Today's hand comes from Ulrich Auhagen of Germany; you can treat it as a problem by covering up the East and West hands. It is a play challenge in six spades, after East has opened with a weak two hearts, and South has made a strong jump overcall of three spades.

With an inevitable trump loser, you seem to need to find a squeeze on West. And since East partly controls clubs, you have to find a way to isolate the club menace in West — no easy task.

The secret is that after taking dummy’s top hearts, pitching a club, you must ruff a heart back to hand immediately, then cash the spade ace and king. Now take the club ace, finesse the diamond, and ruff a club to hand before exiting with a spade. Those of you who play chess may see some resemblance to a helpmate. The point is that West now has the choice of immediate concession by playing a diamond or, even more painfully, isolating the menace against himself by playing a club, so that he becomes the only player to guard clubs. This means that he will be squeezed in the minors at trick 11 when the last trump is led.

The key to the hand is to ruff dummy’s heart at once; if you delay, the timing is wrong. West can exit with a third heart on winning his trump trick, and you can no longer isolate the club menace, so East will keep clubs and West diamonds.

In today's deal South reached the normal game after a Stayman sequence from North had disclosed that South had no major. The contract looks easy to make, but South paid the penalty for playing a careless card. The diamond two was led to the jack, queen and ace (the king might have been more deceptive). As it was, West inferred declarer rated to hold both top diamonds. Next, declarer led a low club to dummy, and a club back to his jack and West's queen.

West now counted South’s points to be the diamond ace and king, together with the club ace-jack. West could see no way to beat the game if his partner had the spade king, so it made sense to play him for both top hearts. The contract might still look hard to defeat, but West worked out that if East had A-K-7-3 of hearts, he could establish four tricks in the suit by force. Accordingly, West shifted to the heart 10, and South had to cover in dummy. East won the trick with his king and was faced with the dilemma of whether to press on in hearts or go back to diamonds. The heart play would be right only on this specific lie of the suit, but could a diamond ever be correct? East decided that declarer’s decision to win the first diamond rather than duck the suit twice made that impossible. So he played back a low heart, and the defenders cashed out the hearts for down one.

South opens the bidding with one diamond. Would you, as West, enter the auction with a shape-showing bid, vulnerable? How about at favorable vulnerability, as here? This rates to work out fine if partner can support at least one of your suits — you may well have paved the way to a worthwhile sacrifice. But there is certainly a downside if your partner's hand proves to be a broken reed. You may well go for a large penalty — which is not in and of itself disastrous if the opponents can make game. More serious, though, is that (as here) you may have provided declarer with a blueprint for tackling the hand.

Against six diamonds West led the spade queen, and declarer appreciated that any attempt to ruff spades in dummy would lead to the demise of the slam. South rose with dummy’s ace and immediately played a second spade. If East had ruffed, he would only have been ruffing a loser, and the spade king could later take care of the third-round club loser. East followed, the king held — and now declarer could tackle hearts.

The heart king, then a heart to the ace, stood up, and next came a third heart. East ruffed, South overruffed with the jack, and a low trump to dummy allowed the last heart to be played. East had no answer. If he discarded, South could ruff low, then draw trump. If he ruffed in, declarer would overruff, draw the remaining trump, and 12 tricks would be there.

At the table when this deal occurred West led the heart king and saw his partner follow with the nine to suggest a doubleton. The easy way to defeat the game was to lead two more rounds of hearts, hoping that his partner would have the spade jack. But declarer ruffed the third heart high in dummy and drew trump, losing just to the spade ace.

At the end of the deal (when East had searched declarer’s hand unsuccessfully for a diamond), he transferred his attention to his partner and pointed out accurately — if a little tardily — that the contract could have been defeated. Can you see how?

It does not do West any good to play ace and a second trump; declarer can simply run his trumps, then his clubs. But at the second trick, West can cover almost all his bases by shifting to a low spade. Even if declarer has the bare club ace, he cannot unscramble his club winners, since there is no entry to dummy. The best he can do is play on trumps, after which there are three heart losers, or go after clubs, when East can ruff in before declarer can dispose of his hearts.

The shift to a low trump from the doubleton ace is a useful tool to add to your kit; whenever dummy has just two trumps and a source of tricks in a long suit, it may be the winning move.

Against six spades West led the heart 10 instead of a fatal trump, which would have removed a crucial entry to dummy. Declarer, Dick Cummings, took the heart ace, ruffed a heart, crossed back to dummy with a trump to the 10, ruffed the heart queen, and then drew trump with the ace and king. Next he led a diamond and took East's queen with the king.

Judging that the queen was a singleton, he next played the diamond 10 from his hand, giving up on possible overtricks to try to ensure his slam.

If West had taken the jack, declarer would have had 12 tricks. So West ducked, and Dick now had to judge who had the club king. He reasoned that West would have been almost certain to take the diamond jack if he did not hold the club king — he would have risked conceding an overtrick if South had that card. (Mind you, would declarer have ducked a diamond in that instance?) In any event, Cummings accurately led the club five to dummy’s ace and now reducing to a three-card ending by cashing North’s last trump.

West, who had already come down to one heart, the doubleton diamond jack, and the club king, had to throw the club king. Had he pitched his heart, he would have been endplayed with that card to lead diamonds into the tenace. But that let Cummings cash his two minor-suit winners to bring home the slam.

Have all the really good problems at bridge already been created? I think not, since when I read the daily bulletins at the national tournaments, I am constantly surprised at the variations that crop up on themes I thought I knew well.

Today’s deal contains a useful idea that I first saw in a problem by that great writer, Terence Reese. Once you have spotted the theme, I am sure you will remember the concept in the future.

Here you play four spades after a transfer auction, and the spade 10 is led. You take the spade ace and queen, finding the bad break, then unblock the spade jack as East discards a diamond and a heart. This is the best defense — East needs to keep enough small hearts as a possible force against declarer. Now it looks natural to play the heart ace, ruff a heart, then drive out the club ace. But the defenders will be able to win and cash three hearts, thanks to East’s thoughtful defense.

However, after three rounds of trump, declarer does have a counter to this potential problem. The winning play is a low heart from hand at trick four.

The best East can do is win and continue the attack on hearts. Declarer ruffs in dummy, then draws the last trump, discarding a diamond from hand. He next sets up the clubs by driving out the ace, after which his hand will be high, with the exception of a diamond loser at the end.

In today's deal, East, with a balanced hand, weak trumps, and a defensively oriented hand, took no action facing his partner's overcall. There is a time and place for aggression in the form of a pre-emptive raise; this is not it. And a pre-emptive raise to three spades on the East cards would likely see that contract doubled for -1100! (The adage "Be wary of sacrificing with a balanced hand" is apt here.)

After the lead of the spade queen, declarer needs to decide what is the best route to nine tricks in his contract of three no-trump. He knows that the defenders will clear his remaining spade stopper at their next opportunity, and he has to develop tricks from not one but two of the side-suits to get his trick total to nine.

The answer comes in the form of an avoidance play: at trick one, declarer takes the spade lead in hand. At trick two he leads out the heart three. If West takes his ace, declarer has nine tricks in the form of two spades, three hearts and the four minor-suit top winners. When the heart queen wins trick two, declarer plays on diamonds, starting with the king to protect against West’s having a singleton honor. That sees him establish two additional tricks in that suit, which is now all he needs.

In effect, declarer steals his seventh trick, then goes about establishing the two extra tricks he needs without the loss of a tempo.

You will stand a chance of identifying the technique required in today's deal only if you pay careful attention to the bidding.

Against four hearts the defenders take their top spades and a spade ruff. Now East shifts to the heart 10, and the ball is in your court. You have an almost inevitable diamond loser; in essence, you need West to have the doubleton club king, but perhaps if he has the club king and one diamond honor, he might somehow be brought under pressure on the run of the hearts. Can you see how you might put West in a bind?

The key is that West is a passed hand, so if he has both top spades and the club king, the only diamond honor he can hold is the jack.

You run three rounds of trumps ending on the table, then lead the diamond queen. East must cover with the king, and you take the trick with the ace, then run the rest of the trumps.

In the three-card ending, you hold the doubleton diamond 10 and one club, with the A-Q-J of clubs in dummy. If West has discarded the diamond jack, you cash the 10 and finesse in clubs. If not, you lead to the club jack, cash the ace, and score trick 13 with the club queen. Of course, if East had returned a club at trick two, there would have been no story (at least for you).

This sounds like a rhetorical question: which percentage line would you choose to take to make your contract — a 50-50 shot or a two-thirds chance? On today's hand, the declarer settled for the toss-up — and regretted it.

Against four hearts West made the natural lead of the spade queen, which East overtook with the king and returned a trump. Declarer acknowledged that hopes of a spade ruff in dummy for his 10th trick had all but departed and looked for an alternative. Naturally, it was to the diamond suit that he turned.

South won the trump switch and finished drawing trumps. Then he cashed the club ace, just in case the king was bare — unlikely, but a no-cost play — and turned his attention to diamonds. He entered dummy with its only entry, the diamond ace, then finessed the diamond jack. That was the 50-50 chance and it lost. The defenders were quick to cash their two spade tricks, and that meant one down.

And the two-thirds chance? At trick three, declarer does best to duck a diamond. With eight cards in a suit, the missing cards will break 3-2 just over two thirds of the time, as they do here.

The defense can do no better than cash their spade winner, then graciously concede the rest to declarer. If not, after trumps are drawn, even the second spade trick will disappear on dummy’s diamonds, giving declarer an overtrick.