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.

Techniques for defending against possible squeezes can be found in the literature, but less has been written about the concept of persuading declarer that you have been squeezed when, in fact, you have not. This deal is an amusing example.

After the Stayman sequence, North showed diamonds and a major, game-forcing, then jumped to slam when the fit came to light. Six diamonds was not a bad contract, of course, superficially depending on the heart suit yielding four tricks, but with considerable extra chances if the spade king was onside.

Declarer covered the spade jack with dummy’s queen, then ducked the spade king, won the spade continuation, and ruffed a spade high in dummy. Then he cashed the club ace (a maneuver known as the Vienna Coup, catering for the possibility of either defender’s holding the guarded heart jack as well as the club king and queen) and followed by running five rounds of trumps.

From West’s point of view it seemed sure that declarer held the heart queen but not the jack (for then he would have claimed). It was essential to try to persuade South that the heart jack was guarded. West discarded first the spade 10, then the club nine, 10 and king (carefully preserving the club four and his three low hearts).

Convinced that West had shed all his clubs in order to keep four hearts, declarer cashed the heart king and queen, then finessed the 10 – only to lose the last two tricks.

Among the brotherhood of bridge writers, Frank Stewart is someone I would be happy to call a friend. His new handbook of basic bidding, "What's Your Call?" helps the average player improve his valuation skills.

The book is far more about judgment than system. Today’s deal is a 26-card example in which Frank quotes the North hand at the point where the auction has reached five spades. He recommends a raise to six spades. South rates to need trump honors and you have more than your fair share.

The play might be stimulating if diamonds and spades do not break. South ruffs the club lead, takes the trump king and jack, both ducked, then crosses to the diamond ace to continue drawing trumps. East wins the third trump and exits with a second club, letting declarer take the ace, ruff a club, then draw the last trump. West can let go one heart and one club, but on the fourth trump he must keep his diamonds and two clubs. So he comes down to a singleton heart.

Declarer pitches a diamond and a club from dummy on the spades and plays the diamond ace and king. On finding the bad break, he must next lead the heart jack. East has to cover with the queen. When West’s 10 appears, declarer can later finesse against the heart nine for his contract.

The book can be obtained (autographed on request) from Frank Stewart, $23.95 postpaid at P.O. Box 962, Fayette AL 35555. All profits go to local Alabama charities.

Today's deal occurred in the Mitchell Open Board-a-Match Teams at the San Francisco Nationals last fall.

The defense to two spades started well, with West leading the diamond queen, overtaken by the king. Rank, East, switched to the club nine, and declarer, Norberto Bocchi gave the matter some thought. When West played the club queen, Bocchi made the fine play of ducking to cut the defenders’ communication.

West continued with the club five, which Bocchi took in dummy to lead a diamond. That gave Rank, East, his first problem: Should he win or duck? Rank decided correctly that his partner’s second club (a high one in context) was suit preference – thus he should not hold the diamond jack. Rank played the diamond ace and next played a third diamond. If declarer had ruffed, West could have overruffed and given Rank a club ruff for down one. Bocchi foiled that plan, however, by pitching the club jack on the third diamond. This play seems counterintuitive, but now the defenders could score only one further trump winner – there was no club ruff and no diamond overruff.

Contract made, a result that swung a full board because East-West at the other table had made plus 90 in two diamonds. Note, though, that as Rank pointed out, he could have defeated the contract with the inspired shift to a trump instead of playing the third diamond. West would have won the ace and given his partner the club ruff; then the third diamond re-promotes the trump queen.

Today’s deal comes from a regional Swiss at the San Francisco Nationals. As they came back to score up, West was grumbling that his opponents had caught a lucky break by staying out of a game that could not be made because of a bad trump break. Fortunately, he had not taken into account the resourcefulness of his teammates – Josh Donn and Roger Lee.

They had bid their way to four hearts after Donn had produced a Bergen raise of one heart to three clubs, showing a heart raise of four or more cards, with less than limit-raise values.

West led a helpful club jack, and Lee won and led a diamond up. West correctly took the diamond ace and exited with a diamond. (Yes, a passive club makes declarer’s task far harder, but he can still just about survive.)

Lee took the diamond king, pitching a spade from hand, and led a heart from dummy. East’s discard revealed the bad trump split, and Lee put up the heart king, taken by West with the ace. A second club went to Lee’s ace, and he followed with a club ruff, diamond ruff, the spade king and a spade to the ace.

In the four-card ending, Lee ruffed a diamond to hand, while West helplessly followed suit, then exited with his losing spade. Not only did West have to ruff her partner’s winner, but she then had to lead into declarer’s heart tenace at trick 12. Contract made!

When Jeff Aker and his teammates — Doug Simson, Bryan Maksymetz and Larry Chao — won the Monday Compact Knockout, Bracket I at San Francisco, this deal materially helped their cause. Against four hearts doubled, West led his singleton spade to the king and Aker's ace. A diamond to the queen and ace allowed East to give his partner a spade ruff.

Aker now ruffed West’s continuation of the club ace and led a heart from hand. West correctly split his heart honors, so Aker took the heart 10 with dummy’s king, then finessed in diamonds by leading to the 10. He could next cash the diamond king to pitch dummy’s spade for his fifth trick.

Aker next ruffed his diamond as West pitched a club, then ruffed a club to hand. Now if Aker had led his top spade, West would have ruffed high and returned a trump. That would have left South with a spade loser. Instead, Aker played his low spade. It would not have helped West to ruff high, because Aker would have had only winners left. So West discarded another club, and Aker ruffed the spade in dummy, ruffed a club to hand, and cashed the heart ace for his 10th trick.

Can you spot the defense that East-West missed? East had to return the spade jack rather than a low spade at trick three. Now declarer cannot discard the spade from dummy on the diamond, as it would have been a winner that he would be throwing away.

Today's deal, from the Nail Life Master Pairs in San Francisco, demonstrates that par in bridge terms and the result achieved at the table are often far removed from each other.

Wafik Abdou was in the hot seat as East, defending three hearts after a revealing auction. Abdou’s partner led a low diamond and Abdou won the ace and could infer that declarer rated to hold five hearts and a doubleton club, with a likely pattern of 5-3-3-2. The fact that his partner had not led a club was also a hint that the suit was likely to be distributed 7-2-2-2 around the table.

There is technically no defense to three hearts, but Abdou went for his best chance when he won the diamond lead and shifted to the spade king. Declarer won and took the club finesse, smoothly ducked by Abdou. Declarer now guessed well by playing the heart ace and heart king, dropping West’s queen. However, when declarer repeated the club finesse, Abdou won, cashed his spade queen, then reverted to diamonds. Declarer had to ruff in dummy and now was locked there with just clubs to lead. When he played a club, Abdou ruffed in. Declarer was able to overruff, but was still left with two diamond losers for down one. Plus 50 was good for 24 out of 38 matchpoints, whereas making 140 would have been close to a top for North-South.

If you bid them up, you have to play them up, and today's deal strongly emphasizes this point. Peter Rank and Alex Kolesnik played in the Ventura Halloween Regional before coming to the San Francisco nationals. The following deal, from a knockout match, demonstrates that it pays to have confidence in your partner.

After Rank’s jump to five spades, Kolesnik decided that he had four useful cards for a partner who rated to have 6-5 distribution, so he went to the grand slam directly.

Against the grand slam, West led the heart king, taken by Rank in dummy (as he discarded a diamond from hand). He drew trump in three rounds, noting that West had started with two. He then worked on clubs, hoping to get a count if something revealing came to light. The club king was followed by a club to the ace, West showing out. Rank ruffed a club back to hand and stopped to assess the situation.

West was marked with two spades and one club and was likely to have begun with six hearts (since he might have overcalled three hearts with seven of them). That left him with four diamonds, so Rank played with the odds and took the first-round finesse by running the diamond 10 through West. When it held, he could claim 13 tricks for an 11-IMP gain since the opponents were in six spades at the other table.

At the San Francisco Nationals last December, the Mitchell Open Board-a-Match Teams winners (a form of scoring akin to pairs, but played by teams) were Michael Becker, Aubrey Strul, Steve Garner, Howard Weinstein, Walid Elahmady and Tarek Sadek. They gained a win on this deal from the final session, when Garner executed an elegant trump-reduction play.

Both Souths were in four hearts, and the play started identically. West led a low club, and East took the trick and returned a club. West won, cashed the diamond ace, and continued with another diamond. Each declarer inserted dummy’s jack and ruffed away East’s queen.

Against Sadek and Elahmady, South now played a heart to dummy’s queen and a heart to his ace, but had to finish down one when trumps broke badly. By contrast Garner realized that he could pick up four hearts to the jack in the East hand as long as he reduced his trump length to the same as East’s. So declarer first cashed his heart ace, then played a heart to dummy’s queen.

If everyone had followed suit, Garner would have led a spade to his ace, drawn the missing trump, and claimed. But when West discarded, declarer played the diamond king from the dummy, East and South both pitching spades.

Now declarer carefully ruffed a diamond, cashed his high club, and led a spade to dummy’s king. South next played dummy’s high diamond and was able to win the last three tricks, whatever East did, to make his contract.