Today's deal saw North and South conduct an intelligent auction to the best game. As a passed hand South was able to bid a natural and nonforcing two clubs in response to the one-spade opening. (The partnership did not play Drury — whereby the call would show a spade fit and a maximum pass.) Thereafter both players bid naturally, and North (who had already denied four hearts) eventually felt able to raise hearts, assuming his partner would not introduce a four-card suit at his second turn and should thus hold a 5-6 distribution.

Against four hearts the defenders did well to lead and continue diamonds. South ruffed the third round and correctly played on clubs before drawing trump. He led to the club ace and back to his king as East sensibly discarded a spade. Now came the heart ace, dropping West’s nine, followed by a club ruff with the heart king, East discarding another spade.

Declarer next played ace, king and a third spade, ruffing low in hand, and had now taken eight of the first 10 tricks. He was down to the Q-7 of trumps and one club, while dummy had two spades and the trump eight. It looked to declarer as if East was down to just trumps, so he led his last club and ruffed with dummy’s heart eight. East overruffed and returned his low trump, but declarer could put in the heart seven with some confidence and claim the last two tricks.

Just for the record, a club shift at trick three sets the game.

In today's deal when South heard his partner force to game with the two-club call, then raise hearts, he cue-bid the spade ace, then opted for simplicity by using Blackwood at his next turn, driving to the grand slam in hearts.

The hand was easier to bid than to play. After a spade lead South should win the spade ace and decide which bad breaks he can cope with. The best path looks to be to cash the diamond ace, then the heart king and queen, followed by the diamond king and queen. If diamonds are 3-3, declarer has the rest by drawing the last trump and running the diamonds.

By playing on diamonds before drawing the last trump, declarer can come home when one defender has three trumps and four diamonds. Declarer ruffs the fourth diamond in dummy, then comes to hand with a trump and runs the diamonds before taking the club finesse at trick 12.

It might also succeed when the cards lie as in the diagram, where West has three trumps and two diamonds. Assuming West ruffs in on the third diamond, declarer overruffs, plays ace and another club, dropping the king, and ruffs out the diamonds, pitches his spade loser on the club queen, and his hand is high. But note that if West does not ruff the third diamond, declarer might easily go wrong. Might he not simply ruff the fourth diamond, draw the last trump ending in hand, and eventually take the club finesse?

Earlier this year, the final of the Dutch team championships was played between the two top Dutch teams, both sponsored by Onstein. Today's deal comes from that encounter.

Against Ton Bakkeren’s three-no-trump contract, Bauke Muller led the club three to the jack and queen. Declarer played a diamond to dummy’s queen, and Simon de Wijs won the ace and returned the club two. When declarer put in the 10, Muller won his king. If Muller had pressed on in clubs, all declarer would have to do was concede the diamond king to West, and the defenders would have taken no more than four tricks in the minor suits, while declarer would have had nine.

However, on winning the club jack, Muller switched to hearts, and all of a sudden declarer was in trouble. At the table Bakkeren won his heart ace at once, but when Muller came in with the diamond king, another heart did the job. The defense made two hearts, two diamonds and the club king.

Note that if declarer had won his club ace on the second round of the suit and had driven out the diamond king, he would be home. The lead of the club three and the return of the club two could (or perhaps should) have given him a clear picture of the club position. When East returned his low club, it strongly argued that the suit was initially 4-4. That in turn argues that East might deceptively have returned the five, not the two, at trick three.

One of the great players from an earlier time was Waldemar Von Zedwitz, whose achievements in the game included winning a world title while legally blind. He was one of the 10 original life masters, a partner of Harold Vanderbilt, the creator of contract bridge, and also the man who prevented the breakup of the American Contract Bridge League during one of its many periods of civil war in the early days of the game. He is credited with defending today's hand.

Against four spades Von Zedtwitz led the diamond jack, taken by South with the ace. Declarer cashed the spade ace, then erred by continuing with the spade king. Not surprisingly, there was now no reprieve against a defender of Von Zedtwitz’s skill. When South led a low club toward the dummy, West played the queen, allowing East to gain the lead on the second round of clubs so that West could escape the endplay that would otherwise have forced him to open up the heart suit for declarer’s benefit.

After East discarded on the spade ace, South should lead a club to the queen and king. He now plays the diamond queen, a diamond to dummy’s king, then leads a fourth diamond, throwing his remaining club away. West can win and play a low club, but South ruffs, and endplays West by playing the king and another trump, forcing West to broach the hearts.

When missing five trumps, you will find they break 4-1 more than one quarter of the time. So planning against that is generally not a waste of effort.

In today’s deal, had North’s spade 10 been the queen, a small slam in spades would have been a reasonable contract. However, even four spades was not laydown when West led the club queen and continued with the jack. South ruffed, then laid down the spade ace and king, discovering the 4-1 break. Belatedly, declarer started on hearts, but West ruffed the first round with the trump jack and cashed the queen, which removed South’s last trump, with the club 10 representing one down.

Unless you have total trump control — and sometimes even then — it is more often right than not to establish your second suit before drawing too many trumps. If at trick four, having drawn just one round of trumps, declarer had played the heart ace, West’s ruff would not have fazed him. South trumps the club return, cashes the trump king, then continues with hearts from the top. West can trump in with the master spade, but that is the last trick for the defense. A club return is ruffed with dummy’s penultimate trump, and the diamond entries allow declarer to ruff out hearts, then come back to hand to run the suit.

Even if hearts were not 4-0, this would be the best line — either a defender would ruff in, leaving declarer with trump control, or dummy’s third club could be discarded on the hearts.

The trump ace gives the defenders a sure entry and frequently allows them to control the drawing of trump — frequently the single most important part of any deal played in a suit contract.

However, the singleton trump ace frequently acts as a millstone around one’s neck. Not only do you rarely take down as much with it as you would like, but it occasionally gives you the lead at a moment in the deal when you would rather not have it.

This was the theme in today’s match between Great Britain and Austria played in Salt Lake City in 2002. when the World Bridge Federation organized a Grand Prix event to coincide with the Winter Olympics. Both North-Souths reached five hearts, the British turning up their noses at the 500 or 800 penalty available from four spades doubled, while the Austrians were (typically) trying for slam under their own steam.

The opening lead was a spade at both tables, East’s ace taking the first trick. Where Doris Fischer as North was declarer, East shifted to a club, and declarer stripped off both black suits before exiting with a trump. West won perforce and had to play a diamond, letting declarer guess to put in the 10 and avoid a diamond loser altogether. In the other room Sylvie Terraneo as East found the excellent trump shift at trick two – letting her partner take the ace and exit with a club, leaving declarer an inevitable diamond loser at the end.

Recently I have shown you some deals originally written up in Dutch IMP magazine, which were played by the GIB computer, developed by Matthew Ginsberg.

Here GIB correctly tackles a set hand prepared by the master teacher Fred Gitelman. South plays six no-trump after a three-heart pre-empt by West, who leads the spade 10. How should declarer develop the diamonds and hearts to get an extra trick from each suit?

After taking two clubs to get the count in that suit, declarer leads the diamond jack from dummy. East can see that if he takes the ace and continues diamonds, declarer will cash his clubs and spades, ending in dummy, and West will be subjected to a simple squeeze in the red suits.

So East ducks the diamond, but South has no realistic chance except to rise with the king, and rattle off his black-suit winners, first the clubs, pitching hearts from dummy, then the spades.

After the last spade, dummy has one heart and two diamonds, while declarer has his two hearts and a small diamond. Since West has to keep two hearts, he must come down to the bare diamond queen. East has three diamonds to the ace left; when a diamond is led from dummy, what does he do?

If East rises with the ace, he crashes his partner’s queen and sets up dummy’s diamond for the 12th trick. So East ducks, and West is thrown in, forced to lead a heart into South’s tenace. Contract made!

Today's deal came up during one local segment of the Pakistan Bridge Federation's trials, held in Karachi a few years ago.

We all know that pre-emptive bids are designed to be obstructive by stealing bidding space from opponents, but they can backfire spectacularly, as here.

Against six diamonds West led the spade king. Declarer surveyed dummy and saw that life would have been easier had his diamond spots been just one jot stronger and North’s one weaker. He would then have had no problem in ridding dummy of its losing spades if he held the diamond eight and dummy the seven.

But given what he had to work with, he had little choice. Declarer quickly formed a plan that relied upon East’s cooperation. For the plan to work, East had to have at least two diamonds, one of them being the queen.

South took the lead in dummy, then smoothly cashed the diamond ace, hoping that he would catch East playing by rote. It would have taken great imagination on the part of East to divine South’s hand and jettison his diamond queen under the ace. After the diamond ace drew the two and three, declarer proceeded to cash dummy’s top cards in the rounded suits, then played a low diamond. In with the queen, East had no option but to give declarer access to hand with a club or heart, and the slam came home.