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?

Pablo Lambardi of Argentina has been a fixture on his country's international team for a couple of decades — remarkable for one who looks so young! He found an ingenious position in this deal from the finals of a major Pairs game in a recent Australian championship.

He held the South cards and declared one spade after opening one diamond and hearing one heart to his right, doubled by his partner, over which his call of one spade ended the auction. This bid can often be made on a three-card suit, since if opener does not have a heart stop or a rebiddable minor, this may be the least of all evils.

The defenders led four rounds of hearts, dummy pitching a club, with East ruffing in with the spade nine. Lambardi overruffed and led a spade to dummy and a club to the king. West ruffed and played ace and another spade.

As the third spade was led, and won in dummy, what was East to discard? If he pitched a diamond, declarer would come to hand in clubs, ruff a diamond, and take two more club tricks in the ending, since both North and East would be down to just clubs. When East chose instead to throw a club, Lambardi discarded his blocking club ace, and simply set up clubs for one loser.

Making one spade was a near top for him — the field was going down in clubs on the North-South cards, often doubled.

Today's deal shows two expert players handling a delicate grand slam from the Open Teams at Ostend last summer. In the auction shown, South (Per-Erik Austberg) knew his side had all the keycards after the five-no-trump bid, and his solid clubs looked like enough for him to accept the invitation.

Austberg won the heart lead and took two top trumps to test the suit, then cashed the club ace and ruffed a club. Now he ruffed a heart to reach hand to draw the last trump. On this, dummy discarded a diamond, but what should East throw? At the table he chose to discard a heart. Austberg crossed to the diamond ace and ruffed another heart. That left only West guarding the hearts, so when declarer took his two winning clubs, West was squeezed in the red suits.

Declarer had done the best he could, but was there a better defense against the grand? When Petter Tondel declared seven spades, Agnes Snellers as East pitched a small diamond on the third spade. Tondel now carefully played the diamond jack to the ace, felling East’s queen, ruffed a heart, then cashed the two remaining top clubs. East followed suit, but West had to throw a heart and a diamond. Correctly reading East as having the winning heart and club left, declarer triumphantly finessed the diamond eight at trick 12 to make his grand slam.

If declarer does not unblock his diamond jack early, he no longer has the option to finesse in diamonds.

This deal was played in the Pairs Championships at Ostend last summer. The deal does not exemplify any great technical theme, but it was so much fun for the defenders that I thought it worthwhile to show my readers.

If you focus solely on the North and South cards, you would expect North to open a strong no-trump and be transferred into two spades. You’d expect declarer to bring home his contract unless trumps were hostile. In fact, the spades are quite friendly, but things did not work out as expected.

Where Waseem Naqvi and Lee Rosenthal were defending, they pushed their opponents to the three-level, then showed how to maximize their trump holdings.

Rosenthal, West, started with the diamond ace, continuing with a diamond to Naqvi’s jack. Naqvi switched to his singleton club, then took a club ruff to play back a diamond. Declarer ruffed optimistically with the spade eight, overruffed by Rosenthal with the nine. A third round of clubs was ruffed with the spade king and overruffed by East with the ace.

Now Naqvi played another diamond, and declarer had to decide if the remaining spades were as in the diagram or the other way around. When he guessed wrong by ruffing with the spade 10, it was overruffed by the jack. Now a fourth round of clubs promoted Naqvi’s spade seven. The defense was finally out of ammunition, but they had made all five of their trumps for four down, and virtually all the matchpoints.

Even the experts sometimes lose their way. In today's deal declarer had two chances to make a doubled partscore, but missed both.

In one room West had made eight tricks in clubs, but in the other room South was playing for bigger stakes. Against two hearts doubled, Ricco van Prooijen led his singleton heart to the three, two and king. Now declarer misguessed by playing a spade to dummy’s jack at trick two. East, Marion Michielsen, took the spade queen and played the diamond five. Declarer went up with the ace and cashed three more spades, fatally discarding one of dummy’s clubs instead of the lone diamond. Michielsen ruffed the 13th spade and continued with the diamond queen, then switched to clubs. Van Prooijen could win the second club and play a killing third round of diamonds. Declarer ruffed this diamond low, but Michielsen overruffed and still had a trump trick. The defenders took one trick in each side-suit, plus three trump tricks.

If declarer discards dummy’s diamond on the fourth spade, Michielsen could ruff the fourth spade and play her diamond, but dummy then ruffs and plays a club. East can duck to allow West to win, but declarer discards dummy’s remaining club on the diamond continuation. A further diamond can then be ruffed with the heart jack. If East overruffs, that is the last trick for the defense. If she discards her last nontrump, declarer leads a low heart from dummy, endplaying East in trumps.