When I collected the bronze medal at the 1994 Generali Individual, Wubbo de Boer (who was part of the Dutch team that had won the world championship a couple of years previously) was sitting South and received a club lead against his contract of four spades doubled.

He ruffed it, then realized that if he played a heart to the king, the defense could simply draw trump, and leave him with a probable second heart loser. So he guessed correctly to run the heart 10 around to East’s ace. Back came a second club, which he ruffed again.

Now if declarer plays on trumps, the defense can duck the first round. When they win the second trump and play a third club, the hearts are blocked. Declarer would have to ruff to get back to hand and would run out of trump. However, if South unblocks the hearts at once before playing the spade king, East wins his spade ace, leads a diamond to his partner, then gets a heart ruff.

De Boer saw the problems, and having gone to all those lengths to finesse in hearts at trick two, he now led the heart king from his hand, crashing the queen, then ruffed a heart with dummy’s spade king! Next he simply drew trump, having retained control of the hand, and could not be prevented from making 10 tricks.

It is psychologically very difficult to reverse your strategy in midhand as De Boer did, and even more difficult to find these plays at the table rather than in the post-mortem.

When Snow White was discovered by the dwarves, you may be surprised that their first reaction was delight that she would be the eighth player to make up a duplicate teams event.

On the first deal, Snow White partnered Sleepy, who had forgotten what the contract was by the time the auction was complete and selected the spade 10 against what he thought was a four-heart contract.

Grumpy allowed the spade 10 to hold the trick, and Sleepy was just awake enough to continue with his remaining spade. Grumpy played small from dummy, and Snow White deceptively played the king.

Her plan worked. Eventually Grumpy played small from his hand, and Snow White played a third spade. Alas, Grumpy’s pause had distracted Sleepy, and as he dozed off yet again, the club ace fell from his hand.

Grumpy insisted that the card be played, but now when he played off the top clubs, he found Snow White controlled the suit. Grumpy now took his three top diamonds, and next played the heart king, then the nine, cunningly playing low from his own hand. If Sleepy had taken this trick, he would have had one diamond to cash, but would have had to concede the last two tricks. However, all Grumpy’s planning had proved too much for Sleepy, and he allowed the heart nine to win the trick!

With the lead in dummy and only clubs left, Grumpy had to concede the rest to Snow White and go one down.

Erstwhile President of the European Bridge League, Bill Pencharz, who was both a top player and for many years a nonplaying captain of the Great Britain team, now resides mainly in France. Today's is deal from the French interclub tournament, which allowed him to reach the finals last summer.

To see the problem that led to his qualification, put yourself in declarer’s shoes and cover up the East and West cards. Plan the play in four hearts on the lead of the club king. East overtakes the club king with the ace and continues the suit to West’s queen. West now plays a third club. Do you ruff, and if so, with what?

Now ‘the trump 10’ from dummy sees East play the two; what next? At the table declarer carefully overtook the heart ‘10’ with the ace, planning to strip off the diamonds and exit with a second heart in an attempt to endplay someone with the second round of trump. This would succeed unless West had neither heart honor. All of that sounds reasonable; but there was a catch, as you can see when you look at the full deal.

Pencharz’s decision not to overruff had given declarer a problem that he did not solve. Would South have got the trump right had East overruffed? Only the Shadow knows!

I was given this deal with just the North and South cards and was told that this hand was originally published in a French newspaper. I thought it was an extremely challenging problem. Do you agree?

As South, you reach four spades after making a disciplined pass in second seat, despite the vulnerability. However, facing partner’s double of one heart, you can hardly do less than bid game. When dummy comes down, you see a disappointing wastage in hearts. How should you plan the play?

A natural move is to come to hand and lead up to the spade king, hoping for the ace to be favorably placed for you. As the cards lie, that line will not work. A better approach is to assume that at least one of the two missing aces must be onside, but you should first try to find the diamond ace onside. If it is not, you can fall back with complete confidence on the play of leading to the spade king.

Almost the only line to succeed is to ruff the first trick and lead a diamond toward the king. If West ducks his ace, you win dummy’s king, pitch your diamonds on dummy’s hearts, then lead a spade to the king for overtricks. If West flies up with his diamond ace, you have only one diamond loser, so can discard both your club losers on the hearts and again play on spades for overtricks.

In today's deal South plays in four hearts after West has opened one diamond. West's opening lead is the diamond queen. How should you plan the play, seeing just the North and South cards?

One declarer won the diamond lead, drew trump, and exited with king and another diamond, hoping to endplay West. This line would have been successful had diamonds broken 5-2, or had East been unable to beat dummy’s diamond spot. Alas for South, East’s possession of the diamond 10 meant that he could win the trick. He played a spade through and declarer had to go down, eventually losing two spades, a diamond and one club.

Better is to endplay West to give you a trick in the black suits. You cannot avoid a diamond loser, but losing the trick to West is very much in your interest. The way to do that is to duck the first diamond, then win the diamond continuation, draw trump, and take the club finesse.

Next, you cash all your minor-suit winners and exit withthe club ace and another club, knowing that West will win. That player is forced to lead a spade, whereupon all your worries are over, or he has to give you a ruff-sluff. If he does that, you pitch a spade from hand while ruffing in dummy.

Of course, if diamonds break 6-1 and West had the doubleton or singleton club king, you would have to prepare your own excuses — or blame me. My shoulders are broad.

I was saddened to hear of the death of Bobby Richman, an American who moved to Australia and represented that country internationally for over two decades. When you look at all four hands here, you may wonder how Richman could make four hearts — and indeed, the solution is extremely elegant.

Although declarer can eventually set up the diamonds, the defenders will by then have taken two diamonds and two clubs. But after West led a low trump, Richman won the ace, overtook the trump queen with the king, and played three more rounds of trumps, throwing two clubs and a diamond from the dummy and squeezing East.

East could afford two small clubs. But on the next trump he could not throw a spade, or declarer would establish a long spade in dummy with a spade ruff — having the diamond ace as the entry to it. Nor could he discard a diamond, or declarer would set up that suit for one loser. East therefore bared the club ace. No harm appears to have been done yet, but Richman now ducked a diamond, West winning and switching to a club to East’s ace.

That player had no club to return, so shifted to a spade. Declarer won with the king and continued with ace and another diamond, setting up that suit. It was East who won the trick, perforce. With no club left, he had to play a spade to the ace, and declarer now discarded his remaining club on the long diamond.

One of my more prolific correspondents is Tim Bourke from Australia, who has written about the arcane side of bridge as well as expounding on basic technique. He sent me this fascinating deal that he had played recently, which includes elements of both sides of the game.

For those of you who prefer the auction using standard methods, I suggest you focus simply on how to make four spades, without worrying about the strong-club opening bid.

The spade game looks to be off a trick in each suit, but on a heart lead to the ace and a shift to the diamond queen (reasonable enough, though a heart continuation would have worked better), the hand can now be made, despite the bad trump break.

Bourke took the diamond ace, cashed just two top spades, finding the bad news, then played the club king (carefully unblocking the eight from dummy). West took his ace, then got out with the club nine to the 10, jack and queen.

Now Bourke cashed the remaining high spade and exited with a spade to West. That player had nothing but hearts left, and was obliged to lead the heart queen. Bourke ruffed with his last trump, led the club two to dummy’s seven to allow him to cash dummy’s heart winner and discard his diamond loser, then was able to come back to hand by leading dummy’s priceless club four to his five, to cash the club three at trick 13.

As today's quotation suggests, there is nothing new under the sun. Likewise, in bridge most themes have been seen before. I am however indebted to Jean-Paul Meyer for the idea of this deal, which sees you reach four spades in the teeth of a strong no-trump overcall by East. Given the vulnerability, you would assume he therefore has at least a decent 15-count.

When the club 10 is led, East overtakes and cashes his club winners. You ruff the third, and would presumably settle down to a quick count of the hand, which suggests East has all the missing high cards.

When you play the spade king, you are hoping West has two spades or a bare 10. No luck today; East wins the third spade and exits in clubs. Whatever you do now, you won’t succeed.

The winning line is counterintuitive, but essentially fail-safe. Instead of leading a spade to the ace, give up the first spade to East by leading to dummy’s jack! Win the likely spade return, cash the two top hearts (a maneuver known as the Vienna Coup, setting up your heart jack as the threat in that suit). Then run the spades, and you can guarantee that East will be squeezed in the red suits. After five rounds of spades, three clubs, and two hearts, you will have the heart jack and two diamonds in hand, the ace-king-jack of diamonds in dummy, and if you haven’t seen the heart queen appear, you will play diamonds from the top.

Consider the play in five diamonds, on the lead of the top spade. You appear to have one heart and at least one club to lose.

You could cross to the heart ace and simply take a club finesse for the contract. However another possibility is to win the spade and play ace and a second heart — trying to duck the heart into West, so that you can establish the suit without letting East on lead for the fatal club shift. If you follow that line, you might duck the first heart if West follows with the king.

An alternative approach that has a lot to recommend it is to play West for all three spade honors. Instead of requiring the heart king to be well-placed, try winning the first spade, crossing to the heart ace, then leading the spade 10 and discarding your heart loser. West wins and can do little but play a trump back. You win in dummy, ruff a heart high, go back to a trump to ruff another heart high, and use the diamond nine as the entry to dummy to cash the three heart winners to pitch club losers. You end up scoring one spade, six diamonds and four heart tricks.

If the spade jack turns up in East, you can always fall back on West’s having the bare heart king left. If that is not so, then the defenders will win, play clubs, and you are little worse off than before.