Today's deal comes from an international match between Poland and Portugal. At first glance you might imagine it was a dull four-heart contract with the spade ace onside. The only thing that appears to be at stake is the overtrick.

In the closed room, on the lead of the spade 10, the Portuguese declarer made 11 tricks without raising a sweat, by guessing the diamond jack. But Jacek Romanski got a less helpful heart-nine lead to his 10. Can you see the best line?

Obviously you could simply play a spade to the king at some point after drawing trumps, then rely on your table presence to find the diamond jack — a line that is perhaps just a bit better than 75 percent. But you do have an even better chance once trumps turn out to be 2-2.

You should play the heart king at trick two, then ruff out the clubs by playing three rounds of the suit, and next play a diamond to the queen. When it holds, you run the diamond 10. Even if the defenders have two diamonds to cash, West will be endplayed after taking his winners. If the diamond queen loses to the ace, you can still succeed if East has either the diamond jack or the spade ace.

This line succeeds unless all three critical cards are badly placed. In other words, you come home seven times out of eight. The fact that the spade ace was onside all along does not spoil the elegance of this line.

In today's deal it would have been easy enough to defeat three no-trump after a top heart lead. (Declarer wins the opening lead and runs five rounds of diamonds, but West simply keeps his club 10 till the last diamond (to prevent declarer from finessing in the suit), then discards his spade on the top clubs. He keeps four winning hearts and the spade ace. Mission accomplished.

However, you have done well to reach five diamonds instead, on the lead of a top heart. You could rely on the spade ace being onside, but before you do that, try something else. The key to the deal is to try to establish clubs to allow you to discard your spade losers without letting East on lead. To that end, you win the heart ace and take the diamond queen, all following. Next you lead a club, and when East plays low, you put in the eight.

West wins the club 10 and does best to punch dummy with a heart. You ruff, draw second round of trump, cash the club ace and king, and ruff a second heart. Now you ruff a club to set up the suit and ruff another heart with dummy’s last trump. At this point the fifth club has been established and takes care of one of your two spade losers.

The avoidance play in clubs requires West to hold one of the three top clubs. You also need either diamonds or clubs to break evenly.

In today's deal South was a solid performer, but one who believed that the cards always conspired to gang up against him. After he had finished declaring four hearts here, he could add another plaint to his long litany of woes. Was he entitled to whine? You be the judge.

Against his game the defenders led out the three top diamonds. South ruffed and announced he was not going to risk a defensive ruff. So saying, he led out the heart ace and jack. West ducked this, and now declarer found himself in trouble. If he played a third trump, West would win and force dummy with more diamonds, whereas if he played on the side-suits, West would score both his trumps for down one.

It may be unlikely that four trumps will lie with the long diamonds, of course, but the point of the deal is still a valid one. If you can protect yourself against a bad break, you should do so. After declarer ruffs, he must play the heart 10 — otherwise, West will prevail. When this holds, South continues with the heart jack, leaving the defense powerless. If West wins his king, he can play another diamond, but South ruffs in hand, crosses to the club queen, and can use dummy’s high trumps to draw West’s last two hearts.

Incidentally, declarer cannot afford to cross to dummy to take the trump finesse. He might run into an unexpected ruff.

Timing the play to take advantage of all possibilities can be very difficult. Today's deal defeated one of the best declarers in the country (who shall remain nameless).

Against four spades West led the diamond ace and king, then switched to the club four. Declarer won in the dummy and took a spade finesse. When that was wrong and clubs failed to break 3-3, he had to go one down.

Can you see how he could have done better?

Since he needed one of the major-suit finesses for certain, he should have won the club in hand and run the heart queen. In practice West would have covered with the king (it doesn’t help him to duck), and declarer wins with dummy’s ace. Only now does declarer play a spade to the queen. West wins and no doubt continues with another club. Declarer wins in dummy, draws trump, then cashes the heart jack and crosses to the club king. If clubs are 3-3, he has no more losers. He can ruff a heart, cash his long club, and ruff a diamond with dummy’s last trump.

However, when clubs fail to break, he can take a ruffing heart finesse. The king and 10 have gone and East just has the nine poised over dummy’s eight-seven. This finesse is certain to succeed because declarer knows that West started with two spades, four clubs, five diamonds (for his overcall) and therefore only two hearts, both of which have been played.

Plan the play in six hearts on the club king lead assuming a 2-1 heart break.

Before you play a card, count your tricks if you decide to draw trump, to avoid unpleasant accidents in the spade suit.

You draw trump in two rounds and have six trump left to take separately; that makes eight tricks. Three black suit winners makes 11, so what you will need to do is establish an extra trick in spades. That would be a good bet if the opponents had not bid (best is to cash the king and ace then lead up to the jack) but here the auction has made this no better than even chance – probably rather worse.

There are several possibilities but the bidding makes the best line stand out. Win the club ace and draw two rounds of trump ending in hand then play the diamond queen, discarding a spade if West does not cover. Win the return, and play the diamond jack. If West covers you ruff, ruff a club to hand and discard dummy’s last spade on the diamond 10; if West doesn’t cover the diamond jack, the spade loser goes away immediately.

Even without the opponents bidding, this line would be a 75 percent chance. The way to calculate the chance of success is to work out that the line works unless both diamond honors are offside – and the chance of that that is one quarter (one half of one half). So you succeed the other three quarters of the time.

A standard Roman Key Card Blackwood auction sees you land in what turns out to be a rather poor small slam in spades. How do you plan to make 12 tricks after West leads the heart queen?

A simple line would be to win the heart ace, play three rounds of trump ending in dummy, and take the club finesse. If that succeeds, then all you would need for a 12th trick would be for diamonds to be 3-2. However, there is an extra chance you should try to exploit when trumps are 2-2.

After winning the first trick with the heart ace, you first ruff a heart. After drawing two rounds of trump with the ace and jack, you find that trumps do break 2-2, so you ruff dummy’s last heart. Once the heart suit is eliminated, you play ace, king and another diamond. When West holds three diamonds, he has to win the trick, then must either lead a club into your ace-queen tenace or play a heart. The latter allows you to ruff in dummy while discarding the club queen from hand. Either way, you have 12 tricks.

If East had won the third round of diamonds, he would have to play a club, and the fate of the contract would hinge on which defender began with the club king.

If trumps were not 2-2, you would take the club finesse after drawing the second round of trumps with dummy’s jack.

There is no easy answer as to what plan South should have followed here, but his leap to six hearts was precipitous and perhaps an overbid. But how would you play the slam when West leads the spade three and East covers dummy's spade 10 with the jack?

At the table declarer won with the spade ace and drew trump in four rounds. With only one entry to dummy outside the diamond suit (the club ace), it seemed that he would need a 3-3 diamond break to make the contract. Declarer played ace, king and another diamond and shrugged his shoulders when East showed out on the third round. He ruffed in his hand and could do nothing but finesse the club queen. Had the finesse worked, he could have ruffed out the diamonds successfully. However, East produced the club king and cashed the spade king for one down.

Can you see how declarer should have made the contract? When the diamond queen and 10 fall on the first two rounds, dummy’s 9-7 have become equals against West’s J-6. All declarer needs to do is to lead the diamond nine and let it run, discarding his spade loser.

West wins with the jack and returns a club, but declarer can win with the club ace in dummy and throw his two club losers on the diamonds.

(Yes, a club lead would have beaten the slam, but I don’t ever want to play against anyone who could find that!)

On "Dad's Army," an old British television show, there was a character who was given to exclaiming "Don't panic!" A bad trump break can often inspire such sentiments, but stay focused and you can often limit the damage, or even emerge triumphant.

Today’s deal was just such an example. In six spades South appeared to have a decent chance to make 12 tricks in some comfort if spades behaved. He won the club lead and advanced the spade 10, covered by the king and ace, with West pitching a club.

The 5-0 break posed considerable problems. As East clearly had a singleton club, declarer needed East to hold three or four hearts and for at least one diamond ruff to stand up.

So he cashed the heart ace, king and queen, since East’s length in that suit would dictate the rest of the plan. To his surprise, West showed out on the third round, so South ruffed a heart in hand, played the diamond ace and king, then ruffed a diamond low.

In the four-card ending with the lead in dummy, North had the spade five and three losing clubs, South had the Q-J-6 of spades and a diamond, while East had his four low spades.

South led a club from dummy, overruffed East’s seven with his queen, then ruffed a diamond with dummy’s spade five, forcing East to overruff with the eight. In the two-card ending, East had to lead from his 9-4 of spades into declarer’s tenace — contract made!