chose to double but North’s (not unexpected) response of three spades did not help much, and South tried his luck with three no-trumps.

West guessed to lead the spade six and, East refused to cover dummy’s 10. South won in hand, cashed his other top spade and started on hearts. He hoped to find East with both top honors and only two clubs, but West intelligently ducked his king to let East win his ace and return a club. Now South was left with only seven tricks, and the rueful feeling that four hearts might have been easier to play.

In fact though, three no-trumps should have been steered home. South should overtake his second spade honor in dummy and discard the club ace on the third spade! So long as West holds the club king, the club queen will serve as an entry, and there will be four spade tricks, four diamonds, and a club to come. If the defenders refrain from playing clubs, there will be plenty of time for declarer to establish his ninth trick from the hearts.

On this hand from the quarter-finals of the 1995 Marlboro Bermuda Bowl Joey Silver of Canada combined technique with gut reactions to produce a game swing. Like everyone else, he reached four spades after East, who was known to be an aggressive player, had opened the bidding with a weak two bid in hearts. When East overtakes the lead of the heart jack with the queen, the natural thing for declarer to do seems to be to win, lay down the spade queen, then play another spade and hope to guess well! The odds are very close between playing for the drop or the finesse in spades, but virtually everyone in this position played for the drop, and went one down.

Silver found a significant improvement on this line when he ducked the first trick, leaving East on play. He was hoping that East would reveal a little more about his side-suit shape. For example if East had shifted to a club it would have been a fair bet that he had a singleton there, and thus not a singleton trump. Similarly it would have been tempting for East to shift to a doubleton diamond, which would also have given Silver valuable information.

When East actually continued with a second heart, Silver inferred that East had at least three diamonds and at least two clubs; thus the spade finesse became the indicated play. He won the heart ace, cashed the spade king, then finessed the spade 10 to make his contract.

Today's deal details two points of technique, which the inexperienced player should try to master.

The first one involves when to win and when to duck at a no-trump contract. There is no hard and fast rule but it is generally true that when you hold a single stopper in the suit the opponents lead, you tend to hold up if there is no shift you fear. Meanwhile, if you hold two guards, the calculation is far more complex, and tends to hinge on how many high cards you know you will need to knock out.

In today’s deal South ducked the opening lead of the diamond queen, despite the risk coming from a spade shift, because he could see that he might have a considerable amount of work to do in diamonds. Next came a diamond to his ace, and now South played the club jack to East’s queen. That player shifted to a spade at trick four, and it was tempting to let this run to dummy’s queen. However South saw that he would be in danger if West held both the spade king and diamond ace, since he would win and clear diamonds while he still retained his club entry, and declarer has only eight winners.

So South rose with the spade ace then went back to clubs. He could now ensure that he would make a spade trick, four hearts, two diamonds and two clubs, while the defenders were limited to one diamond and three black-suit winners.

Today's deal comes from the excellent new book by Tim Bourke and Justin Canfield, “The Art of Declarer Play”. Tim provides the deals, Justin the thought process an expert player must go through on a complex deal.

When West leads the diamond five against your slam, how do you plan to make 12 tricks? Since West clearly has the spade ace, you must ruff clubs and utilize your knowledge of West’s length in the majors. The first question is if you can make the slam when West has a singleton club by drawing trump, then taking the club ruffs. Try it, and you will find that you have to use the heart king as an entry to dummy, or that if you lead a low spade from hand, a heart shift rates to break up the pressure for a squeeze.

You should conclude that making 12 tricks is impossible when West began with two trumps. You must hope that West has only one trump, and take the opening lead to cash the club ace-king at once. If they live, you ruff a club, then cross back to the diamond 10 and ruff dummy’s last club. Now you go to dummy with your last diamond to play the fourth and fifth round of trumps, pitching a spade and heart from hand.

In the four-card ending if West comes down to a doubleton heart, your hearts run. If instead he blanks the spade ace, you will give up a spade, ducking in hand, to establish the spade king.

While it is true that you will only make one trick with the trump ace, precisely when you take it makes all the difference. The timing was certainly critical on this deal.

South was hardly full value for his opening bid of one spade and he was unable to curb North’s enthusiasm until a small slam was reached. An opening heart lead would have defeated the spade slam, but West chose the diamond queen. Declarer won and started on trumps. West held off the first round but won the second on which East signaled heavily with the heart jack.

The heart switch was too late – declarer won on the table and played off his remaining trumps and his other top diamond. East, unable to withstand the pressure, had to concede the twelfth trick.

Can you see a successful defense for West even after his diamond lead? He must save his trump ace until the third round, when dummy’s last spade is played, and then return, not a heart, but a second diamond. The effect of this is that declarer cannot conveniently come back to hand after cashing the heart ace. This maneuver is known as the Vienna Coup. With the heart ace still in place on the table, dummy has no convenient discard on declarer’s last trump and thus East, discarding after dummy, is in no trouble with his discards.

On today's deal from the Dyspeptics Club the results that followed South's long trance provided entertainment for the spectators, but heartache for at least one player at the table.

Against six spades, West led the heart jack, won by South’s ace, and the spade ace and king revealed that East had an inevitable trump trick.

After cashing the heart king and club ace, two lines presented themselves as reasonable alternatives. The first was to cash the diamond ace, then exit with a trump. This line would win if West had a singleton diamond queen, or East had a void or any singleton diamond, together with any time that East had the diamond queen.

The second line was to cash both top diamonds before exiting with a trump. This would work if West had a diamond void, or a singleton or doubleton diamond queen. It would also win if East had two or fewer diamonds. The second line is better than for the first, because East’s spade length makes it more likely he has short than long diamonds, and it South duly followed that line. When East took his spade queen he had no diamond to play, and so had to give declarer an entry to dummy for the discards he needed.

When North congratulated his partner with a mixture of encouragement and surprise, South explained his rationale as being based on the adage ‘Eight ever, nine never’, which required you to play for the drop when missing five cards. No one has yet found out if he was being serious.