Any contract that will make if a finesse succeeds cannot be considered hopeless. Sometimes, though, the auction will tell you that there has to be some better chance because the bidding has converted your 50 percent play into a no-hoper. Put yourself in South's shoes to see if you can spot the improvement.

When Denmark played Canada in the Venice Cup a decade ago, both declarers (Francine Cimon and Trine Bilde) reached three no-trump and knew that the auction had indicated that the heart finesse would fail. They ducked the first two clubs and worked out that West had the long club from the defensive signals.

They won the third club and decided against trying to find a favorable heart distribution (such as playing East for the singleton or doubleton jack). Instead, they cashed the diamond ace and king, then the two top spades, and exited with the fourth club. At this point West had nothing but hearts left and had to lead into declarer’s acequeen to concede the ninth trick.

As you can see, the natural play might seem to be for declarer to win the second or third round of clubs and cash all the spade winners, but then there is no way back to hand to endplay West in clubs. To succeed, declarer needs to find West with relatively short spades and diamonds; but the auction has made that virtually a racing certainty.

Today’s contract of three no-trump sees West lead the spade jack, and — following general principles — you duck the trick. Spades appear to be the only danger suit, and ducking starts to cut the defenders’ communications.

East overtakes with the queen and advances the spade king, which you duck again. If the defenders continued with a third spade you would knock out the diamond queen, knowing that there is no danger from the spades; but as the cards lie East cannot continue with a third spade; instead he shifts to the heart 10, and now you appear to be home free.

But beware! If you win the first heart and play three rounds of diamonds, West will win and exit with a spade, locking you in dummy and cutting you off from your second heart winner. And if you cash the second top heart, West will unblock the queen and you are again doomed to go down.

Having identified the problem, no doubt you will have spotted the solution. After winning the heart king at trick three, simply play the diamond ace and then lead a low diamond. When West wins the diamond queen (and he might well duck!) he cannot simultaneously dislodge dummy�s spade and club aces. The best he can do is clear the spades, but you can arrange to cross back to hand with the diamond king, cash your heart winner, and go back over to dummy with the club ace to run the diamonds.

Having a nasty surprise for the declarer in the trump suit may be sufficient grounds for doubling the final contract, but by alerting declarer to the bad break, you may provide a blueprint on how the hand should be played.

In today’s deal, having given a restrained preference to two spades, North could hardly be faulted for going on to game when South issued a somewhat dubious invitation. West doubled and led the diamond three; declarer took East’s king with the ace. Alerted by the double, declarer left trump well alone, and prepared for a diamond ruff by returning the diamond jack at trick two, making sure that East could not gain the lead and switch to a trump.

West won and tried the effect of switching to a cunning club six. Declarer put up dummy’s ace and played the heart queen, covered by the king and ace. He ruffed his last diamond, returned to hand with the heart jack, and ruffed a heart. Then he trumped a club, revealing West’s deception, and ruffed his last heart with dummy’s remaining trump.

Declarer was now down to the spade K-Q-9-6 while West had his four trumps left, and dummy was reduced to just clubs. With eight tricks in the bag, declarer played a club and ruffed it with his spade queen. West overruffed with the spade ace and returned the jack, but declarer ducked and left West on play to lead into declarer’s spade tenace. Contract made!

In this deal from the final of the Memphis Life Master Pairs, I assume that most of us would fall from grace and open the South hand one heart, thus ending up in four hearts.

At the table, South received a club lead and led a heart to the nine, jack and king. Declarer won the club return, pitching a spade, and played a heart to the ace. He then went to the diamond queen, ruffed a club, and ran the diamonds. West discarded a spade on the fourth diamond, so South simply played for the spade ace to be onside — no dice.

By contrast, Sabine Auken reached four hearts on an auction where East had been able to double an artificial club call. When she got the lead of the club three (third from an even number, low from an odd number), she played for clubs to have been 3-6 originally. After running the diamonds, she exited with the third heart and endplayed West in trumps to lead spades.

Note that East should have put up the heart queen on the first round of the suit. Now declarer could not arrange the endplay no matter what he did.

At another table, when West was stewing over what to lead against four hearts, his opponent asked sympathetically if he would like some help and pulled out a card for him. West accepted the choice — the heart three! This play forced East to put up the heart queen, and now declarer had no chance.

Gertrude Stein’s last words were, reputedly, “What is the answer? . . . What is the question?”

Take that as your mantra for the next problem, set by Kit Woolsey from the second round of the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams. You lead a third- and fifth-best club eight against three spades, to discover dummy has been playing a little joke. His two-no-trump call (simulating invitational values or better) succeeded in keeping your side out of the auction.

Your club lead goes to dummy’s nine and partner’s ace. Back comes the heart nine (which conventionally shows zero or two higher honors) to declarer’s ace. He plays a second club, and you win the king to continue hearts. Declarer wins in dummy, cashes the club queen to discard a heart, then plays a spade.

Partner shows out, discarding the diamond queen, so you take declarer’s spade king with your ace. There seems no point in underleading the diamond ace, since declarer cannot have a guess in the suit, so you cash the diamond ace and play a diamond, locking declarer in dummy. How does South get back to hand safely for the spade finesse? Declarer is going to ruff a club to hand (having registered your club spots and that your partner took the ace at trick one) unless you dropped the club jack under the queen a few tricks ago!

Woolsey found the play and declarer went with the odds when he tried to ruff a heart to hand. The overruff meant he was down one.

At the U.S. Nationals in Memphis last spring, the Stratified Open Pairs threw up a deal with a point of interest in the play. After a highly informative auction, South reached three hearts on a fourth-highest club lead from West. Declarer won in hand and advanced the diamond queen to West’s king. Back came a second club, and South won the club return in dummy to play a second diamond. East won the ace and shifted to a low spade. What should declarer do now?

The auction had strongly suggested that West, because of his failure to act earlier was 4-6 in spades and clubs. He would surely have opened three clubs or stayed silent without a side-suit. And the logical second suit for him to hold had to be spades.

If that inference is sound, then the right line, which declarer missed at the table, is to win the spade ace, which he did. But then it was right to cash only one top trump, not both — after all, on our projected arithmetic, West could have at most one trump and South needs to retain a high trump in hand, as we shall see.

If South had done that, he could then have played the diamond jack, pitching a spade from dummy. Then he can ruff a diamond, ruff a club, and lead the fifth diamond to discard the other losing spade from dummy. If East ruffs in on the third club, South overruffs and leads the fifth diamond as before.

It’s very easy to defend by rote. See if you can do better than the East-West pair managed on this deal, from the stratified pairs at the Memphis Nationals last spring. North-South had managed to reach four spades after a patented transfer auction to establish they had no club stopper, and had also done well to locate the more solid of their 4-3 major-suit fits.

The defenders led two rounds of clubs. So far, so good; but what next? East shifted to diamonds and declarer, Glenn Milgrim, could finesse, then draw trump when he got back in. That was 10 painless tricks and a top for him. Perhaps East should have led a third club instead for the ruff-sluff. Declarer should ruff in hand, could now lead a low diamond from hand, and might survive if he reads the position. But would he? Who can say? But making 420 rates to be very good here.

Let’s go back to trick one. The delicate bidding sequence means that West knows his side has the club ace and king, that both are cashing, and that the opponents are in a 4-3 fit. If he knows that he is going to get in with the diamond king later on, perhaps he can find the heart lead.

Now the club queen and diamond king will provide re-entry to give partner two ruffs, if declarer does not draw all the trump. (Incidentally, even a heart shift by East at trick two or three does the trick — and that is certainly easier to find.)

The first two days of the spring nationals feature the Baldwin North American pairs, for which one qualifies by district; a small field reduces down to a 14-table final. At last year’s event, in Memphis, the winners were Jordan Cohen and Barry Senensky, who were among the lowest qualifiers for the finals. If not for this deal from the first qualifying session, they might not have been playing on day two.

The deal emphasizes that one should not play bridge in a vacuum, but should take advantage of any indications provided to you by the opponents. You exploit such variations at your own risk, of course, but a skilled player soon learns what and whom to believe!

Against the delicate spade slam (I might use a less flattering term had the contract not come home), West led a trump, taken in dummy. Declarer, Jordan Cohen — who is the son of one of the stalwarts of the American Contract Bridge League, the late Ralph Cohen — followed up by running the club jack, which lost to West’s king.

He won the spade continuation in dummy and was now faced with a choice of lines. Rather than rely on strict percentages, he tested his table presence by advancing the heart king. When South played low smoothly, Cohen decided that the ace rated to be wrong. He ruffed the heart, then finessed in both minors to come to 12 tricks. He was lucky, perhaps, but he exploited the lie of the cards to the best advantage.

With the spring national championships currently taking place in St Louis, Mo., this week’s deals all come from last year’s championships in Memphis.

Sometimes you need the cards to lie just so to give yourself a chance to make your contract. And when they do, the satisfaction for you (plus the irritation caused to your opponents) is all the more. Today’s deal provides just such an example.

Nobody did anything too outrageous in the bidding, but four hearts was an uncomfortable contract for North-South. When West led a low club (suggesting a five-card suit in her methods), East decided to win and shift to a trump, reasonably assuming her heart queen was a dead duck. Notice that the club spots would have allowed South to set up the club eight for an extra winner had East played either her high or low club. Declarer won the trump in hand, ruffed a club, ducked a spade around to West, then won the trump return in hand and ruffed a second club. At this point East was out of clubs, so declarer could next play the spade king to force East to win. Since that player had no clubs to lead, she could do no better than play her low spade. This allowed declarer to ruff, then draw the last trump, and run the diamonds for four tricks.

In the end South scored six trump tricks (four in hand and two ruffs in dummy) plus four diamond winners.