How would you tackle today's spade game when West leads the diamond nine?

The original declarer did not give the matter sufficient consideration, and as a result, plunged to defeat. He won the diamond lead with dummy’s ace and finessed the spade queen. West won with the king and played another diamond. After cashing two winners in the suit, East tried his luck with a fourth round of diamonds. With the trumps lying as they were, this promoted West’s spade nine to the setting trick. Do you see how declarer could have avoided this trump promotion?

To kill the entry to the East hand, you need to duck the first round of diamonds. You can then win the second round with dummy’s ace and finesse in trump, and West can no longer reach the East hand for a trump promotion. There is absolutely no risk in ducking the first diamond. If the diamond-nine opening lead happened to be a singleton, West would be ruffing a loser after a diamond return.

Holding up an ace to break the defenders’ communications is a familiar idea when playing in no-trump, but it can be just as valuable in a suit contract. The purpose is exactly the same — to cut the communications between the defenders.

Incidentally, you must also resist the temptation to try to cash the top hearts early. There is no need to rush to take your discard — it can wait till after trumps are drawn.

Against your contract of three no-trump, West leads the heart seven to East's queen. You hold up your ace to cut the defenders' communications and win the third round, throwing a spade from dummy. You need three club tricks, but cannot afford to let West obtain the lead.

The normal play when you are missing both the 10 and nine is to lead to the jack, your best shot at four tricks, but here a first-round finesse of the club jack is not best. The point is that West would eventually win the lead by taking a trick with his remaining club K-10 and defeat you by cashing out his hearts. (You would also go down when West started with club K-9-6, provided East unblocked the club 10 under dummy’s jack.)

Since West is the danger hand, you should lead the club queen on the first round, planning to run that card. Here West will cover with the king, won with dummy’s ace. It will then be a relatively simple matter to return to your hand with a diamond and lead to the club eight, ducking into the safe hand.

Incidentally, a sensible play for three tricks in isolation, if you weren’t concerned with keeping West off lead, would be to cash the club ace first. If either the club 10 or nine falls, make your next play on the assumption that this card may be a singleton. For example, if East drops the club nine, you should lead to the club queen next.

.Today's deal illustrates what to an experienced bridge player is a rather unlikely theme because it runs counter to the idea of what a squeeze is. Simply put, if you guard one suit and your partner another suit, neither of you should be squeezed. If you each have to guard a third suit, you can understand a squeeze might operate – but if there are only two danger suits, and two of you to look after those suits, how can any pressure be brought to bear? Watch and learn!

Against four hearts West began by playing off his three top diamonds, eliminating that suit as a source of pressure for declarer. Declarer ruffed the third diamond and played a trump. East took the second trump and sensibly exited with the club two, giving nothing away.

Declarer won this in hand and simply ran his trump, reducing to a position where dummy had ace-third of spades and two small clubs, while declarer had three spades, a trump and the master club.

When South led his last trump, West had to keep the spades guarded and so pitched down to one club, while a spade was discarded from dummy. Now East had to throw a spade to keep control of the clubs. Reading the position, South (who knew West had the spade queen because of East’s pass in response to his partner’s opening bid) led the spade jack, covered all around. The fall of the 10-9 of spades meant declarer’s hand was now high.

When this deal came up a year or so ago in the later stages of a national knockout championship, I was surprised that neither declarer came a great deal closer to making his delicate game contract.

Both Wests led the spade king against four hearts and shifted to the club jack, at least reducing the total number of possible losers declarer had by one. Both declarers pulled out cards without any particular direction in mind, and eventually finished up by leading a diamond toward the king, thus going down one for a flat board. Running the diamond jack would not have worked any better, since East would have covered, of course.

Success requires nothing more than finding trumps not 3-0, with the clubs dividing no worse than 6-2 and the club 10 where you would expect it to be — in the West hand. The winning line is to cash the heart ace at trick three, then your remaining high club, before you cross to dummy with the heart king, drawing the last trump in the process.

Now you lead the club nine from dummy and throw your last spade away, endplaying West into winning and either leading a diamond, when you lose just to the ace, or playing a club. In that case, you pitch a diamond from dummy and play to ruff two diamonds in the North hand.

I always appreciate receiving deals from my readers. Here is one from Orville St. Clair, who pointed out the elegance of the possibilities in the deal, which he had played in four diamonds, making 11 tricks. Let's consider instead that he had been in five diamonds, to appreciate the full beauty of the play.

If you look at all four hands, you will see that there are two inescapable aces for declarer to lose in five diamonds, so the key to the deal is to avoid losing a second spade trick. After a top heart lead, declarer would like to find a way to force the defenders to open up his vulnerable suits. Remember, there is no suit that you can play to more advantage by yourself, compared to having the opponents tackle it for you.

So, win the heart lead and advance the club queen. East will no doubt cover, but no matter what he does, you play the ace and ruff a club, ruff a heart, ruff a club, and ruff another heart before leading a high trump from your hand. When East wins, he could lead either a club or heart to let you pitch a spade from hand and ruff in dummy, or he can shift to a spade. You put in the 10 and this is covered by West’s jack and won by the queen. Next a spade toward the king means East will win just one spade trick, whether he takes the ace now or later.

When South took advantage of the favorable vulnerability to overcall four spades (for which one could hardly blame him), North took him seriously and jumped to slam. No one had done anything ridiculous, but the final contract was hardly one Lloyds of London would have had any interest in underwriting.

In fact the slam has almost no play – 12 out of 13 of West’s cards defeat the slam, but can you criticize him for leading his singleton heart? I certainly cannot — and anyone who would is a results-merchant of the highest order!

Even after that start, declarer had to play perfectly to envisage a possible way home. He ruffed the first heart high, then led a low trump to the seven to ruff a second heart, and made his next critical play when he ducked a club. East won the first club and returned the suit, allowing declarer to win in dummy and ruff a third heart. Declarer drew the second round of trumps by leading the 10 to the jack to ruff a fourth heart with his last trump, and West was forced to underruff to preserve his diamond guard and master club. That only postponed the evil day: South crossed to dummy with the diamond ace to cash the spade ace and pitch his club, squeezing West in the minors.

This play is called a dummy reversal. Declarer scored seven trump tricks by ruffing four times in the South hand and drawing trump with the three-card suit.

Against your contract of three no-trump, West leads the spade seven. You duck East's queen and win the second spade (since if spades are 4-3, they pose no imminent danger to you).

You have five top tricks and must aim to score four tricks from the diamond suit. Additionally, though, when West holds five spades, you must set up the diamonds without allowing West on lead. This can be done if East holds three diamonds to the queen — but only if you take care to lead diamonds twice toward your hand.

Therefore, after taking the spade ace, cross to the heart king and lead a low diamond. East plays low and you win with the diamond ace. You return to dummy with a club and lead another diamond. If East rises with the queen, you will let it hold. He will probably play low instead, and you win with the king. When you surrender a third round of the suit, it is East (the safe hand) who has to win the trick. As a result of good fortune combined with sound technique, you make your game.

Do you see why it was right to win the second round of spades? Suppose you had held up the spade ace a second time. West might then have played a middle (suit-preference) spade for want of anything better to do, and a bright East could then ditch the diamond queen! This would promote West’s diamond jack to an entry.

Here, you reach a slam after the opponents pre-empt, warning you of bad breaks to come. North's four-club call was a cuebid, agreeing spades, since having opened one no-trump, he would never go past three no-trump without a fit for you. That encourages you to follow the simple route to six spades.

On the lead of the heart two to the ace, you can be entirely sure that hearts are splitting 7-1. That is good news if you plan to construct an endplay, since West has no communications to his partner’s hand. After winning the heart ace, you draw trump, throwing a heart from the table. Now can you do better than taking the simple club finesse?

Yes, you can; start by playing a diamond to the queen. Then lead a low club from the table and cover East’s card with the nine. Here West wins with the 10 and plays back a second diamond. You now take the diamond ace and king, then play the spade 10, throwing the last heart from dummy. This reduces everyone to three cards, and East is squeezed; he cannot keep both the hearts and clubs guarded.

Instead of relying on the club finesse — a 50 percent chance — you followed a line of play that would win whenever West had either the club 10 or club queen. By testing diamonds and spades and getting an inferential count of hearts, you would always be sure how many clubs East started with, and thus whether a finesse was necessary in the three-card ending.