Trump promotion is a well-established tool in the defensive armory and comes in many guises. In today's hand, the defender promotes a trump trick for himself rather than for his partner.

After East had shown great restraint by passing in first chair (many, including myself, might have fallen from grace and opened two spades, treating the seventh spade as compensation for the weak spot-cards), West found himself on lead against three clubs. He resisted the temptation to lead his singleton, instead kicking off with his three top diamonds. With the lucky layout of the club suit, if left to his own devices declarer would have had no problem in holding his losers to just three diamonds and a spade, eventually setting up his spades to avoid a heart guess. But look what happened when West continued with a fourth round of diamonds. East ruffed in with the club jack, forcing declarer’s ace. Now when West covered the club nine, the club seven became the setting trick.

One small trap that East has to avoid is ruffing in with the club eight instead of the jack. Once in a while, when you are going to be able to ruff in twice, you need to ruff low at your first turn. Far more frequently you only get one chance; if so, don’t send a boy to do a man’s job. If East ruffs low, declarer overruffs, then cashes the club ace to drop the jack, and the trump promotion is history.

Today's deal comes from a match between the duplicate and rubber bridge players at the Dyspeptics Club. Each group's members, of course, consider themselves to be the real experts, while the other group plays a corrupt version of the game with no real skill element. Thus there was considerably more at stake than the bottles of champagne that were riding on the outcome.

In the first half of the match the following deal came up, and the duplicate player at the helm considered himself unlucky to go down. In three no-trump he won the opening spade lead and played off the diamond ace from his hand, planning to cross to dummy and make a second diamond play to try to keep East off lead. Alas for him, West dropped the diamond jack under the king, a performance that would have been considerably more impressive, had he not scrabbled for the card as it came out of his hand as if he had played it accidentally. After the unblock, declarer was doomed.

In the other room South won the first spade and crossed to dummy with a club to run the diamond seven immediately to West. That was the end of the defense. Had East covered, declarer would have won the trick in hand, then repeated the performance by going back to the board and leading the diamond eight. The defenders would have been helpless to prevent the establishment of the diamonds, while East, the danger hand, was kept off lead.

When you have to tackle an awkward suit, it may be a good idea to restrict your opponents' options. That way, you may enlist their assistance, however unwilling it might be.

In today’s deal, North’s cue-bid showed a limit raise to three spades after the intervention. South had very little to spare, but did have some extra shape, so made a game-try. Now North, with such good trumps, was not prepared to stay out of game, despite his unpromising hearts.

Against four spades West cashed the club king, and South ruffed the club continuation. He next drew trumps in two rounds, then set about the hearts by playing low to the nine. In a vacuum, it is probably the best way to tackle the suit to avoid the loss of three tricks. But East won with the 10 and returned a diamond. Now declarer was unable to avoid the loss of two further heart tricks, for a one-trick set.

Declarer should have done better. Before he tackled hearts, ruffing dummy’s last club and cashing the diamonds would have limited East’s options when in with the heart 10. A diamond return gives declarer a ruff-sluff, allowing a losing heart to depart from dummy. East’s best return would have been to continue with the heart three. It looks as if declarer is still on a guess, but West’s vulnerable overcall suggests that he is more likely than his partner to hold the heart ace. So playing low from hand seems the right play, and it works today.

One of my bridge collections is of old par hands. Today's deal comes from an ancient batch of problems, and has something of a contrived air to it, but the underlying point is a sound one.

Whenever you see a problem like this one (where a grand slam seems likely), you know that the proper play for 12 tricks will be to protect yourself against the most unfriendly distributions — so be warned!

On freak deals such as this, spirited competitive bidding is inevitable. East-West should not forget the standard maxim “If in doubt, bid one more.” Therefore, if North-South stop at six spades, East-West might consider sacrificing in seven hearts. However, at equal vulnerability, it is hard for either player to take the spectacularly cheap save in seven hearts, which goes just one down.

After West’s top heart lead is won in hand, a top trump from the South hand at trick two appears routine. When West shows out, insurance against a 5-0 diamond break should be taken out. This can be done by conceding a diamond trick at once, ruffing West’s heart or club return, then trumping a low diamond with the spade ace. Now declarer can return to hand with a spade finesse against East to draw trump and run the established diamond suit.

This play involves the investment of an overtrick. But even at matchpoints one might consider this a worthwhile maneuver, since making six spades should score well enough, given the cheap save for East-West.

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.