In today's deal North's raise of two hearts to three was just a little pushy. However, since his double was in the balancing seat, South might easily have held up to a 10-count for his minimum response in hearts. South accepted the invitation, since he did have a little in hand, and West led the spade two against the game.

When East took his ace, the killing diamond switch looked somewhat unappealing, so he returned a spade to the king. After drawing trump in three rounds and ruffing a spade, declarer led a low club to the jack and ace. The club 10 lost to the king, and when the clubs did not break, two diamonds eventually had to be lost.

If declarer had realized that his game needed a favorable lie of the clubs, there would have been no need to fear a club ruff. Accordingly, this suit should have been tackled earlier. There was the extra chance that East (who was marked with most of the missing points) held the king doubleton — together with a significant club spot.

After winning the spade return at trick two, declarer should have crossed to dummy with a trump and played a club to the jack and ace. Now two more rounds of trump, ending in dummy, would have allowed a low club to be led toward the 10. There are still two entries to dummy (the diamond ace and the deferred spade ruff) to enable declarer to unblock the club 10 and later cash the queen.

As West in today's deal you have wisely resisted the temptation to compete to two spades over two hearts. (It is partner's responsibility to do that with four spades.) It is not uncommon for the one-spade rebid to be based on three spades without a convenient alternative action, because opener is missing a heart stopper for no-trump.

Against two hearts you lead the club 10, and East wins the first trick with the ace. Next he plays the king and jack of clubs, declarer ruffing and West overruffing. What should West do next?

Whenever a defender is giving his partner a ruff, he should do his best to signal suit-preference at the same time. On this occasion East has played his highest club possible at every turn of the first three tricks, so is marked with the spade king. However, if you play a spade now and he wins his king, he may try another club, trying to promote a trump trick. You know that is the wrong defense, since your remaining trumps are small (though if you had begun with queen-jack-third of trumps and no diamond jack, this would indeed be the defenders’ best chance).

To avoid giving your partner the chance to go wrong, play a trump now. When East gets in, the possibility of a trump promotion will have disappeared, so he will know to play a diamond instead. This way, your side scores two tricks in each minor suit, and one in each of the majors.

Do not get caught up in the idea that the object of signaling relates solely to your holding in the suit led. When you signal encouragement on the suit led, part of what your signal implies is that you do not want a switch to whatever is deemed the obvious suit, assuming partner shifts. Conversely, discouragement of the led suit is equally about not liking the suit led and wanting the obvious shift.

Today’s deal shows how experts deal with this sort of situation. It comes from a clash between two of the major powers in bridge, a Russo-Polish squad and a top Dutch team.

At one table, East won the diamond ace and shifted to a club at trick two. He was playing his partner for the trump ace or king — in which case he might get a club ruff, but where would the defenders’ third trick come from?

In the other room Alexander Dubinin led his singleton diamond against four hearts. Andrey Gromov won the trick and cashed two more diamonds, on which Dubinin did the right thing by playing discouraging cards in both spades and clubs. Gromov now knew not to expect his side to take any tricks in the black suits, so he played a fourth diamond, promoting the trump queen for down one.

Just for the record, if West has the spade ace and no heart or club queen, he should ruff the third diamond to cash the spade ace, thus avoiding the possibility of an accident.

These days your opponents will bid so many thin games that you need to defeat them whenever possible, or you will be at a severe disadvantage.

In the finals of the 2008 world championships between England and China (England sat North-South), West opened a multicolored two diamonds, showing a weak two-bid in either major, or various strong options. North passed and East pre-empted further, bidding three hearts. Three hearts was passed out and went three down, for 150 to England.

When England was East-West, the Chinese North doubled the two-diamond opening (showing a balanced 13-16), causing South to jump to three no-trump. If the Chinese made this, they would gain 10 IMPs; if they went down, England would gain at least six IMPs.

Against three no-trump, West, Heather Dhondy, led a heart won by dummy’s king. Declarer now played a club to her queen. Had West won this, the defenders could have cleared the hearts, but then declarer would have finessed a club safely into the East hand and guessed the diamond queen for her contract. West would do better to shift to spades, but declarer might still have come home.

However, Dhondy smoothly ducked the club queen, causing declarer to place the ace with East. So she next ran the club 10. East won the jack, cleared the hearts, and, in due course, West won her club ace and cashed three hearts to beat the game by two.

Life can sometimes be very tough at the bridge table. Here, from the U.S. Nationals, is an example of an elegant defense, to no avail. In Standard American, fourthsuit is game forcing by an unpassed hand, so North compromised at his second turn with a heavy raise to two spades, coming to rest in a sensible spot. Declarer won the opening lead of the spade 10 in dummy (an intelligent shot from West, who could see the threat of a crossruff looming) and played a diamond to the king and ace. Now West played the club ace and a second club, and declarer guessed well to put in the jack. East ruffed and returned a low spade, and South rose with the ace, finding yet more bad news.

Declarer next took the diamond queen and ruffed a diamond. At this point, needing four more tricks for his contract, South led the club king, which East had to ruff. Now East made another good play. It would have been easy to exit with a diamond, but South would have ruffed, drawn the last trump, then played a heart to the jack to endplay East. Foreseeing this, East got off lead with the heart queen, ensuring another two tricks for his side for one down. Not surprisingly, though, EastWest lost IMPs on the board for their performance. At the other table NorthSouth were unable to stop so low, and went quietly two down in two no-trump.

The best sort of finesse that declarer can take is one that falls under the heading "Heads I win, Tails I don't lose" because something equally good will come declarer's way in return when the defenders are on play.

In today’s deal from the Dyspeptics Club, when North jumped to five no-trump to offer a choice of slams after transferring to spades, South selected spades of course.

On West’s passive trump lead, South jauntily exclaimed that they might have missed seven. His bonhomie did not continue through the hand. After drawing trump, he cashed the top diamonds without success, then played a club to the king and finessed. On a club return he had no option but to take the losing heart finesse, and so went down.

As South was about to expound on his remarkable bad luck, North cut him short by telling him that he had rejected a near 100 percent line for the hand once trumps split. Can you see it?

After drawing trumps, play the diamond king and queen, then lead a third diamond. When East follows suit, put in the 10, not the ace. If West wins, he will have to open up clubs or hearts and give you your 12th trick. If the finesse wins, you have your choice of finesses for the overtrick. And if West has four diamonds to the jack, simply throw him in with the fourth diamond to develop an extra trick in clubs or hearts for you.

One general tenet of defense is to lead low cards from honors and high cards from poor suits. Obviously this is a good general rule, but, as always, rules are no substitute for thought. Cover up the West and South hands on today's deal and plan the defense against three no-trump before reading on.

West leads the club five. You, East, win your ace, declarer dropping the queen. What is your best chance of defeating this game?

At the table, one East switched to the heart six. Declarer played low and West’s jack won the trick. West continued with another heart to the nine, queen and king. Note that even if East had been able to gain the lead to play a third round of the suit, declarer could simply duck East’s eight, preventing the defense from taking two more tricks in the suit. As it was, declarer won the heart king and played on clubs. West ducked twice, but declarer pressed on with clubs, guaranteeing his contract. In fact, he ended up with 10 tricks.

At the other table, East, realizing that he was likely to be on lead for the one and only time that hand, tried the effect of switching to the heart queen. This worked like a dream. Declarer covered with the king and West won his ace. He then continued with the heart jack and a third round of the suit, East’s eight forcing the 10. When West gained the lead with the club king, he could cash the heart seven for one down.

The role of computers in bridge is an interesting one. At the moment their bidding is unpredictable — they are a long way away from learning the nuances of constructive or competitive auctions. Their card play is another matter. While they struggle with complex low-level contracts, they are not afraid of squeezes. (They understand how to play them, but they don't know what a squeeze is!)

Onno Eskes recently wrote a series of deals for IMP magazine in the Netherlands featuring the computer GIB — which stands for Goren in a Box or Ginsberg’s Intelligent Bridgeplayer. Here is a deal in which GIB did not disappoint.

At the table, the defense against four hearts began with two top diamonds, a diamond ruff, and a spade exit. The question was whether GIB would spot the winning line: spade ace, spade ruffed with the jack, then a heart finesse, spade ruffed with the ace, and another heart finesse.

And indeed, GIB found this line immediately. The next question was how West should have defended. There are two ways to set the contract: the first is by returning a trump after the diamond ruff; the second is to refuse the diamond ruff.

GIB proves that it can work through all aspects of the hand: It refuses to ruff the third round of diamonds, pitching a spade instead. Then it ruffs the fourth diamond to play a trump, and now declarer cannot set up and enjoy dummy’s long spades whatever he does.

West, a relative novice, had memorized the mantra "Cover an honor with an honor." And, in a more recent lesson he had learned the reasons for not covering the first of touching honors, and resolved to apply this too. But which of those pearls was he to apply when the lead came from the closed hand?

In spite of his being at the top end of his no-trump range, South, in three no-trump, could see little chance of coming to nine tricks. West led the diamond queen, and as no suit had been mentioned in the brief auction, declarer had no reason to believe this lead to be anything other than from a four-card or longer suit, so he wasn’t expecting an extra trick to materialize from diamonds. South would gladly have exchanged his spade jack for the heart nine and then would have played for split heart honors. But although he didn’t possess that luxury, it was to the heart suit that he turned as his only chance, legitimate or otherwise.

He won the diamond lead in hand, then immediately tabled the heart jack. West was in a quandary as to which of his mantras he should apply. Unfortunately for the defense, “Cover an honor with an honor” got his vote. Dummy’s ace captured the queen, and at the next trick declarer could play low toward his 10. East could make his king, but with hearts breaking 3-3, there were the extra two tricks that South sought.