Sometimes you have to take a chance to compete effectively. West's three diamond bid is risky, with no guarantee of a fit, but the aces and trump intermediates offer some protection from a double. North's final call is a difficult decision: He has trump tricks but no aces. Indeed, even after we see the full deal it is hard to tell how East-West would have fared in three hearts doubled.

After leading the club ace, West can see that dummy’s hearts and clubs will eventually provide discards for declarer’s diamond losers. No special measures are necessary if East has the spade king or diamond king. But if East’s only significant value is the diamond queen, more work is needed. Passive defense will not suffice: West must try to find a way to put East on lead to give a club ruff. Leading out the diamond ace would fail, because East will never get on lead, so a low diamond is the best chance. If East has the diamond king, the defense can cash out.

If declarer wins the diamond shift, West can learn that East doesn’t have the spade king by taking the second round of that suit and underleading his diamond ace again to get East on lead for a club ruff.

Of course, South can make West’s task just a little harder by putting up the diamond jack at trick two, but West should risk investing an overtrick by underleading his diamonds a second time, whatever declarer does.

When North set spades as trump after South had shown 12-14 points and a balanced hand, South had enough to show slam-suitability with a cuebid of four diamonds. That was enough for North, who checked on aces using Keycard Blackwood and drove to slam after hearing the response of two aces and the trump queen.

Slam would have been excellent on any lead but a diamond; however, that was West’s natural lead. South ducked the diamond king and won the continuation of the diamond jack with the ace. He then ruffed a diamond high in dummy, cashed the club ace-king, and ran all the trumps.

This is an example of a Vienna Coup, since it transfers the club menace to the South hand, and produces a three-card ending where declarer has three hearts in dummy and two hearts and the club jack in hand. As the last trump is led out East has to discard a small heart, and declarer now has to guess from the demeanor of the various players at the table whether East has come down to the doubleton heart 10, or Q-10 doubleton. If the former South must run the heart jack; if the latter, South must play hearts from the top and the nine will be good at trick 12.

There is no correct way to play the hand; South must gauge from the players’ demeanor at the table and the ease with which they make discards how likely one position is compared to the other.

If South had planned ahead properly, he might have brought home his contact of three no-trumps here. When West led the spade seven, dummy played low and East allowed South to win the trick with the jack. Now the contact was destined to fail. Declarer tried to sneak an entry to dummy in order to take the club finesse by leading the heart jack. But West was on the ball and hopped up smartly with the ace to play his spade back, allowing East to run the suit for down one.

By contrast, try the effect of playing dummy’s spade 10 at trick one. If East ducks, declarer is in dummy and can take an immediate club finesse. And if East cashes his top spades South has little choice but to play West for the heart ace, hoping East has no further entry to his hand. That way, South can engineer an entry to dummy with the heart king for the club finesse. When in dummy, he can afford to play East for king-third in clubs by leading the club 10, thereby blocking the suit, since four club tricks will suffice.

Should East allow the spade 10 to hold at trick one, South must play East specifically for the singleton or doubleton club king by leading low from dummy and finessing the queen then cashing the ace, thereby leaving an entry to dummy with the club 10. If clubs behave, declarer unblocks his diamond honors and runs dummy’s club and diamond winners for nine tricks.

On today's deal South's four diamonds set diamonds as trump and was virtually forcing. When North cooperated with what South read as a cuebid, South optimistically used Blackwood and drove to slam. West led a top spade and received count in the suit from his partner, then intelligently switched to a trump to kill one of the ruffs. As declarer you may care to take over after this start and plan the play to develop 12 tricks.

Good technique should see a double squeeze develop. The critical element of the play is that you need to make sure that only one defender can guard each black suit. You must win the trump in dummy and ruff a spade, then cash the club ace and king and ruff a club with dummy’s last trump. Now ruff a spade back to hand, isolating the spade menace with West, and run all your trumps. When you play your last trump, one opponent is guarding spades, and one opponent is guarding clubs. In the two-card ending West pitches down to a bare heart honor to preserve his spade winner, and you now pitch the spade from dummy to squeeze East in hearts and clubs. If he lets a club go, you cash your club six; if he pitches a heart dummy’s heart jack will take trick 13.

Just for the record, had West worked out to lead a trump initially, the defenders would have prevailed. After the actual first trick, there was no defense to the slam.

You will be faced with a series of problems as East today. After the auction starts with South opening one diamond and North responding one heart, there are many players who would feel obligated to act. But despite your quick tricks, you have sterile distribution and no reason not to assume that you are outgunned on the deal.

So you pass, perhaps planning to re-enter the auction if the opportunity presents itself. Instead, you hear South jump to two no-trumps and North raise to game. Your partner leads the spade seven. You play fourth highest leads, but also second from four small and you may also lead top of three small. Declarer plays low from dummy and it is up to you to decide what to do now, and how to plan the defense.

Partner has almost a bust — but there is just about room for him to hold a heart honor such as the queen. Your best chance is to try to deny dummy an entry, so play the spade nine at trick one. Declarer can still succeed by playing on hearts, since the spades are blocked. But he does not know that.

Since he cannot see through the cards, he is likely to try to get to dummy with the club queen in order to take a diamond finesse. If you can stop him from doing this by winning the club ace and clearing the spades, then shifting to hearts, you will defeat three no-trumps.

Deception is an important part of the game. This is easier to attempt when you are declarer than when you are a defender, because in the latter case there is always the danger that partner may be the one deceived. However, opportunities for defensive deception do crop up from time to time.

Put yourself in declarer’s shoes in four spades, when West leads a top club and East contributes the three, showing no interest. West continues with a second top club on which East plays the jack — a suit-preference signal for a heart. West now switches to the heart four. What would you do as declarer?

There are two possible lines of play: You can play low on the heart, hoping West has led away from the king, or you can rise with the heart ace, cash the spade ace-king and the diamond king-queen, and then cross to dummy with the club queen (presumably if East had been ruffing the third club, West would have continued with another club at trick three), in the hopes that the diamond jack would fall, giving you two heart discards.

It is all a question of who you are playing against. In truth, though, the odds of the first line are significantly better than the second line since you can also cope with some bad trump breaks. So unless I was convinced that East was a very honest fellow, I would prefer the first line; but I would congratulate East for doing his best to deceive me.

In today's heart game the Polish declarer in an International match won the club lead and immediately played a heart to the ace and another heart. East won her king and played a second club, ruffed in hand. Declarer now led a spade to dummy's 10 and East's jack. Back came a spade, but West withheld her king, of course. Now declarer could discard only one diamond from her hand. She had to broach diamonds herself, and inevitably lost two tricks in the suit for one down.

In truth, this was an uninspired effort. Declarer should win the club ace and ruff a club at trick two. Now when she plays ace and another heart, East would be endplayed. If she plays a spade, declarer has no losers in that suit and can afford two diamond losers. If East plays a diamond, declarer makes three tricks in that suit and loses only the ace. Giving her a ruff and discard makes things very easy for South.

This swing turned out to be especially important, since the North-South pair in the other room had defended three clubs for two down, when South had not thought her hand worth an overcall at adverse vulnerability. Accordingly, it turned out to be a sizeable pick-up in one direction, instead of the swing going the other way, had the game been brought home.

Incidentally, would you have overcalled as South? I think you have to bid. Too dangerous is no excuse…

In today's deal North gambled that his side was not missing the two top hearts — or that the defenders would not cash them if they had them. His jump to five no-trumps was an effort to get to diamonds if his partner had a good four-card suit or five diamonds, since North could see that a spade slam might require a decent trump break if South had honor-third of spades. Meanwhile, from South's perspective he knew his diamonds were good, but was not sure if his partner had the spade queen.

Against six diamonds the lead of the club jack left South contemplating safety plays in the trump suit, such as cashing the ace, or even taking both top trumps, then playing a crossruff. He won the club ace and led a low diamond from dummy, and when the queen appeared, a different conundrum presented itself. If West had four trumps, it might be difficult to take two club ruffs in dummy and retain an entry to the spades. South found the answer when he ducked the diamond queen. He won the heart shift in hand and ruffed a club, came to the diamond ace and ruffed a second club, then used the spade king as his entry to hand to draw trumps, discarding dummy’s heart losers.

He ended up scoring five spades, three trumps, two aces, and two ruffs for his 12 tricks. And note that with the heart finesse losing and diamonds not behaving, the odds are stacked against declarer in six spades.

The old ways were not always the best ways, but it is undeniable that it was far easier for South to reach slam on today's deal by opening a strong two than it would have been had he opened one spade and jumped to three hearts. Meanwhile one must also give North credit for cooperating in the slam venture with only three trumps, a move that might not have worked out as well as it did had South had less robust trumps.

Against six hearts, West led the diamond king. You may care to plan the play and see if you can do as well as the declarer at the table did. The point of the deal is that slam is easy to make if spades break 3-3, and you are also well placed if it is East with spade length. But you can improve on your basic chances by a spot of jiu-jitsu.

Win the diamond ace and play ace, king and another spade. If West discards or ruffs in you should be able to maneuver to take two ruffs in dummy – whether it is two spades or one spade and one diamond. But when West follows to the third spade, you must take care to discard dummy’s diamond. You can win the trump return in hand and ruff a diamond low, play the club ace and ruff a club, then later ruff a spade high in the dummy and come back to hand with another club ruff to draw trump and take the 13th trick with your long spade.