After the lead of the spade jack against three no-trump, South won in hand and led a heart to dummy's king, then, before putting all his eggs in one basket, he tried to develop the diamond suit by making the correct play of running the eight. West won cheaply and pressed on with spades (won by declarer in hand), then scored his heart ace and played a third spade. Declarer cashed his heart queen and pitched a club, but found hearts were 4-2, and so he needed to try to develop a second diamond winner.

He led a diamond to his nine, and West scored his queen, cashed his spade winner (East and South pitching clubs), and exited with a low club. That left declarer with a diamond loser at trick 13 when the king did not drop.

Down one, and South moved on to the next deal, never realizing that he had failed to take his best play for his game, which was to run the heart nine at trick two, rather than leading to the king. When he leads to an honor in dummy at his next opportunity, this play brings in the heart suit for three tricks (all that declarer needs) when the suit is 3-3 or the heart ace is doubleton onside. That is a combined chance that comes in at over 50 percent.

The problem with leading to the king or queen initially is that East can duck with honor-third, thus killing the suit.

In today's deal South, declarer in six spades, claimed he was unlucky; he had three good chances, taken them in the correct order, and had come up empty on all of them. Do you agree?

What happened was that West led a heart to South’s ace. South took the spade ace-king (revealing that there was a trump loser). He then played the club ace-king, ruffed a club to hand, and found that this suit was also not behaving. He later took the diamond finesse for down one, being doubly annoyed to find that the diamond queen would have dropped. Was he right to be upset?

South was admittedly unlucky, but a slightly more accurate play (based on the knowledge that hearts were 6-3) would have succeeded. The better line at trick four is to cash the club ace and take a heart ruff. Next, cross to the club king, and when the club jack falls, you take a second heart ruff. Now exit with a low spade.

If West plays a club, your club 10 in dummy means you can claim 12 tricks, so West must play a diamond. Dummy plays low and East’s queen is captured, whatever he does. This approach relies on East’s having six hearts and West’s having either the diamond queen or 10.

Had a club honor not appeared on the second round of the suit, declarer could have reverted to his original line.

I am often asked why I prefer the lead of the king from ace-king rather than the ace.

Today’s deal exemplifies one of the admittedly minor advantages my method has.

Imagine your partner leads the diamond ace against four hearts. Now plan the defense.

If your partner has led from the diamond ace-king, you might need to unblock the diamond queen to tell partner to lead a low diamond to you, for a spade through declarer. The clubs in dummy present a threat of sorts, since declarer might be able to discard either a slow or fast loser on the 13th club.

However, there is a real danger that some layouts exist equivalent to that shown in the answer. Here a careless and extravagant signal of the diamond queen will let declarer play the diamond suit for only one loser by finessing the diamond 10 at some point in the hand. On the actual hand you want partner to continue playing diamonds (a spade switch by West would be fatal to the defense) so signal with the diamond six, the highest card you can afford. Partner will, you hope, continue with diamonds, and in due course declarer will lose two tricks in spades and two in diamonds, for one down.

If the diamond ace denies the king, then East would never have any thought of unblocking a high diamond at the first trick. If your partnership frequently leads unsupported aces (especially in bid and supported suits), the king-lead from ace-king has a clear advantage.

Declarer was confronted with a problem here that might have defeated a better player than he. After an uninformative auction to three no-trump, West led from his long suit. South took no time at all to put up dummy's club 10 and win a cheap club trick, but with that play he had given up his best legitimate play for the contract.

The heart blockage meant declarer had just three tricks in both hearts and clubs, so needed to set up a second spade trick. When he ducked East’s spade jack at trick two, that player astutely shifted to a diamond, clearing the suit. When he got in with spades, he cashed the long diamond.

The solution is disarmingly simple — if you look at the problem correctly. The nine tricks declarer should try to take are four hearts, three clubs, and two aces. In order to create an entry to dummy’s hearts, play low from dummy at trick one, and win the trick in hand with a high club. By preserving your two low clubs, you can then play to unblock the heart honors from hand and lead a low club toward dummy to force an entry to the board.

Curiously, after his actual play, declarer can come close to making if he plays the spade ace at trick six. West must unblock his king, and now when declarer cashes the top clubs, East must reciprocate by discarding his spade queen to let West win the spade 10!

Sometimes declarer can predict that the defenders will prevent him from achieving his goal if he follows a direct route to goal. If so, he will need to take avoidance measures to sidestep the killing defense. See if you can match today's declarer, who found a neat way to come out victorious.

When you play four hearts on a top-club lead, you can identify two inevitable spade losers and two likely diamond losers if the defenders can get their act together. Even if spades split 3-3, so long as East wins an early spade and leads a high diamond through you, he may be able to arrange to get in again in spades, whereupon a second diamond play will spell defeat. Conversely, if East has the diamond ace, West must play diamonds through dummy twice.

One possibility is to win the first club and lead a low spade from dummy, hoping that East doesn’t rise with an honor or that he continues the attack on clubs, giving you an important tempo.

But a line that does not rely on defensive error, so long as spades are 3-3 and West has the diamond ace, is to duck the first trick. West can do no better than continue the attack on clubs, and you win, pitching a spade. Then you draw trump, give up a spade, and still have control of diamonds. So you have time to set up the spades to discard your slow diamond loser.

Today's deal from the Dyspeptics Club saw South declaring a slam contract. All the other players allege that he must be a practitioner of the black arts in order to attract the high cards to himself, but as East pointed out, he does so little with them that they allow him to play in their game.

On this occasion North did his best to get his side to a slam other than no-trump —even on a trump lead, six hearts might have been the best spot. But when South opted for no-trump, North acceded to his suggestion.

After West’s spade lead, South won in hand and played a club to the queen and king, then won the return and hoped that the club 10 would fall. When it did not, he could do little but give up a club and take 11 tricks.

South was about to launch into his usual apology — the cards had lain unfavorably and there was nothing that he could do about it — when North forestalled him by remarking that he had overlooked the best line for the slam. Can you see what he meant?

Finessing the club queen (planning to follow up with clubs from the top) can pick up either king-third or 10-third of clubs but not both — unless you always guess perfectly. Better is to lead a club to the nine immediately, which succeeds when East has either three or four clubs to the 10 and works today.

Bridge is rarely a game that can be seen in black-and-white terms. However, in today's deal, your target is to find a way to play the diamond suit for one loser against as many lies of the cards as possible. After a hotly contested auction (despite your opponents' possessing just nine HCP), you reach six spades.

West leads the heart king to your ace. You take care of all the outstanding trump as West pitches three hearts. Now you take your three club winners, and can end up in either hand. What should be your plan?

As West is almost certain to have the diamond king for his overcall and is relatively likely to have some diamond length, you need to protect yourself against a bad diamond break. The obvious solution is to lead the diamond queen from hand, but, as the cards lie, this would not work. What does work today is to win the third club in dummy, then lead the diamond two. Once East plays a diamond higher than the six, play the diamond four from hand — this is the perfect safety play against West’s having four diamonds to the king.

If West overtakes, he will not be able to lead diamonds without giving up his trick. If East has a diamond to return, you can play the diamonds for no loser. And if he gives you a ruff-sluff, you trump in hand and discard a diamond from dummy, then finesse in diamonds.

Today's deal comes from a duplicate at Honor's Bridge Club, which is always in contention for having the largest table-count in the country, and certainly has one of the strongest standard games every afternoon.

North, who supplied the deal to me, asked for anonymity, but indicated that his first reaction was to jump to seven no-trump at his first turn to speak. Then he tried to protect a putative spade king in his partner’s hand, and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

South had done beautifully in the auction, but fell from grace in the play when West hit on the inspired lead of the singleton diamond jack. How should the play have gone?

Best play is to win the diamond lead in dummy and run six heart winners at once (that gives West, who began life with three hearts, a chance to discard a club prematurely and help you count out the suit). Reduce to two diamonds and four clubs in hand, while keeping a count on the diamonds, then cash the club ace. When West follows, he surely started life with eight spades, three hearts and two singletons. So give up on the overtrick, and pitch a club on the last heart winner, then come to hand with your diamond king. If East has kept two diamonds, throw him in with a diamond to lead clubs, if he has kept one diamond, your last diamond will be good. And if he has kept three diamonds, your clubs will run.

Most of the critical decisions in the problems I present arise in the middle of the deal, but this time in a teams match you are simply faced with an opening-lead problem.

By the way, did that four-club call on a zero-count shock you? You wanted to take away bidding-space from your opponents, believing they had a good fit and the balance of high cards. Your opponents nonetheless sailed into a slam — but partner (a very good and highly aggressive player) ups the ante. Your lead!

Anyone familiar with the Lightner double might guess that, since you would have considered leading a club without the double, you have been asked to do something unusual, and the spade lead looks like the obvious choice. When your partner doubles a slam, you look for an unusual lead. So far so good, but I hope you avoided leading a fourth-highest spade four. If you did, your partner would ruff the first trick and would then consider underleading his club ace to get a second ruff.

Why? Well, I told you that your partner was an aggressive player. He can guess that six hearts doubled might also be the contract reached at the other table, and so that extra undertrick would be worth 300 points, or 7 IMPs. Since you know an underlead in clubs would be a disaster, lead a suit-preference spade eight, to steer partner away from the club suit.

Incidentally, which opponent, North or South, do you think should have retreated to the cold six no-trump?