Today's deal from the most recent American trials was generously reported by the victim of proceedings, Christal Henner-Welland. After stretching more than somewhat to respond one no-trump at her first turn (in competition the typical range for this action is 7-10), South was treated to a small-heart lead in three no-trump, and she won East's nine with the queen.

Now, should you play the clubs from the top, or finesse? Playing off the top clubs looks right to me; if West wins the club queen, there is no return he can make that will hurt you. As against that, if West has the club queen and East had ducked the heart king, you will end up with egg all over your face.

At the table, South elected to run the club 10 at trick two, losing to the queen. The spade 10 was returned. How should you play from here? If West started with a small singleton or doubleton, you must cover and win the trick. However, if West started with honor-doubleton, you must duck and the spade suit will be blocked.

At the table declarer ducked, playing for West to hold honor-doubleton in spades. Result: misery. Well done, Roger Lee as East, who overcame his distrustful partner’s opening lead. (The game goes down on a spade lead — but who leads partner’s suit?) When he shifted to the spade 10, he was in effect playing his partner for the spade eight and for declarer to misguess what to do. Clever stuff, eh?

In today's deal, South took two good views, one in the bidding and one in the play.

To start with, he decided that his 5-5 shape would play better in four spades than in three no-trump, and rather than look for alternative strains, he bid the suit game at his second turn. Right he was: The no-trump game can be defeated via repeated heart leads.

Following this, South had to negotiate the play after the lead of the heart five to dummy’s king. Seeing the paucity of entries to his hand, South decided to go after diamonds at once and simply led a low diamond from dummy. He was prepared to concede three diamond tricks — that would still allow him to take 10 tricks if everything else behaved normally.

At trick two, East won the diamond king and continued the attack on hearts. Dummy’s heart ace won the trick, and the diamond 10 was led. East took the trick and played a third heart, forcing South to ruff. It would have done West little good to pitch his diamond jack, so he threw a club, letting South lead a third diamond for East to ruff.

East had no winning play. If he led a heart, declarer would ruff in hand, cash the club ace, then crossruff for the rest of the tricks. On any other return, declarer would simply draw trumps and take his diamond winners.

The bridge columnist who originally reported this deal did so as a kind of mea culpa, airing his sin and hoping for forgiveness. Of course, I will not tell you who it was, but the deal does involve an interesting mistake — and have you noticed that is really the only sort of error that bridge experts make?

The deal, from the later stages of a world championship, featured matching mistakes. Against three spades, West led the club king and ace. When everyone followed, she continued with a third round of clubs. Had East discarded a diamond on this trick, South would have been doomed, but instead she ruffed with the six. This mistake was duplicated at almost every table where three spades was declared.

South overruffed with the eight and too quickly played a spade to dummy’s jack, after which she could not recover. It should have been obvious that the first spade lead needed to come from the dummy, but first she should have knocked out the diamond ace. Say West continues with a heart. Declarer wins in the dummy and now plays a spade to her king. If West follows, life is easy, but if she shows out, South is still in control. She cashes her other top diamond, ruffs a diamond with the jack, then takes the remaining high heart and ruffs a heart. Now declarer ruffs her last diamond with dummy’s spade 10, and East is powerless. Whatever she does, declarer must make two of the last three tricks.

When declarer is running a suit, the advice given by bridge teachers is to keep length parity with dummy, unless the bidding or play has suggested otherwise. A defender should also make every effort to tell his partner which suit to keep.

Against three no-trump West led the fourth-highest of his longest and strongest suit, the spade seven. Declarer rose with dummy’s 10, more in hope than expectation, and East covered this with the queen. South ducked this trick, and also played low on the second spade. West carefully overtook the spade eight, but how should he plan the play thereafter?

West has two opportunities to clarify where his re-entry is located. He can win the second spade with the jack rather than the king, and at trick three should return his lowest spade, the six, as a suit-preference signal for the lower-ranking of the red suits. (He could hardly be interested in a club return with those clubs on view in the dummy.) Had West held the heart ace instead of the diamond ace, he should win the second spade with the king and play back the jack.

After taking the spade ace, declarer will continue with four rounds of clubs. Ignoring the principle of matching dummy’s length, East should then discard a diamonds on the third round of clubs, and another diamond on the fourth, retaining all four hearts. Declarer can then come to no more than eight tricks.

In today's deal it is fortunate for North-South that South can open one spade in front of East. (If East were able to open one diamond, doubtless East-West would reach their cold game of five diamonds.) As it is, West does not have enough for the unusual two no-trump to show the minors, and North can then blow East out of the water with a jump to four spades.

The spade game appears very straightforward to make, when the defenders cannot arrange to take a heart ruff. West starts off with a top diamond lead, and you ruff, planning to draw trumps and claim. However the 3-0 trump break sets you back on your heels. You can draw a second round of trump if you want, but then you have to be careful. Suppose declarer ruffs a second diamond before playing clubs. If he does, then East will hop up with the club ace and play a third diamond, and now declarer cannot enjoy dummy’s clubs after drawing trump.

Declarer should realize that his best chance to make his game is that the defenders will not or cannot take a heart ruff. At trick three, instead of ruffing a diamond, declarer plays a top club from hand. East can win and does best to return a second diamond to force dummy to ruff. Declarer simply ruffs in dummy, unblocks clubs, then draws trump ending in dummy. He can now cash two clubs to pitch two losers and concede two heart tricks at the end.

Although it looks normal to play four spades unsuccessfully here, two tables found their way to the reasonable three-no-trump contract after South decided nine tricks would be easier than 10. Only one declarer, however, saw a way to persuade his opponents to help him come home with his contract.

Against the no-trump game both Wests chose the diamond two for their opening lead. One South played low from dummy, hoping that West’s holding in the suit included the jack. It did, but after taking his ace, East saw that he couldn’t persist with diamonds without giving declarer a trick in the suit. Accordingly, he switched to the club queen. Declarer held off and won the club continuation. All now depended on guessing who held the heart queen. In an attempt to get a count on the hand, South cashed the five spade winners, but this hardly helped him. He then decided (correctly) that East had probably started with more hearts than his partner and so finessed into the West hand. Unlucky!

At the other table, South saw he could avoid the heart guess if he could persuade the defenders to continue diamonds. At trick one he put up the diamond queen from the table and East won with the ace. South dropped first the four from hand, then the nine on the continuation. Placing his partner with an original three-card diamond holding, West led a third round of diamonds. South now won nine tricks without needing to resort to the heart guess.

There are few truly original bridge writers, whose deals not only make you think but also are a pleasure to read. One author whose work I never fail to enjoy is Julian Pottage of Wales. Today's deal comes from a relatively recent book of his called "A Great Deal of Bridge Problems."

Imagine the play in five clubs after you have ruffed the opening lead of the spade king — there are two quite plausible approaches. Say you cross to a trump and lead a diamond to the king and ace. Back comes a trump, and you win in dummy to play a second diamond, won by West, who leads a second trump. Twist and turn as you might, you can no longer make the hand.

You would never do that, would you? You would lead a heart to dummy at trick two and play a diamond to the king and ace. However, the defenders now play back a heart and East will win the second diamond to give his partner a ruff unless you draw trump. If you do that, there will be no diamond ruff in dummy!

The trap to avoid is trying to get to dummy to lead up to your diamond king. However you try to do this, you will go down as the cards lie. But the solution is simply to lead a diamond from your own hand at trick two. Now you cannot be prevented from making 11 tricks.

In today's deal West led the heart eight against four spades, and East took his ace, on which South false carded with the jack. East refrained from giving his partner an immediate ruff; that would be two tricks for the defense, but since his partner had one significant high card at most, they would get at most one diamond trick. He had to hope that the defense could get two diamond tricks at once, so the right defense was to play a diamond at the second trick.

So far so good, but East then considered that if he switched to a low diamond, South might not play the king. Might South duck — calculating that West had the diamond ace because wouldn’t East have given his partner an immediate ruff if he had an ace as a reentry? If South ducked, East would no longer have an entry for the heart ruff.

East decided that it must be better to shift to a high diamond first, thus remaining on lead if South were to duck. He then avoided the second trap, of leading the diamond queen. Had he done so, West might quite reasonably have led three rounds of the suit, trying to give his partner an overruff in that suit. Instead, East played the diamond 10, covered by the king and ace. West returned the diamond jack, and East overtook to give his partner the heart ruff.

“What took you so long to give me the ruff?” was all the thanks he got.