What makes a bridge deal challenging? It is hard to know — although as Judge Potter Stewart eloquently put it, although in a slightly different context, I know it when I see it.

In today’s deal, though the play is limited to just two suits, there are many plausible options, and only one plan that covers almost all the bases.

Against six spades, reached after a heart pre-empt from West, the lead is the heart king to the ace. Declarer now draws trump in one round. What next? Clearly, you should play on clubs, but do you cash one honor, or both? You then finesse in clubs, but do you lead out the 10 or up to the nine?

The correct answer is “None of the above.” Declarer should now play ace and a low club. When East wins, he now has to lead a diamond. Declarer can play low, and when West has to contribute the queen, declarer can claim the rest.

Assuming West started with seven hearts then, once spades are 1-1, this plan only loses when East has queen-jack-fourth or longer in clubs and West has Q-10-x or longer in diamonds — when no reasonable plan succeeds.

For example, if West wins a club honor and returns the suit, declarer goes up with dummy’s king. If West still has a club honor left, then he has only one diamond, so the diamond finesse is sure to win. If West has a doubleton club honor, he will be endplayed on winning his club trick.

Today's deal was sent to me by a friend; I'm guessing it is an apocryphal story, but start by covering up the East-West hands and plan the play before reading on. In four hearts you receive the lead of a top diamond, followed by a shift to the spade jack. How do you plan the play?

The problem is that if you simply win the spade in dummy and play the heart king, West may be able to win, put his partner in with a diamond, and get a spade ruff. Can you see a way around the problem?

Knowing that West has most of the outstanding honor cards (and it is unlikely to cost anything anyway), you can find the Scissors Coup of winning the spade and playing three rounds of clubs. When East plays low on the third, you discard your diamond, thus swopping one loser for another and denying East an entry.

This is a good play, but most experts would expect to find it. However, there is a twist to the tale. With the cards lying as they do today, West can win the club queen and play another spade. A trick later he will get in with the trump ace and give his partner a spade ruff to defeat what appears to be the world’s easiest contract!

Of course if you claim to be the defender who found this ingenious shift, please write to the column and collect your brilliancy prize.

Squeeze play is a weapon generally used by declarer against helpless defenders.

However, today’s declarer in a knockout teams match found himself in the embarrassing situation of squeezing himself, a predicament made even worse by the fact that it was entirely his own fault.

Against three no-trump West led the heart nine, covered by the jack, queen and king. At trick two declarer played the spade queen, which West won with the ace, to continue with a second heart.

Declarer won the heart in dummy and crossed to hand with a low diamond to his king in order to play a spade to dummy’s nine. When East showed out, he cashed the spade king and played a fourth round of the suit. East could see that if West continued with a third round of hearts, declarer would have an easy nine tricks. Therefore, he thoughtfully discarded all his hearts.

West now switched to a club to East’s queen, and East played back a diamond. Declarer won in dummy and, without giving the matter much thought, played his winning spades. At the penultimate trick he played a club from dummy and then had the embarrassing problem of what to discard. In the event he guessed to keep the heart 10, and West took the last two tricks with the club ace and diamond jack.

Declarer’s mistake was to cash the last spade. If he simply plays a club at that stage, knocking out West’s ace, both his hand and dummy are high.

Today's deal comes from the recent U.S. National tournament in Atlanta. The guilty party reported the deal in the confessional booth, so we have preserved his anonymity.

In third seat our hero opened two no-trump, perhaps more as a tactical move to keep the opponents from identifying a major-suit fit if they had one, than because he thought it the right valuation of his hand. Naturally his partner raised him to three no-trump after a Stayman inquiry. The defense started by cashing four hearts, and declarer discarded a diamond and a spade from hand and a spade from dummy.

East now shifted to a diamond, and declarer took two high diamonds, finding that East had started with a singleton. With the clubs behaving, declarer had seven minor-suit winners and the spade ace, but no communication between his hand and dummy, so all that West had to do was watch declarer’s discard on the fourth club to defeat the game.

Since West had the spade king and only three clubs, declarer had missed the small extra chance that made the difference between success and failure. At trick five try taking the diamond shift, then cashing the spade ace (the Vienna Coup — an unblocking maneuver to facilitate the timing for a squeeze) and next running the clubs.

This would have had the effect of bringing West under pressure. In the three-card ending, dummy has the doubleton spade queen and a diamond, while declarer has king-queen-third of diamonds, and West cannot keep control of both suits.

When today's deal from the Dyspeptics Club was over, South grumbled that West's single high card had been enough to defeat his game. North, not usually a diplomat, answered that there was no way South could have made the contract, while East winked at him, understanding that this comment was more a reflection on South than the lie of the cards.

Against three no-trump West led the spade three, to the two, 10 and king. Had South ducked the first trick, the defenders would in turn have ducked the next spade and would have been poised to cash out.

South now took the simple approach by leading out the ace, king and another club, hoping that East would win the third round. But West could score his club jack and shoot back a second spade. That meant one down, when East cashed out his suit.

See the difference if declarer leads clubs twice from dummy. He has ample entries in hearts, so he crosses to dummy in that suit for the first club lead. If East plays low, South plays a club honor, then goes back to dummy in hearts for another club play. When the queen appears from East, declarer should allow this to hold — he has to lose a club trick anyway. East cannot advantageously attack spades from his side of the table, so the game comes home.

Note: If South plays the club ace at trick two, East must unblock his queen at once to prevent South’s avoidance play.

Have you noticed how many experts seem to be lucky and how many palookas are born to run into hostile breaks and unfavorable lies of the cards? I wonder whether the two things might somehow be linked. For example, the average player might go down like a stone in three no-trump here, and complain about his terrible misfortune, but in reality he would have only himself to blame.

Declaring the no-trump game, most Souths would duck the first heart, although this play is probably not important today. He would then take the second heart, cross to dummy with the spade king and lead the club queen. It would not matter whether East covered or ducked; the defense can prevail. The point is that declarer is permanently cut off from the long club in dummy — since the side entry is gone.

Another losing approach would be to cash the club ace at trick three — this is a somewhat better approach since it guards against West’s having all four clubs, though it fails today.

The expert player would, realize that nothing could be gained by ducking the first trick. He would win the first heart with the king, but then make the critical play of leading a low club toward the jack. This guards against a bad club break in either hand. Whether East wins or ducks the first club, declarer can set up the suit for one loser and come home painlessly with nine tricks.

After South opened one heart, North's two-no-trump call showed a forcing heart raise, while South's jump to game showed a minimum with no shortage. North now simply bid the small slam with some confidence, but the duplication of values and mirror-image shapes of the two hands made slam a parlous spot.

Can you find a legitimate line to bring home the bacon? The answer lies in your club spots, coupled with the fact that the opponents’ spades are divided 5-2, so they have no flexibility as to who will win the third round of that suit.

After the lead of the spade jack, you plan to eliminate the side-suits and hope to receive something to your advantage. Win the spade ace, then take the heart ace and queen. Cash the spade king, noting East’s queen, then play off the diamond ace and king, and lead out the club jack. You are hoping that West will duck, and in such situations leading the lower of touching honors is more likely to persuade West to play low. If he does not cover, you can endplay him with the third round of spades to lead clubs for you. However, if he covers the club jack, you can succeed if you play East to hold the club 10. (If spades are 5-2, you expect East to be longer in clubs.) Win the club ace, then cash the club queen and endplay East with a club to give you a ruff-sluff, on which your losing spade goes away.

Let's look at how the play rates to go when West leads a heart against three no-trump, going to East's 10 and declarer's queen.

If declarer leads a diamond next, the defenders can afford to duck this, and that will not be enough to let declarer come to nine tricks.

It is a different story if declarer leads either a spade or a club at trick two. Let’s say declarer leads a club. I think it is somewhat more likely that West will duck, hoping his partner has the jack. When the club queen scores, declarer leads a spade to the jack and ace, wins the heart return in hand, leads a low diamond to the jack, comes back to hand with a spade and leads another low diamond toward dummy. West’s ace falls on empty air sooner or later, and declarer scores one club, two spades, and three tricks in each red suit.

Of course, if West flies up with his club ace at trick two and plays on hearts, declarer is dead in the water. Advantage to the defense? No, declarer has a resource, though a somewhat unlikely one, and it comes at trick one. He must duck the first trick — an apparently illogical play with three guards in the danger suit.

That leaves East on play. He will exit in spades, letting West win, and play a second heart. Declarer simply wins and knocks out the diamond ace, then the club ace, and has a painless nine tricks.

Ken Barbour of Arizona had already represented Great Britain at bridge at the age of 25 before coming to the United States and retiring from the game. Happily, after a 20-year hiatus, Barbour took up the game seriously again. Playing with another expatriate, Alan Truscott, he perpetrated the following coup at the Miami Nationals in 1996. Put yourself in the East seat to appreciate the full beauty of it.

Barbour and Truscott had followed an optimistic sequence (slightly edited here) to arrive at six diamonds, which we will charitably attribute to a fit of youthful enthusiasm. This was particularly the case since three no-trump was a likely final resting spot at the other table, so there was perhaps no need to go looking for slams.

With a blind opening lead, West tried the club 10, and, perhaps without giving the matter sufficient thought, East followed with his small card, which systemically encouraged the lead. This was the natural thing to do — but it might well have been better to overtake the trick, though the reason for that was hardly obvious.

However, Barbour now played for his only chance by ducking the first trick — setting West an almost impossible problem. It was natural for him to continue with a second club. Now Barbour could win in hand, draw trump, then throw away his spade loser on the fourth round of clubs. When the heart jack cooperated by putting in a timely appearance, another impossible contract had come home.