On this board from a recent US Women's trials Kerri Sanborn proved herself up to the task of bringing home a tricky game. Her call of two no-trumps was artificial, designed to sign off in a minor or invite in spades, and when she showed the invitational hand, Juanita Chambers had enough to raise to game.

In the open room, four spades had also been bid, after East-West had bid up to four hearts. It was not doubled, and went two down. However, when Sanborn was declarer, the heart two was led to the ace. Sanborn then carefully played a spade to hand, getting the bad news.

Now life looks very straightforward if you can find the club queen, but that is not so. Sanborn continued with a spade to the 10, then cashed the spade ace and had to take a view on the club position. East’s failure to raise to four hearts implied that she was not 6-5, accordingly she was more likely to hold three clubs.

So Sanborn played an immediate club to the jack, and when it held, she could play off the spade king (discarding a blocking club from dummy, a move that is also critical to making the hand) and be one step ahead of the defense. East-West could take only their spade, heart and diamond tricks. Notice that if declarer plays ace and a second club at an early point in the hand, West gets two ruffs and beats the contract.

At the table West led the heart eight against three no-trump, which went to East's king, declarer playing the jack. Without giving the matter too much thought, East continued with ace and another heart, and declarer won and cashed his last heart, pitching a diamond from dummy, then crossed to the club queen and led a spade towards his jack. East plunged in with the queen and shifted to a diamond; too late. Declarer had nine tricks now when the spades came in. How many mistakes were made here?

When East saw the jack from declarer he should have realized that his partner’s heart lead could not be fourth-highest. Were that so, his partner would have begun life with Q-10-9-8 and he would have led the 10, rather than a low card. So East should have shifted to a diamond – a play that required the least from his partner, in the form of four diamonds to the king. A club shift, by contrast might both need his partner to have good clubs and for declarer to have a singleton spade.

And what about declarer’s play to the first trick? Could he have followed suit with a card that might have been less revealing about his holding? I believe so. Had he followed with the heart 10 at the first trick, East might legitimately have played his partner for Q-J-9-8-x of hearts, when the initial lead of a low heart would have been at least a plausible alternative to a high card.

The Bridge player's 10 Commandments should definitely feature a prohibition on leading your partner into error, together with instructions on how to steer him away from the faulty path.

On the hand above from the Marlboro Bermuda Bowl in 1995 far too many of the defenders in the West seat were in an impious mood. They led a top heart, and on observing their partner’s jack had to continue with a second top heart, in case their partner had started with a singleton.

But what next? The popular decision seemed to be to play a passive heart eight — which might even promote the spade jack into a trump trick if your partner were dealt specifically the doubleton spade queen-10. You can however see the denouement; East trustingly ruffed the third heart, and declarer overruffed and later played the remaining trumps to be 2-2, thus making his contract.

This was short-sighted defense by West; the actual layout in trumps is quite predictable and much more likely than finding East with a very specific doubleton. In addition, if declarer needs one discard only, say for his third club, he can always take it later. It must be better simply to exit with a diamond (which is not doing anything for declarer that he cannot do for himself) and hope to leave declarer to do all his hard work on his own.

The saying "It is better to be lucky than good" was never better exemplified than on this hand from the very first of the qualifying rounds of the Marlboro Bermuda Bowl in Beijing.

Most tables that did not have a weak two in diamonds in their armory took advantage of the vulnerability to open the North hand with a three level preempt. The sensible Souths opted to put their partner into five diamonds, which made in some comfort. The foolish Souths tried to make three no-trumps, and were sunk on a heart lead.

But the strangest result came when Leon Boolkin for South Africa opened a weak two in diamonds. His partner asked for more information, and Boolkin thought by his rebid that he was showing a six card suit to two of the top three honors. However, his partner believed that he was facing a solid suit, hence the jump to slam.

West now decided that against a slam he should look for a passive lead, and determined that a club would be safest. Bernard Donde, having had his first reprieve, noted that he needed to find the club queen doubleton to have any chance of reaching the diamond suit in dummy, and therefore he had no real option in clubs. He played low from dummy at trick one, and a few seconds later the friendly lay-out of the minor suits allowed him to collect plus 990. Meanwhile, his team mates were collecting plus 50 from three no-trumps after a heart lead.

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.