Today's deal saw West lead the club seven against six hearts (third from an even number, low from an odd number), and declarer discarded a diamond from the dummy. Plan the defense.

It might look easy for East to win the club ace and shift to a heart, but East paused to reflect on why declarer had chosen to discard, apparently giving him a free trick.

Clearly, dummy had great trumps and controls, but was short of fillers. Declarer’s cue-bid of four spades indicated he surely had short spades, and if he had the diamond queen in addition to that, he would surely have ruffed the first trick and led toward the diamond queen after drawing trump as an easy route to 12 tricks. Therefore, West must have the diamond queen — in which case it was almost guaranteed that declarer had the missing high honors in clubs. West had led from a doubleton club, or third from a three- or four-card suit, the former situation being nearly hopeless for the defense, since declarer could then probably crossruff 12 tricks.

East also realized that if his partner had 10-third or -fourth of clubs, he should not win the club ace or he could count declarer’s 12 tricks — two aces, two high clubs, five trump tricks in his hand, plus three ruffs in dummy. So he put in his club jack at the first trick, and declarer could win cheaply, but was left with two diamond losers he could not avoid.

It looks as if six clubs is an excellent slam, against which West leads the heart king. You win the ace and advance the heart jack, ruffing out West's queen. So far so good; but when you cash the club king, West shows out. Can you see a way to recover?

The way to look at this type of problem is to think about what your desired end-position is going to be. You will succeed only if you can reach an ending in which you play a plain card from the dummy and force East to ruff in with a high trump to stop you from ruffing low. You discard, and now East is forced to lead a high trump. You will be able to win in the dummy, then finesse against his remaining trump honor.

To achieve this ending, you can’t afford to take any more ruffs in the dummy. It is also important that you exhaust East of everything but trumps before he ruffs in. (Otherwise, he would exit with a plain card, and your plan would fail.) So East must have at least three diamonds.

Therefore, after winning the club king, cross to hand with the diamond jack, and play the heart 10, discarding a spade. Now play two more rounds of diamonds, followed by the spade king and ace. When you play the diamond queen, East must ruff high, and you discard your last spade. Whichever club East exits with lets you make the last three tricks.

When holding 4-3-3-3 distribution with a major, I tend to use Stayman after partner has opened one no-trump only when I have two three-card suits where I either have no honor or the suit is headed by the ace or king. In each case a small doubleton opposite will probably make a trump contract more attractive.

On today’s hand, North guessed well to use Stayman, since three no-trump would almost certainly have failed after an initial heart attack. But as West pointed out, the spade game could also have been defeated.

West led the diamond eight against four spades. Dummy played the two, and on winning with the queen, East switched to a heart. Declarer won, played the spade queen (losing to the king), and won the heart return. He drew the remaining trump, cashed the diamond ace, and continued with the diamond 10. After East had taken his king, a club loser from dummy was later shed on the diamond jack.

So what was West’s suggestion for the defense? If East reads his partner’s opening lead as being from a doubleton, he should find the ingenious defense of returning a low diamond at trick two. Then, as before, declarer comes to two diamond tricks, but now when East gets in with the trump king, another low diamond allows West to ruff.

East still has the diamond king to take care of the jack, so South will still have to lose a club trick and cannot avoid going one down.

This week I am going to give you a defensive problem that occurred in the World Mind Sports Games. Cover up the East and South hands to put yourself in West's shoes before reading on.

Against five clubs you lead the heart king. Declarer wins with the ace, ruffs a heart in dummy, cashes the club ace, and plays the diamond jack to the two, three and your queen. What now? You can be pretty sure that partner has a singleton diamond, so you can count on a second trick in that suit. Where is your other defensive trick to come from? If partner has the spade king, you could switch to a spade, which would have the added advantage of knocking the entry out of dummy. But if declarer has the spade king, you risk allowing him to pick up the suit for no loser.

The one play that caters to all eventualities is to play back a small diamond now, allowing partner to ruff. Partner can then get off lead with a trump or a heart. Now, unless declarer has both the spade king and queen (impossible on the play so far), you must come to another trick because declarer cannot establish the diamonds.

This was a big swing to the eventual winners of the event, because in the other room South had made the rather more practical rebid of three no-trump at her second turn, a contract in which there were nine top tricks on any lead.

One of the all-time classic hands on the theme of whether to duck a trick or take it comes from the only world championship won by Britain against the U.S. You may care to concentrate on West's hand to see the problem he faced.

In the Closed Room the American North opened a very restrained one no-trump (in those days the 16-18 no-trump was far more common than nowadays) and played there on the lead of the spade 10. Declarer put up South’s spade jack and won the trick. Then he played on clubs, and the defenders ducked the first club trick, won the second, then cashed out the spades. North slightly mistimed the play now, and managed to endplay himself in diamonds to lead hearts from hand, all of which led to one down.

In our featured room, though, Adam Meredith responded one no-trump to one diamond and got his side to game. West started off well by leading a spade. Meredith took the second spade in dummy and played the club jack, overtaking in hand! Maybe it was an error for West to win this, but Meredith deserves at least part of the credit for creating an environment in which a mistake could be made. West led a spade to East, who switched to the diamond king. Meredith won, finessed the club nine, ran the clubs, then took the heart finesse, finishing up with one of the world’s more unlikely overtricks.

When there is a long solid suit in dummy — or even one that looks as if it will set up easily — it often pays to grab whatever tricks might be available to the defense before they disappear.

Today’s deal cropped up in the European Champions Cup of 2007. Against four spades, West led his singleton club, won in dummy. Then declarer called for the trump two, to the three, jack and queen. Seeking to put his partner on lead for the club ruff, West continued with the diamond queen. Dummy played low, as did East. A second diamond went to the king and ace and was ruffed by South, who proceeded to knock out the trump ace. Now East’s club return was too late. West was fresh out of trump, and South’s third heart departed on dummy’s fifth club.

At the second table, the play to the first two tricks replicated those at the other table. But when West, Albert Faigenbaum, returned the diamond queen at trick three and declarer called for dummy’s six, Michel Bessis rose with the ace and delivered the club ruff that set the contract. He had noted the danger of dummy’s clubs and also took into consideration the lead itself. Surely a diamond lead, from a suit headed by the queen and jack would have been preferable, unless West’s club lead was a singleton.

Incidentally, should West have shifted to a low diamond at trick three to avoid this particular dilemma for East? I think so.

Both sides' double-fit will encourage plenty of overbidding. But at this vulnerability East-West rate not to go beyond the five-level, while North has rather too many losers to risk Blackwood at his second turn. Mind you, six spades depends only on a successful club finesse, and if North bids on to five spades over five hearts, South might well raise to six.

The next question is what West should lead at trick one. A case could be made for a diamond; however, most Wests will lead a heart — but which? I like the idea of advancing the queen, retaining the lead while you plan what to do when the dummy comes down. Of course, things do not work out as planned, and it is East who has to lead to the second trick.

East will know that two more tricks are needed to defeat the contract. Since the club suit will yield one trick at most and West’s lead surely denies a club void, a trick will have to come from the trump or diamond suit. To set up his side’s potential diamond trick, East must play his partner for the diamond king and shift to that suit. If you found the answer, well done!

But that is not the full story. To avoid being thrown-in with the second diamond after the major suits have been eliminated, East must switch to the diamond queen at trick two, or he will be fatally endplayed with a diamond at the end of trick five.

The general rule about winning or ducking tricks is that when in doubt ,you should win the trick if you can. But there is a whole class of positions where ducking in a suit in which you do have the top cards has a much more devious purpose than generating extra tricks from that suit alone. Your duck is strategic, in that it relates to the play in the side suits, and not just in the suit itself.

Imagine that on today’s deal you play in four spades, that being the only suit bid, and West leads the heart jack. If you take this and draw trump before conceding a heart, East will surely win the third heart and should find the diamond switch. This will be enough to beat the contract when the club finesse loses.

But say that you duck the first trick and follow with the eight, trying to make East’s spot card look as large as possible. West will surely feel happy about continuing with the heart 10, won’t he? That will give you time to develop a heart, on which you will discard one of dummy’s losing diamonds.

Do you blame West for not shifting to a diamond? It is hard to be too critical, since you might hold a 5-4-3-1 pattern with your actual honors — except that you have the diamond ace, not the heart ace. Now a diamond switch would be the only way to let the contract through.

In today's deal, West may be strong but his honors are not put together well. While he has a maximum for a bid of two diamonds, a two-level overcall should show a decent hand. When the auction gets back to him at four spades, it would be very dangerous to act again.

Having said that, East has the right shape if not the high cards to consider bidding four no-trump over four spades to show the unbid suits.

Assuming West leads the diamond king against four spades, many declarers will put up the ace. East will ruff, and play a club through for a quick one down. South will claim to be unlucky, and probably no one will say anything more (unless North is the pedantic sort). However, a nitpicker in the North seat will tell declarer that it was ‘obvious’ that diamonds were 6-0; and even if they were not, what harm could it do to duck the first trick? Even if East had a diamond all along, with West on lead at the end of trick one, the best he can do is cash the club ace before dummy’s clubs go away.

Is that all there is to it? Not at all! East might leap to South’s defense and tell North that it would not have done declarer any good to duck the first trick, since East was planning to ruff his partner’s winner and find the club shift. After that, no one should have anything more to say.