In one of the qualifying sessions of the European Open Mixed Teams in San Remo, there were several exciting contracts on this deal.

At one table North overcalled three no-trumps at her first turn, and East chose to lead the heart queen rather than her partner’s suit. Declarer Marion Michielsen won in hand and made the great play of the diamond jack from her hand. West won and switched to a top club, but Marion ducked, won the club continuation and could choose between setting up her ninth trick in hearts or diamonds. Had West ducked the diamond jack, then ace and another heart would have established the ninth trick.

At our featured table, where Huub Bertens was declarer, North raised to four hearts, and East made an aggressive penalty double. Warned of the bad break, the Dutch declarer found a way home. He won the club lead but cashed only one trump before playing a spade to his queen. This was followed by a diamond to the jack and ace, East returning another diamond. Declarer won, played a spade to his jack and ran the diamond nine. Next came two more spades, discarding a club, which brought declarer’s total to eight. When he played a club from the dummy he was sure to make two more trump tricks, for +790.

Incidentally I would follow Bob Hamman’s rule when considering North’s rebid: if you are considering several options and one of them is three no-trumps, that is what you should choose.

When this deal came up at my rubber bridge club, I observed that the world seems to be made up of bridge players who like to talk, and those who like to think, and that the two groups seem to have hardly any overlap.

I was West, and with my usual collection (in a similar position Terence Reese remarked that this was about a jack more than his usual hand) led the spade 10 against six no-trumps. When dummy came down South was visibly upset with his partner, and berated him for driving to slam and not merely issuing an invitation.

He won the spade in dummy and tried the diamond jack from the board. My partner took the trick with the ace, as South followed low, and returned a spade. Declarer won in dummy, led a diamond to his nine, and found the good news and bad news simultaneously. When I discarded, he could no longer cross back to dummy to take another diamond finesse, and had to concede one down.

Curiously, if South leads any diamond but the eight from dummy at trick two, he deserves to go down! For example if he leads a low diamond to his hand then he will go back to dummy and play the diamond jack, but East wins and leaves declarer with a diamond loser. By contrast, starting with the eight forces East to cover with the ace. Now declarer can return to dummy and lead the diamond jack, and East’s goose is cooked.

Today's deal from a world championships semi-final saw a game swing to England, even though declarer could have improved on his line.

At both tables West led his singleton spade against four hearts. This went to East’s king and both Wests ruffed East’s spade return. Each of them then continued with the club ace, followed by the club queen, and both declarers won and cashed the heart ace, West playing the 10.

Now the paths diverged. The German declarer decided to play West for an original trump holding of 10-7 doubleton, perhaps thinking that he might not have led a singleton with a near certain trump trick. So he attempted to cross to dummy’s spade ace, preparatory to running the heart jack, allowing West to ruff in. Declarer subsequently misguessed diamonds and went two down.

For England Nick Sandqvist cashed both top heart honors immediately. Knowing that West had four major-suit cards compared with East’s eight, he guessed diamonds correctly, and wrapped up his game.

Well done, but can you see how declarer could have turned a guess into a certainty?

After the trump queen fell, declarer should have crossed to the heart jack, cashed the spade ace and ruffed a club. Now he plays his remaining trump. If West holds on to his master club he must come down to two diamonds. At that point, the diamond ace and king will drop the queen, whoever holds it.

South got as far as realizing that he had two possible lines of play on this deal, but he backed the wrong horse, and came a cropper.

West opened one diamond and, rating his hand as worth only one bid, East raised to two diamonds rather than show his spades. South overcalled with four spades, all passed, and West led the diamond king. Declarer ruffed, cashed the spade ace and continued with the king and another spade. East won and switched to the club queen. South held off for one round, but won the club continuation.

Now declarer could either rely on the hearts breaking 3-3, which would allow him to discard a club on the fourth round of hearts, or he could play West for four hearts and four clubs. In the latter case the winning line would be to concede a second trump trick. Since the defenders would not be able to cash their club winner, he could eventually squeeze West in hearts and clubs. In practice, South decided to rely on the even heart break, and so ended with only nine tricks.

In retrospect, there was a clear case for leading the fourth trump and playing for the squeeze. It wins whenever West holds four clubs and either three or four hearts. To lead hearts immediately gains only when both hearts and clubs divide 3-3. But if this was so, West would have started with seven diamonds. In that case East, with only three diamonds, would surely have responded one spade initially.

It is always great fun to win tricks as cheaply as possible, but today's deal is one of many examples where we ought to be prepared to sacrifice a quick trick to facilitate our problems with entries.

When you play three no-trump as South on a spade lead from West, the natural play is to put up the queen and drive out the diamond ace. However, if diamonds are 3-1 and East or West can hold up his ace for two rounds, then continues the attack on spades, you have only eight top winners. In essence, you have no realistic chance of a ninth trick unless the opponents’ spades are 4-4.

The point is that you no longer have a diamond left to reach dummy’s goodies. Your chances of being allowed to sneak an entry to dummy before the defense cash out are slim indeed.

Contrast what happens if you refrain from playing a spade honor at trick one from dummy, but instead take your spade ace and clear the diamonds in three rounds. East wins, as before, but cannot set up the spades for the defense without allowing you an entry to dummy via the spade honors, which are still in place there. You would then have nine winners (five diamonds and two tricks in each of the black suits.) East does best to shift to clubs, but you win and overtake the heart jack with the king, to ensure a different route to at least nine tricks one way or another.

Bidding after partner's overcall is one of the few areas of bidding in which there are two perfectly rational approaches to be taken. One school uses new-suit responses by an unpassed hand as forcing for one round. Players in this school would bid two spades with the South cards. Where this treatment is not in use, South must start with a cue-bid to show strength and can then bid spades to set up a force.

Against four spades West led the diamond king then the ace, and shifted accurately to the club four. Without looking at the East and West cards, how would you set about the play so as to minimize the risk to your game?

A plan to guard against all bad breaks is to win the club at trick three, cash the heart ace and king, then ruff a heart in dummy, return to your hand with a diamond ruff, and ruff the last heart. This leaves declarer with all trumps, and the spots are such that he will have at most one loser, the queen.

This line involves no jeopardy, since on the bidding, the auction tells you that East will be unable to overruff hearts. Meanwhile, if West ruffs the second heart, declarer can overruff in dummy and play winning clubs — West, with at most five diamonds, cannot also be in a position to ruff an early club.

Note that if declarer cashes only one high heart before taking the ruffs in dummy, the 4-1 trump break prevents declarer from ever scoring the remaining high heart.

Perhaps either North or South should have considered bidding the grand slam here, which looks to be about negotiating the trump queen. And if you fail to do that, you strongly rate to go down in six spades on the predictable diamond lead.

However, the problem today is to focus on the best line to make slam after the diamond lead. As a hint, you need to work out what else might cause you a problem in your slam, other than a bad trump break.

The point of the deal is that after winning the diamond ace and negotiating the singleton trump queen to draw trumps in three rounds, you must focus on the quite real chance of a 4-0 club break. After all, West has three spades and at least six diamonds, doesn’t he?

What you must do next is to cash the heart ace and king, then exit with a diamond. If West wins, the club loser disappears on the forced ruff-and-discard. If East wins and returns the club jack, run it to North’s ace. The next club goes to the nine and queen. Now you must return to the table with the spade six (it was vitally important to keep a trump entry to dummy, by not wasting your spade five at any turn, early on in the deal, or else to make your slam you would have had to guess that East has all four clubs). But if you have kept your entry position intact, you can indeed cross to the spade six and finesse against East’s club 10.

At a suit contract, when a defender leads a side suit bid by dummy, it is very often a singleton. Here West led the heart six to dummy's jack and East's queen. Declarer dropped the 10, trying to give the impression that it was he who had the singleton. But East knew that if West had started with a doubleton he would have led the eight, not the six. Therefore South must be concealing the missing card.

At the end of trick one, East had to find a route to four tricks. There were two heart tricks, and hopefully a heart ruff if partner could overruff dummy — but where was the fourth? What other clues had East from the bidding? South’s bid of four spades had essentially ruled out slam. Since North had not yet really limited his hand, declarer surely did not have both a first round diamond and club control.

At the second trick East cashed the heart ace, on which West signaled helpfully with the diamond nine. Now East knew which suit to play, but were two diamond tricks standing up? When East took his diamond king, West followed with the six, count, to suggest an even number of cards left. That directed East to play a third heart. South ruffed with the trump jack and West overruffed with the queen. Note: if East doesn’t cash his diamond king before attempting to give his partner a heart ruff, declarer simply discards his diamond.

The expert declarer knows the percentages but may prefer to rely on deception rather than making the apparent percentage play. Let's look at a single-dummy problem — just the North and South cards.

Declaring four hearts In an unopposed sequence you are treated to a fourth highest spade four lead. The natural play is to put in the jack and hope the queen is onside; if not, you have virtually no practical chances of finding a 10th trick.

The psychologist plays low from dummy at trick one. East, holding A-Q-9-2 of spades can’t be sure if the lead is from two, three four or even five cards, and will surely not risk putting in the nine and having it lose to the 10 — that might lose at least two spade tricks on a particularly bad day, should South’s spade losers be about to vanish on a club or a diamond. Once the spade queen goes in, you can build a spade trick for a minor-suit discard. And if worst comes to worst, and East does insert the spade nine, you still have time to play a spade to the jack and enjoy your legitimate 50 percent chance, do you not?

The key to making these plays at a suit contract is to appreciate that you can virtually ignore the possibility of West’s underleading an ace at trick one against a trump contract; however, after the first trick, all bets are off.