It is encouraging to see that many young people are once again turning to bridge, as it is proven that the logical thought processes involved in playing the game carry over to other subjects.

I came across this problem, set by Tommy Gullberg while trawling through some of the bulletins produced at the Nordic Junior Bridge Camp. Why not cover the East-West hands and test your declarer play in three no-trump?

West leads the spade five; the queen is played from dummy (in the hope of retaining an entry to hand) but East covers with the king. How do you play safely to make the game, regardless of the lie of the cards in the East and West hands?

Win East’s king with your ace and play the diamond two to dummy’s nine. The nine holds — the defenders have no intention of voluntarily allowing you access to your hand. Next, lead dummy’s diamond three to your ace. Now play the diamond queen, on which dummy’s spade 10 must be discarded. And if the king has not put in an appearance, carry on with diamonds.

The defenders are now stymied, since they cannot set up their spades without allowing you access to the South hand. So, when in with the diamond king, the defenders change direction and attack in hearts. But in return you also change tack and set about knocking out the club ace and king. This way you will have garnered nine tricks via one spade, three hearts, two diamonds and three clubs.

Suit preference is a powerful tool in the right hands — but every partnership needs to be aware of when that signal conveys attitude and count, and when it is something else.

Today’s deal came in the qualifying rounds of the New York Grand National teams heat. When dummy came down in four hearts, West relaxed, assuming that a dummy this weak could never offer South a chance to make his game.

(Incidentally, there is quite a good case for subverting a response of two clubs after a takeout double as a constructive raise to two hearts; so the sequence at the table would show 4-6 points.)

South won the trump lead in hand and led a club up. West won his ace and got out with a second club. Declarer could pitch his spade loser on the club king, then surrender a diamond for an easy 10 tricks.

By contrast, in the other room, when declarer led a club toward dummy and West won his ace, East dropped the jack under it. That might look dangerous, but East knew that while his side’s spade tricks might get away, declarer would never be able to discard a diamond loser. So long as the defenders cashed their spades now, his side would collect any diamond tricks that they were due. And so it proved.

In today's deal after West opens one heart, South protects with one spade, then jumps to four spades when North cue-bids two hearts to show a good hand. As East, do you want to encourage or discourage on the lead of the heart king?

The point of today’s deal is that defensive signaling is not just about likes and dislikes. Everything has to be viewed in the context of the whole hand.

East must encourage on the opening lead for two reasons. The first is that he fears that a shift to either minor-suit might blow a trick. The second reason is that East can see the possibility that a third round of hearts might promote a trump trick for his side.

Meanwhile, afterthe two top hearts are cashed, the most difficult part of the defense comes at trick three — though I suspect Mrs. Guggenheim might get it right without realizing the subtlety of the position. The point is that West must now cash the diamond ace before the rats get at it. East discourages, of course, and now a third round of hearts will force dummy to ruff and allow East’s spade jack to become the setting trick.

The point is that if West does not take the diamond ace before playing the third heart, declarer ruffs with the spade queen, then cashes the spade king. Now he crosses to hand in clubs and takes the spade ace. He can subsequently run the clubs and dispose of his diamond loser on the fourth club.

On today's deal, even though game cannot be made, it very definitely should be bid. North should assume that if the clubs run, declarer will come close to making his game, while if not, even two no-trump may struggle. With a balanced hand, North should give no thought to playing five clubs. Again, while there are hands where the suit game makes and no-trump does not, there are many more hands where the reverse is true.

What should West lead to the first trick? Violent battles have been fought on this subject; but my least favorite lead is a spade. That rates to give up a trick, often for nothing, and even if you can establish the spade suit, you won’t ensure the defeat of the contract from that suit alone. If you do lead a heart, please lead the eight not the six. This deal is a fine example of how hard East would find it to read MUD (middle from three small cards).

Let’s say you lead the heart eight. Seeing insufficient defensive prospects from that heart suit, and with the menace of the long club suit on the table, East should realize that defensive tricks will need to be taken in a hurry if the contract is to be defeated. Spades offer the only hope. East, therefore, wins the heart ace and shifts to a spade, but, lacking a subsequent quick entry, should lead the jack in the hope that West holds four spades headed by the ace-queen.

In the 2008 World Championship finals, the first board of the last day saw England, the losing team, mount a big charge against Italy, to claw back to a tie in the match.

The Italian South heard his partner double four clubs for takeout, and removed the double to four diamonds, doubled by West. North then bid four hearts, again doubled by West, down 500. In the other room, our featured room, the Italian East opened only three clubs. This allowed the English to play three no-trump on the auction shown.

West led the spade queen, ducked, and continued with a small spade. The partnership’s conventional style of leading was consistent with pretty much any spade holding that included the king and queen, so declarer, Nick Sandqvist, went wrong here by putting in the 10. That lost to the jack, and East switched to his diamond. Declarer ducked, and West won, the defender’s third trick, and cleared the spades. Sandqvist appeared to be in trouble, but when he cashed the heart ace-king and East played the 10 and nine, he realized dummy’s Q-7 of hearts constituted a tenace over West’s J-6.

He cashed the club king and ace, forcing West to part with two diamonds, bringing him down to one spade, two hearts, and two diamonds. When he exited with the spade three, pitching his club loser, West had to win and choose between giving dummy three extra heart winners or declarer three extra diamond tricks.

Deciding whether to win or duck the opening lead is often a delicate one.

Terence Reese in “Play These Hands With Me” has a classic example of deception in this area. Rather than try to improve on the master, I will give a précis of his comments on his play to three no-trump doubled after the lead of the heart jack.

Reese remarks that by ducking the lead he may gain a tempo, perhaps even a trick. The possibility was increased when East follows with the seven. Reese dropped the eight, hoping that West, missing the six, would construe the seven as encouragement. After some sighs and precautionary mutterings (designed to show that he suspects the trap), West duly followed up with a low heart.

I love that parenthetic aside! Now watch what happened after three more rounds of hearts. East felt obliged to keep four spades, so let go in total one diamond, one club and two spades. When Reese ducked a diamond, West won the jack and underled his clubs to East’s ace. Back came a spade and Reese carefully won in dummy to lead the last diamond. If East had flown with the king, he would have ducked, but when he played low, Reese took the ace and led another diamond. Either way he would establish his 13th diamond, and emerge with nine tricks.

Incidentally, at trick six, the defense had one more chance; East had to overtake the diamond jack with his king and unblock clubs.

Great Britain qualified through the European championships for the Bermuda Bowl three times in 15 years, and on all three occasions the event was played on something like home territory.

On the last of those three occasions the event was held in Killarney. Only one member of the team who qualified in 1981 (the earliest of the three) was still part of the team on that occasion. That was Tony Sowter, who for his sins was a long-time editor of a bridge magazine. Sowter was the hero on this hand, which won him an award for the best-played hand of the Cavendish team tournament in which it occurred.

His opponents were Zia Mahmood and Sam Lev, who on this occasion picked the wrong opponents to double. Zia led three rounds of hearts against the contract of four spades redoubled, and Sowter ruffed, giving Lev the long trumps.

Sowter now played the club ace and queen, ruffing in dummy when the king appeared, then simply played the spade ace and a second round of trumps. Lev put in the 10, and Sowter won and cashed one more club, as Lev had to follow.

When Sowter led another club, Lev ruffed, and now had to play a diamond.

Declarer could take the diamond queen and ace, pitching clubs from hand. At trick 12 the lead was in dummy for a trump coup: Sowter could lead a diamond from dummy and take the trump finesse for his contract, without having a trump to lead!

At the Dyspeptics Club, some rubber players appear to regard it as bad bridge etiquette ever to appear to be thinking. As a consequence, when you are declarer, however elevated the level or challenging your prospects might be, the metaphorical car horns start blaring from the defenders if you should weigh up your prospects for more than the most minimal length of time.

Fortunately that was not a problem for South in today’s deal, since he has never been known to cater for any chances except the most obvious in nature. Declaring six hearts here, he won the opening club lead ,drew trump in two rounds, then cashed the spade ace, crossed to the heart queen, and finessed in spades, cavalierly conceding one down when the finesse lost.

While South was claiming bitterly that the only finesses that ever won were his opponents’, North took a look at his partner’s remaining cards and remarked that his complaints were as inaccurate as they were inappropriate — and that the cards had actually lain very well for him. Do you see what North meant?

Best play is to win the club lead, then take the heart ace and lead the heart jack to the queen. Then lead a diamond toward your jack. If East has a doubleton diamond honor or the diamond king-queen, as here, you have 12 tricks. Otherwise you would have to fall back on the spade finesse, but you have in the process significantly improved your chances to make your slam.

The cut and thrust of rubber bridge can be exciting – and when you’re playing for 10 cents a point, a fair sum of money can hinge on the play of a single card.

As an example, I’ll give you a long bidding sequence and an opening-lead problem. Put yourself in West’s shoes by simply looking at his 13 cards, and imagine what you might have done.

No doubt your partner knew what he was going to lead against seven clubs, but you have little clue as to what to choose against seven hearts. In practice, the hapless West chose a club, and as you can see from the full deal, declarer was soon claiming 13 tricks for 2470 points. A spade lead would have led to a penalty of 500 points — quite a significant swing.

The subsequent post-mortem was surprisingly good-natured, with West pointing out that perhaps East should have been happy with beating the grand slam and should not have been so greedy as to double. East retaliated by saying that he was trying to persuade them to run to seven no-trump where the penalty would be much larger. Or not, as the case might be.

Much credit must go to North, however, for realizing what was going on and removing himself to a contract that had a better chance than one where East was going to be on lead with an ace to cash.