Today we have a defensive problem, and to put yourself properly in the shoes of the defender, cover up the West and South cards and consider as East how you would defend three no-trump after South's strong no-trump is raised to game and West leads a fourth-highest heart three. Dummy plays low, and it is over to you, Plan the whole defense.

Should you play the 10 or the king to the first trick? Consider what declarer would have done with the ace in his hand and the doubleton queen in dummy. He would surely have played dummy’s queen — so he does not have the ace.

Say you make the right play at trick one, the heart king. Declarer produces the heart nine. What next? Here, the right technical card to return is the heart five, leading low from a remaining holding of three cards. However, on this occasion the “right” lead is wrong.

At trick two you have to play back the heart 10, hoping that partner works out to take the second trick and cash out the suit. With that powerful a dummy he should be able to see that his only hope to beat the hand is the actual layout. Motto: rules are all well and good — but remember to break them once in a while!

It may well be better to be lucky than good, and on today's deal one could argue that the team that collected the IMPs had simply been in the right place at the right time to collect a helping hand from Dame Fortune.

The deal came up at a world championship four years ago, when England played the USA. The English pair had done well to reach the small slam, a contract that could only be troubled on the lead of the diamond king, when declarer would fall back on the heart finesse. After a spade lead declarer simply drew trump and played on hearts, secure in the knowledge that he could establish an extra trick from that suit.

At first glance it looks as if the English pair had done well to pre-empt the American auction, forcing them too high, but look at what happened.

Declarer, Sam Lev, won West’s spade lead with the ace and played off all his trumps. His last four cards in hand were his two diamonds and two hearts, while in dummy he had heart A-Q-8 and the diamond jack. West had retained his four hearts to the king, but what should East keep?

If he keeps three hearts and one diamond, as happened at the table, declarer makes the diamond eight as his 13th trick. If East had kept fewer than three hearts, declarer would simply have run the heart jack, making three heart tricks whether that card was covered or not.

As the play unfolded in today's deal, declarer was grateful for the knowledge that West held a six-card heart suit because of his pre-emptive opening bid.

Declaring six spades, South won the heart-king lead in dummy perforce, and it seemed to him that the small slam was cold; in fact 13 tricks would roll in if the diamond king sat with West.

But when declarer continued with a trump to his ace and West showed out, his first thoughts were, that with a natural trump loser, the diamond king needed to sit onside just for him to make his contract. Then further thought brought South to the conclusion that East might be endplayed, so long as he had fewer than four clubs.

Harking back to West’s opening bid, South appreciated that East would hold just three hearts. So he continued by ruffing a heart in dummy, then played the spade king, followed by a spade to his queen. South ruffed his last heart with dummy’s last trump, and now the stage was set.

He led a club to the ace, then a club to the king followed by the club jack. This left East in an unenviable position. If he ruffed, he would be endplayed in diamonds. Accordingly, East elected to discard a diamond, but now South played his last trump, discarding a diamond from dummy, and throwing East in. The forced diamond return saw the slam safely home, as South’s third diamond departed on the club queen.

After the weekend it often takes a just a little while for the brain to move into full gear. So here is an easy problem with which to start the week.

Your task is to plan the play in three no-trump on the lead of the heart seven.

This problem looks extremely straightforward: You play ace and another diamond, win the return, and run the diamonds. Even if you forget to unblock the diamond spots from dummy, you have plenty of re-entries to your hand in spades.

If you follow that approach, you will bring home your game four times out of five without realizing that you had been guilty of extremely careless play. The exception comes when diamonds split 3-0. If it is East who has the length, you will not avoid two losers unless you start the suit by leading low toward dummy. When the 3-0 break comes to light, you can subsequently cross to the club ace and finesse in diamonds to make your game.

Curiously, if it is West who has the length, you may also avoid a second loser. After all, West might be worried that his partner has the singleton ace — mightn’t he? If he ducks the first diamond, you will own him for the duration — or at least until you do something equally stupid against one of his contracts.

This is a classical safety play, and the good news is that you do not even have to invest a trick to protect yourself.

Guessing how to deal with powerhouses like South's in competition is really a lottery. Since you can never expect partner to cooperate, my advice is just guess whether to go high or low and hope to be lucky.

That was what today’s South did, and when North put down his dummy in six hearts, he apologized to his partner for offering him so little. South thanked him gravely and said that like the curate’s egg, parts of it were excellent.

After the lead of the diamond four to the nine and ace, declarer cashed the heart ace, then carefully led the heart eight to dummy’s 10. Now declarer played a club toward his hand. East knew declarer had at least two clubs, so he ducked, as good as anything, and the club king scored. South exited with a club and East overtook his partner’s nine to lead a spade through. Declarer scored his spade ace, crossed to dummy by leading his trump two to the three, then ruffed a club to isolate the menace, and ran his trumps, pitching a spade and diamond from dummy.

To keep the master club, East discarded a diamond, and South took the last three tricks in diamonds to make his slam.

Notice that declarer has to preserve the extra trump entry to dummy in order to ruff out the clubs and isolate the menace with East. If he does not do so, West keeps the club and spade masters and the squeeze fails.

In today's deal the North hand is a particularly difficult one to describe facing a two-no-trump opening, since either minor suit might play much better than no-trump, but as it happens, despite your eight-card fits, you want to play no-trump today. Plan the play in six no-trump after a low spade lead.

Curiously, the hand is a guaranteed make, provided that West has at least one diamond. You win the spade queen, cash the diamond ace, then play a club to dummy’s ace.

Here you are home immediately, but assume nothing dramatic happens. If no king falls, try a diamond back to your queen, again prepared to claim if both opponents follow or if East has only one diamond. When you see West show out on the second diamond, simply lead another club. Should both opponents follow, you have six tricks in the majors and three in each of the minors by setting up clubs. But assume somebody has four clubs. If it is West who started with four clubs, he must duck the second club and now you have a second club trick in the bag. You can concede a diamond to East and set up your 12th trick in that suit. If it is East who started with length in both minors, he must win his club king.

Whatever major suit he exits in, you can run your major winners and guarantee to be able to squeeze him in the minor suits for your 12th trick.

A loser-on-loser play was the way home for declarer on this well-bid small slam.

After North had cue-bid to show a limit raise or better, South’s three-spade call was an unequivocal slam-try with short spades. North appreciated that his spade length and three aces were going to be very useful to his partner. His jump to five hearts asked for good trumps, and South was happy to accept the invitation.

The spade king was West’s opening salvo. Declarer inspected dummy and appreciated that if trumps broke 2-2, there would be no further problems, as two clubs could be ruffed in dummy. The only loser would be the third round of diamonds.

After winning the first trick with the spade ace, South drew two rounds of trump and was disappointed to find West showing out on the second. The club ace and king stood up, then a third club was safely ruffed in dummy. The diamond ace, then a diamond to the king placed South back in hand to play the last club.

If West had shown out, the club could safely have been ruffed in dummy; then a spade ruff to hand would have allowed East’s last trump to be extracted. But when West produced the club queen, rather than ruff and be overruffed, South discarded dummy’s last diamond, exchanging one loser for another.

Ruffing the spade return, declarer trumped the last diamond, returned to hand with a spade ruff, and drew the last trump at trick 13.

The percentage tables are unforgiving. If you follow the best chance to make your contract on every deal, you will end up a big winner. Meanwhile, the player who takes the second-best line will trail the field.

Today’s deal came up in the semifinals of a regional knockout event played at a recent Nationals, where the quality of the field should have been good enough to expect both declarers to have found their way home. However, that was not the case here, and neither South brought home the no-trump game.

What happened at both tables was that the defenders led clubs against three no-trump. South could see that ducking might produce an extremely unwelcome spade shift, so he won and unblocked diamonds, then led a spade to the jack. The defenders won and cleared clubs, leaving South with just seven tricks when neither spades nor diamonds behaved.

South had missed a small extra chance, which would have brought home the game. After winning the club lead, South must overtake his diamond queen with the ace, then play the diamond king, followed by the diamond eight. This works when diamonds are 3-3 or whenever there is a significant doubleton double honor in diamonds. Surprisingly, this is nearly a 10 percent extra chance.

Of course if the diamonds were 3-3 all along, you have given up an overtrick, but the beauty of teams play is that you can afford to sacrifice the occasional overtrick and undertrick to achieve your main target.

This is something of a recurring theme perhaps, but in today's deal we can see how all too often the critical moment comes before declarer has taken the full measure of his problem.

Against four spades, reached after North’s raise to three spades had shown respectable trump support and at least scattered values, West led the club jack. When declarer covered with dummy’s queen, East took the ace and smartly switched to the heart 10. Declarer rose with the king, but West played the ace and returned a second heart. With an inescapable diamond loser, that led to one down.

See the difference if dummy’s club eight is played at trick one instead of an honor. On a club continuation, declarer ruffs away East’s ace, then draws trump, ensuring that a trump entry remains in dummy. Next comes the diamond ace and king, and when diamonds prove to break 3-2, dummy is entered with a trump for a heart discard on the winning club. Finally, one more round of diamonds sets up that suit. Should diamonds break 4-1 or worse, then you can cross to dummy with a trump for a diamond discard on the club queen. Now comes a heart, and if the ace is with East, the game makes.

Note also that if at trick one East overtakes the club jack with the ace and fires a heart through, dummy’s club king and queen will provide parking places for South’s two small diamonds.