When we read books or articles about suit combinations, they generally assume that the suit is in isolation — i.e., that the only consideration is the actual odds in the single combination. However, in real life there are often other things to take into account.

For example, here West leads the diamond six against four hearts. How would you plan the play?

The first decision is whether or not to win the first diamond, and that depends on whether you think West might have a seven-card diamond suit. The rule of 11 says no – but that is not the full story. You don’t want to duck the first diamond and run into a club shift that may help the defenders build a trick in that suit.

After you win the diamond ace, the percentage play in isolation in hearts is to start by cashing the ace. With no opposition bidding, you would then cash the king, but in the face of West’s pre-empt you may prefer to take a finesse against East’s queen. The problem is that you have no easy way back to dummy.

Even if you guess correctly in spades, the defenders may be able to take the spade ace and play two more rounds of diamonds, generating a trump loser for you. Now you will need something miraculous in the black suits to avoid a fourth loser.

After you win trick one, it is surely better to take a first-round heart finesse, playing East to have queen-third or queen-fourth of trumps from the outset.

Against four spades West leads the trump seven to East's ace and a trump is returned, West following suit.

The contract is in danger only if East has the diamond king and you cannot avoid losing two club tricks. If West has both club honors, you will surely be sunk whenever East has the diamond king. Let’s not worry about that.

What else do we know? There are clues in the bidding and the lead. Since West did not lead a heart, East surely has a heart honor. If East had the club ace as well, he would have: the spade ace, the diamond king, the club ace and a heart honor. That would give him at least 12 high-card points and an opener in third seat. Thus, if the diamond king is wrong, so is the club ace.

The best way to win against this layout is to lead the club four from hand next! If West rises with the club ace, then you will lose only one club trick and are home free. If West plays low, you put in the jack. East will win the first club and can only return a heart. You will win and play the club king to West’s ace. West must shift to diamonds, but you rise with the ace and ruff the clubs good before returning to dummy with a heart ruff to run the good clubs. You will make four trumps, a heart, a heart ruff, a diamond and three clubs.

Nowadays in a European Teams Championships the boards are pre-dealt, the same boards are played across the field, and hand records are available at the close of play. All this is a boon for bridge journalists.

On today’s hand, from the 2010 event, the popular contract was five diamonds by South. Whether it made or failed depended to a large extent on the activities, or lack of them, by opponents during the bidding phase.

When West employed a gadget to show both majors over South’s one-diamond opener, declarer was able to pinpoint the distribution and play accordingly. Additionally, if West led and continued hearts, the majors could be eliminated and East endplayed. The worst-case scenario for South is a trump lead. With a certain heart loser, the contract depends on losing just one trick in clubs.

West is known to have at least five cards in each major, and has shown out on the second round of diamonds. So he can have two clubs at most. Of course a simple line would be to play West for the king, but the odds favor him instead tp have the jack or 10. If that is so, South can secure his contract. A low club to the nine loses to the 10, and back comes, say, a spade. Now, so long as declarer has retained a trump entry to dummy, the club queen can be led, neatly bringing down West’s jack, an example of the intrafinesse at work.

Today's deal saw West with a comfortable diamond lead against four hearts, and South was realized that he was faced with a distinctly uphill struggle when North revealed a disappointing dummy, with the spade king worth little or nothing.

From declarer’s perspective, there was a certain loser in each of the side suits, as well as further potential ones in trump and clubs. After winning the lead in dummy with the diamond king, East doing his best to encourage, declarer led a trump to the queen. When that held, South led a spade. West took his the spade ace and continued with a high diamond, setting up a trick for his side. South took the diamond with his ace, ruffed a spade, and led a second trump, crossing his fingers as he did so. When East’s king appeared, South’s potential trump loser had disappeared. After winning the heart ace, declarer ruffed his last spade, and now had to resist the temptation to relax.

Rather than play clubs himself, a 75 percent line, but one that might be fatal if West had both clubs and East a diamond entry, South completed the elimination by playing a diamond. East was able to win and shift to a club, but West then had to concede the 10th trick, either by conceding a ruff-and-discard or by playing on clubs to declarer’s advantage.

Note that if declarer plays clubs prematurely, West can win and lead a diamond to his partner, for a second club through declarer’s gizzard.

There is a big difference between needing tricks from a suit, in which case you grab what you can get, and trying to avoid losing too many tricks in that suit.

Against three no-trump West led the spade five, and although when East played the king declarer has two sure tricks in the suit, this gives him only seven winners. In order to get home he needs to set up his diamond suit, which should produce three tricks once the ace and king have been knocked out. Three diamonds, two clubs and three heart tricks are eight, so only one trick is needed from the spade suit.

What South needs to guard against is the spade suit producing three tricks for the defense. If spades break 4-3, all is well, but if they break 5-2, declarer must exhaust East’s spades before he wins the first diamond honor, and West will surely do his best to arrange that he does. (If East has both diamond honors, there is no problem; if West has both, there is no hope. But if they divide, then taking insurance at the cost of a trick ensures the contract.)

Therefore declarer must duck the spade king and win the spade return, so that when East is in with the diamond ace, he has no further spade to play, and the spade 10 in dummy acts as a guard against the run of the suit when West gets in. Now the defense can only come to two spade and two diamond tricks.

Sometimes the most difficult hands are ones where you appear to have an embarrassment of riches, with numerous ways to take or develop tricks.

Looking for the safest way to achieve your goal is complicated by the fact that when you believe your chances appear very good, it is easy to relax and take your eye off the ball.

Consider today’s deal, where at one table in a team game the defenders led and continued spades against three no-trump. South made the apparently natural move of ducking the spade ace until the third round. Then he tested the red suits and had no joy there, falling back on the club finesse. West (who had pitched clubs on the third round of the red suits) had two spades ready to cash when he won his club king, and that meant down one.

In the other room when West led the spade six, declarer ducked East’s king. East could see no reason to do anything but continue with the spade two. (Yes, a club shift would have worked better, but that is far from obvious.)

South rose with the spade ace and tested the red suits. When East proved to guard both of these suits, declarer put West on play with a spade. That player could cash two spade winners but then had to lead from his club king into South’s ace-queen. This line is guaranteed to succeed if East has length in both red suits.

As South you open one heart, and when your partner raises to two hearts (the hand is not close to a limit raise, though North should plan to compete to three hearts if necessary), you resist the temptation to go directly to game but advance with two no-trump, promising 17-18 points. That is enough for your partner to jump to four hearts, against which West leads the spade queen.

If you win the first spade, draw trump and, trying to avoid a lead through the diamond king, take a losing club finesse, West will win and play a spade to East’s king. Then a diamond cooks your goose.

Is there any reason for you to guess clubs right — other than the old wives’ tale that the queen lies over (or under) the jack? No, there isn’t, but if you make the right preparations, you can follow a line where you will succeed regardless of the location of the club queen.

The trick is to duck the opening lead. You win the next spade, draw trump, and take the losing club finesse. Now West has no entry to his partner’s hand. His best chance is to exit passively with a club, hoping you have four clubs and thus no discard coming on the clubs, since the auction has told West that you must hold the diamond king. But that does not work; you can discard a diamond on the clubs, give up a diamond, and ruff a spade in dummy for the 10th trick.

In today's deal from the semifinals of the NEC tournament in 2007, even if West pre-empted to two or three hearts, South became declarer in four spades. What do you think his chances are?

In one room Justin Hackett led the diamond three. Declarer Huub Bertens rose with dummy’s ace to play a spade to his ace, then ran the club jack to East’s queen. Jason Hackett now made the critical error by returning a top trump. Declarer won, played a diamond to the king, ruffed a diamond, crossed to dummy’s heart ace, and led the fourth diamond, scoring his spade eight. (It would have done East no good to ruff high in front of him.) He then ruffed a heart, exited with a trump, and had to score two of the remaining tricks for plus-420.

The play went the same way in the Closed Room to the first three tricks but at trick four Martin Schollaardt returned the diamond 10. Declarer, Geir Helgemo, won in dummy and played a top spade. Schollaardt did very well to duck. Helgemo won cheaply in hand, played a heart to the ace, the club king to the ace, then ruffed the diamond return, ruffed a heart, came to hand with the club 10, and led a fourth heart, ruffed and overruffed. The trump return now left Helgemo with a heart loser; minus 50, and 10 IMPs to the Dutchmen.

East’s ducking the trump prevented declarer from ruffing two diamonds in hand without creating an extra trump winner for the defense.