Adam Zmudzinski and Cezary Balicki (commonly known as B and Z) have been one of the strongest Polish pairs for many years. Cezary Balicki was a master chess player before he turned to bridge and is acknowledged to be one of the world's best declarers.

Today’s deal sees Balicki time the play perfectly to make his three no-trump, reached after North had shown real extras by his second double. Start by covering up the East-West hands and have a try yourself.

West led the spade 10 to the queen and ace. Declarer then played a club to dummy’s ace and was not so happy to see East show out. Plan the play from here.

Realizing that if West had five spades and four clubs, he was going to be short in the red suits, Balicki cashed the heart ace and played a heart to his king before playing another club. When West split his honors, Balicki ducked.

What could West do? His best shot is to play the diamond ace and queen, but declarer simply won in dummy and conceded another club, losing just one spade, one diamond and two clubs.

Had West cashed the spade king, South would have pitched a club from dummy. Now, on a spade continuation he would have won in hand, pitching a diamond from North, and run the clubs. On the defense of ace and another diamond, he would duck a club and convert to the same winning position as above.

Against three no-trump West leads the spade queen. How do you plan to make nine tricks?

Outside the diamonds, you have five top tricks. So you need a minimum of four diamond tricks to make your contract. Suppose you win the spade lead with the ace and finesse the diamond jack. If the finesse loses, the spade return will mean that you won’t make nine tricks unless the diamond 10 drops. This would be the case even when the diamonds were 3-3, for the entry to the diamonds has been removed.

Accordingly, the best approach is to win the first spade (for fear of a club shift) and play a diamond to the king. Then continue by overtaking the diamond jack with dummy’s ace, even if West has followed with a small card. Here, since the diamond queen has put in an appearance, you can simply dislodge the diamond 10 from East’s hand and make nine tricks: two spades, two hearts, four diamonds and a club.

If the diamonds had been 3-3, the third round of diamonds would have established the suit, with the spade king as the entry to cash them. Notice that you will succeed when either defender began with a singleton or doubleton diamond queen or 10. As we have seen, dummy’s 9-8-7 is then good enough to allow you to knock out the remaining diamond honor, letting you collect four diamond tricks and the contract. This gives you a better than two-thirds chance to make your game.

Bridge strategies alter, depending on the form of scoring in use. Board-a-Match format makes overtricks vital — as witness this deal, which would be irrelevant at regular Teams scoring.

In one room Sue Picus and Alex Ornstein as East-West had held South’s three no-trump to nine tricks on a spade lead. Declarer won the lead, cashed his club and heart winners, then exited with ace and another diamond, but Picus unblocked a diamond honor under the ace to avoid being endplayed into giving declarer a spade trick.

In the other room four hearts looked as if it had 10 tricks — but Judi Radin did even better. She won the spade lead and ruffed a spade at once before crossing to hand in clubs and leading a third spade. Whether West ruffed did not matter. If he discarded, Radin would ruff low, unblock hearts, then cash the club ace and use the diamond ace as the re-entry to draw trump. West actually ruffed in with the heart nine, so Judi simply overruffed and drew trump.

Note that if Radin had cashed the club king at trick two, the entry position would have been compromised. Declarer can ruff two spades as before, but has to use the diamond ace as a re-entry to hand. Now when she leads the third club after ruffing two spades (not ruffed by West) and unblocking the trump ace, East trumps in with the heart 10 and promotes a heart trick for West.

North's first-round call was a negative (takeout) double, suggesting the unbid suits. South responded with a cue-bid in the enemy suit to show a strong hand and eventually came to rest in the 5-2 heart fit.

How would you play four hearts when West starts with three rounds of spades? Let’s say you ruff the third spade, reducing yourself to four trumps, the same number as West. How should you play the trump suit now? Remember not to make the rote play!

West is the danger hand, the defender who can force you again in spades and thereby promote the setting trick in trump if either defender started with four trumps. You should therefore play the heart suit so that West cannot gain the lead. You lead the trump jack from your hand and run it into the safe (East) hand.

When the cards lie as in the diagram, the finesse will win. You play a second trump to dummy’s king, return to your hand with a diamond, and draw a third round of trump.

West is left with a trump winner, and you hold one low trump, but that is no problem. You simply play your minor-suit winners and West can take his master trump when he wishes.

You can see what will happen if you miss this avoidance play. West will gain the lead with the trump queen and play yet another spade, setting up a second trump trick for the defense.

In a recent Junior European Championship the Greek team, sitting North-South here, put in a serious entry for the luckiest board not only of the tournament but of the decade! The defense can cash out spades against three no-trump, while five clubs appears to have two top spade losers and an inevitable heart loser.

At the table, though, North’s conservative bid of four clubs set South up for his inspired bid of four diamonds, naturally raised by North to five diamonds. Remarkably, the 4-3 fit is the only available game for North-South because of the spade ruff in the short trump hand. When West led a spade, East won the spade king, cashed the next spade, then played a heart.

However, declarer simply refused the heart finesse and ruffed a spade in dummy, bringing his total to 11 tricks: four diamonds, five clubs, the heart ace and the spade ruff. Of course he needed to guess the trumps well, since when he led the third spade from hand and West ruffed in with the jack, declarer still had to find the trump 10, but he did so.

Note that if East had played back a heart before cashing the spades, it prevents the ruff in dummy. However, declarer would simply have taken the heart ace, drawn trump, and discarded two spades on dummy’s clubs before setting up a heart. Similarly, if the opening lead had been a minor, South would have cashed three rounds of trump and again discarded his spades on dummy’s clubs.

The intrafinesse is one of the more obscure bridge plays and comes in all shapes and sizes. Often the problem is simply determining whether to go for the play, or to rely on something else.

Here, at matchpoints, Kit Woolsey as South reached four no-trump. On a heart lead declarer required the clubs to lie in a very specific fashion in order for them to produce three tricks. He needed the doubleton 10 sitting over him or to for East to hold a doubleton king-queen or bare honor.

However, the key to the hand is to avoid committing yourself at once, but to win the heart ace, and take two top diamonds, at which point you find East with shortage. On that basis you should play West for short clubs, namely the club Q-10 or K-10. What you do is lead up to the club jack, varying your play according to what West does. If (as happened at the table) he puts up his honor and clears the hearts, go to dummy in diamonds and play the club jack to squash the 10. When the cards lay exactly as Woolsey required them to do, he racked up plus 430 for a fine result, since the heart sacrifice costs only 300.

West could have left declarer with work to do had he put in the club 10 on the first round of the suit. Then Woolsey would have had to decide whether West had a singleton10, a doubleton 10, or his actual holding.

Today's three-no-trump deal was too difficult for all the players at the table. But will you, as West, be able to solve the puzzle?

Declarer won the spade lead in dummy, East following with the six to suggest an even number of spades. Now, instead of going after clubs, declarer (who had begun with the doubleton heart king) played four rounds of hearts, pitching clubs from hand as East discarded the two then four of spades.

Can you work out what is going on — and what the killing defense is now?

You should have built up a picture of East’s hand as four small spades and two hearts, together with three diamonds and four clubs. His failure to discard a discouraging diamond marks him with an honor. Logic suggests that he has queen-third of diamonds or else he would surely have kept two spades, rather than break the partnership communication in that suit.

The winning defense is to take the spade ace now, then exit with the club queen, hoping partner has as little as 10-fourth of that suit. Declarer can do no better than win the club and hope to split the suit. When East takes his two club winners, you will discard a spade, then a diamond, and — to add insult to injury — the last club squeezes dummy! Declarer will end up with just seven tricks.

Yes, declarer should have played on clubs not hearts, but that is no reason to give him back his contract.

In 2007 the trials were held to determine the second USA Open Teams spot, and the squads captained by Seymon Deutsch and Rose Meltzer met in the quarter-finals. On the deal that followed, Bart Bramley and Sidney Lazard for the Deutsch team came off better.

Bramley and Lazard are one of the few pairs who have stuck with a version of Standard American more common in the 60s and 70s; but they have no shortage of inspiration in both the bidding and the play. Against three no-trump, Bramley led the spade two (standard fourth-highest leads) and Lazard played the spade king, which held. West’s lead, coupled with the bidding, suggested that South held four cards in each major, and dummy’s diamond suit looked likely to provide six tricks.

Any guesses as to which card Lazard played back at trick two? Yes, it was a club — but which? He chose the king, and when that held, followed up with the club eight. To declarer, it appeared that for his club-king switch, East must also hold the ace. So she rose with her queen, and now the game ended two light, courtesy of four club tricks plus the two top spades.

Lazard’s play could hardly cost. With any needed finesse in the red suits working for declarer, a shift to clubs might cost overtricks, but it was virtually impossible for it to cost the contract.

Four hearts appears to be a simple enough contract, but as always, you need to make the right plan at the start of the play. You should aim to score five trumps, four clubs and the spade ace.

You will need to ruff the clubs good if they divide 4-2, which is the most likely split.

After establishing the clubs, you will have to draw trumps, ending in the dummy.

It follows that you should not aim to take a spade ruff. (That would be so even if West had not bid, thereby alerting you to the risk of an overruff by East.)

How does the play go? Best is to win the spade lead (for fear of a diamond switch) and draw just two rounds of trumps with the ace and king. You then play the club queen and ace and ruff a club in the South hand. This line would cost you an overtrick if clubs happened to break 3-3. But it is in a good cause, though, because you give yourself an extra chance when clubs break 4-2. Here West is out of clubs, but cannot overruff.

You return to dummy with a trump to the queen and score two more club tricks.

The trap on the deal would be to start by drawing trumps. After that start you would make the contract only if clubs broke 3-3 or the diamond ace was with West.

Incidentally, if trumps broke 4-1, you would just run the clubs, pitching spades, and hope for the best.