In today's deal the North-South bidding was no more than adequate, but it was South's play that left room for significant improvement.

At his final turn North might well have converted six spades to six no-trump to protect his diamond tenace. When West obediently led the diamond two, declarer optimistically inserted dummy’s queen, but of course the finesse lost. At this point East did well to return a diamond, removing an entry from the table, rather than the more obvious heart shift. After winning with the diamond ace, declarer tested the clubs by cashing the ace and king, then ruffed a club high. Since the queen had not appeared, all that was left was to cash the two top spades, ending in dummy, and fall back on the heart finesse. Down one.

Can you see a better approach to the play? Suppose that declarer simply plays low from dummy at trick one. East wins with his jack but clearly cannot return the suit without conceding the 12th trick. Say that he switches to a heart; South wins with his ace and follows with three rounds of clubs as before. Then comes the spade ace, and another spade to dummy’s king allows another club to be ruffed high. The key difference is that after South draws the last trump, the diamond ace is still in dummy as an entry to the long club.

Finally, I leave my resourceful readers to work out what might have happened if West had found the lead of the diamond 10.

Today's deal comes from a head-to-head encounter in a match between two New York country clubs. At one table the North-South pair had missed their respectable slam, but were delighted to find that they had picked up a big swing when the player in the South seat had chosen the wrong time to apply expert technique.

If you simply focus on the heart suit, you have probably been taught that the right way to guard against a 4-1 break is to cash a top honor from hand and lead up to the king. However, that play would only be critical if there were no side-entries to dummy — and here the entries to the North hand plentiful.

So you can focus your energy on other problem distributions. Since you will never guess to play West for four hearts and are not bothered by East’s having four hearts to the jack as we have seen, all that remains in the way of problem distributions are the 5-0 breaks.

Correct technique in the slam after the club-jack lead runs around to the king is to lead a heart to the king. Now you can pick up East’s trump with ease because your spot cards allow for two finesses. Of course, if West had followed to the first heart, you would play a heart to the queen, then cross back to dummy with a spade for the marked finesse, if necessary.

There is nothing more satisfying than to find a hand where the defenders set their opponent a real challenge, and declarer was equal to the task.

This deal came up at the European championships a few years ago, and few defenders found the route to trouble declarer. A typical sequence of play saw the defenders cash their clubs and exit in trump, letting declarer ruff a heart to hand early and draw trump.

Far better for the defense is for West to cash the diamond ace at trick three and play a third club, attacking the trump suit. When this happened, declarer elected to ruff in hand. However, the 3-1 trump break coupled with the bad heart break meant that so long as West did not cover the spade jack, declarer could not avoid a fourth loser. If declarer drew trump, he would be unable to ruff out hearts; if he left trump out, West could overruff South on the third heart. (Note that if West covers the spade jack, declarer can ruff the next heart high and then finesse the spade eight to make his game.)

The winning line at trick three for declarer is to ruff the club on the table and discard his heart from hand. Now he can take a heart ruff and run the spade jack. West will gain nothing by covering, but if he ducks, declarer leads a spade to the queen. Next comes a second heart ruff, a spade to the ace, and dummy is high.

When South promised a spade control by raising North's five-heart jump to slam, West wisely decided to go passive with a trump lead.

Declarer now tried to improve on the simple chance that clubs would break favorably. He drew three rounds of trump, and when East discarded two diamonds, he realized that West was going to be very short in either clubs or diamonds. It would have been simple (but fatal) to cash the ace and king of clubs. Instead South found a very neat play. He took one top club, cashed three rounds of diamonds, pitching a spade from dummy, and found West with three cards in the suit, then led a club to dummy.

As expected, West showed out, but declarer was unfazed. He had reduced the hand to a five-card ending, where dummy had a singleton spade, a trump, and jack-third of clubs, while South had two trumps and his three spades left. He knew West was down to six spades, including the ace, so he led dummy’s spade and covered East’s card, endplaying West to give him a spade trick for the 12th winner.

Note that even if West had begun with fewer diamonds, and thus had a club left, a club play would have set up a club winner in dummy as an alternative route to the 12th trick. The only shape that would have been fatal to declarer was if West had started life with four diamonds and no clubs, when there is no winning line.

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.