When deciding which opponent to play for length in a particular suit, you need to consider how you might recover from a wrong guess beyond simply playing the probabilities.

Against today’s three-no-trump contract, one West led ace and another spade, ducked by East. Declarer played a club to East, who continued with the king and a fourth spade. Declarer discarded two hearts from dummy and now had to guess diamonds for his contract. He started by playing the king (on which East carefully played the eight), and when he followed with the ace, he had to go one down.

In the other room, where the contract was doubled, the defense started with three rounds of spades (dummy discarding a heart). Declarer won and played a club, which East again won to clear the spades, dummy discarding a club. On the spades West had discarded two clubs.

Declarer could assume from the double that West held hearts guarded. So it was possible that he had his actual shape, though he might have fewer clubs and four diamonds.

However, declarer could see that if he played East for four diamonds, it wouldn’t matter if he was wrong. He cashed the heart ace, then played the diamond ace and a diamond to the queen. When West showed out, it was simple to pick up East’s jack. But suppose East had shown out. Declarer would simply have played his top hearts and exited with a heart. West now must return a diamond, giving declarer his trick back.

A first look at West's hand might suggest that South is in deep trouble in his four-spade contract. However, provided declarer is careful, he can overcome even this terrible trump break!

West leads the heart 10, overtaken by East with the jack to play the heart king.

As long as declarer discards a diamond, the defenders can take only one more trick, a trump.

On a diamond shift, declarer wins the ace, draws one round of trumps, then plays on clubs. West can ruff the third round but dummy’s trump six will take care of a heart exit. If at trick three East plays a third round of hearts instead of shifting, South discards a second diamond and ruffs in dummy. Next, he draws five rounds of trumps, then plays on clubs. As West no longer has a heart left, he makes his long trump, but then has to return a diamond. Declarer makes five trumps in hand, a heart ruff in dummy, the diamond ace and three clubs. Note that if declarer ruffs the second heart, the contract fails, as it allows the defense to make a heart and either three trumps or two trumps and a diamond.

The only risk of discarding a diamond is a club ruff, but that is a highly unlikely risk, particularly since East did not follow with his lowest heart on the opening lead — which he would have done had he wanted the ruff.

Today's deal comes from an internet game where South did not take full advantage of his extra chance.

After South’s one-no-trump rebid, a jump to three diamonds by North would have been merely invitational, so North jumped in the fourth suit to hear more about South’s hand. When all he could do was reiterate his heart strength, North was happy to settle for three no-trump.

The defense was accurate. West started with three rounds of clubs, East pitching a small heart, then switched to a spade. Declarer won and cleared diamonds, giving West a chance to discard a small heart to deny interest there too. On winning his diamond jack, East astutely played back a spade rather than a heart, hoping his partner would have a spade stopper. And so it proved: Locked in dummy, declarer had to concede the fifth trick to West.

It looks as if declarer needed either spades or diamonds to break, and with neither suit cooperating, he is destined to fail. However, there was an extra chance. When declarer finds that diamonds don’t break, he should cash a second top spade before giving East his diamond trick. Now, when East wins this trick, he has no more spades to play. He must therefore lead a heart, allowing declarer access to the winners in his own hand as well as to those in dummy, since South still has a spade left to reach all of dummy’s winners.

Because the opening bid of two no-trump promised 20-21 points, North had an easy raise to the small slam in no-trump. How do you plan to make 12 tricks after West leads the club 10?

You have 11 immediate winners along with the possibility of a winning finesse in spades, hearts or diamonds. While those who never get a two-way finesse wrong will have no problem, the rest of us have to find a plan that avoids guessing which finesse to take.

The secret is to win the club ace and cash the three remaining club honors. Next you should lead a spade from dummy, intending to cover East’s card cheaply. Suppose he plays the four, then your spade eight will force West’s queen and you will have 12 tricks immediately. Even if West were able to win the trick with the spade 10 or nine, he would then have to lead into one of your tenaces. Your 12th trick would then come in whichever suit he chose to return.

You may ask “What would happen if East played the spade 10 or nine?” Well, the spade jack would be taken by the queen, and the A-K-8 would then be good for three tricks if West chooses to get off play in spades. As a red-suit return would also cost a trick, you would still be certain of making 12 tricks.

The consequence is that this simple plan of covering the spade that East plays on the first round of the suit guarantees 12 tricks no matter how the cards lie.

How will you play six spades on a top diamond lead? You win it in dummy, ditching a club. You have five side-suit winners and will make the slam if you can add seven trump tricks. Since your main objective is to single in your small trump, you ruff a diamond at trick two and cash the spade ace, hoping for a 2-2 trump break. It looks disastrous when West discards a diamond, but you simply continue to score your low trumps. You take the heart ace, ruff a diamond, then cross to the heart king to ruff a heart. Now comes the club ace and a heart ruff. Next you cross to dummy with the club king and lead dummy's diamond 10.

You have taken the first 10 tricks (six tricks in aces and kings and four ruffs in hand) and are down to the K-10 of spades and one losing club. Meanwhile, East has the Q-J-9 of spades left, but he cannot prevent you from scoring your trump 10. If he ruffs with the spade queen or jack, you will discard the club 10 and finesse on East’s forced trump return; if he ruffs low, you can overruff with the 10.

The pitfall to be avoided was that if you take a third diamond ruff too early, East would discard the second of his three clubs. Then you would lose one of your club winners. However, by ruffing the two hearts before the final diamond, you prevented East from making a damaging discard.

One of the most successful formats for events in the United Kingdom is Swiss Pairs. An event of 12 eight-board matches typically takes place over three days. The format pits pairs who are doing equally well against one another, and it is now the standard format for the first weekend of the annual Brighton Summer Congress.

Today’s deal features a well-conceived defense by Richard Winter and Phil Godfrey from a recent championship. Against four hearts West, Winter, found the best lead, his bare spade queen, declarer winning in hand with the king. Seeing all four hands, one can easily see the way to defeat South’s game, but as the defenders were not blessed with X-ray vision, they had to rely on accurate signaling to direct the defense.

When South led a low heart at trick two, Winter split his heart honors. Declarer won with dummy’s ace and continued with a second heart. East discarded the spade nine on this, a card that could not convey attitude since both East and West knew declarer had all the missing high cards in the suit. So what should the card mean? Logically, it had to be a loud suit-preference signal for the higher-ranked of the other two suits — in this case, diamonds.

On winning with the heart queen, Winter underled his diamond honors. Godfrey won with the king and returned a spade. Winter’s ruff with his last trump was the third defensive trick, and the club king eventually set the game.

The 80th anniversary of the European Bridge League will take place this summer. Ten years ago, commemorative plaques were presented to former European Champions. Two of the greats who are sadly no longer with us, Giorgio Belladonna and Rixi Markus, jointly hold the record, with 10 apiece. Both died approximately 20 years ago, having dominated the game in the 50s and 60s.

Today’s deal features Giorgio Belladonna on defense during the European Championships of 1967, held in Dublin, where he gained his sixth title as a member of the famous Italian Blue Team. In those days negative doubles were not the norm — Belladonna’s double was for blood. Defending two clubs doubled, Belladonna led the heart queen, then switched to a low diamond, away from his ace. East won with the king, and proceeded to cash the ace and king of hearts, on which Belladonna discarded the nine, then, essentially, the diamond ace.

East now played a diamond, which South ruffed with the club nine. Belladonna refused to overruff, discarding a spade instead. South tried a low club toward the jack, but Belladonna inserted his queen, then got off lead with a spade to dummy’s ace. There was now no way that declarer could return to his hand without Belladonna scoring another trump trick scoring 200 for Italy.

You can see that if West had not discarded his diamonds on his partner’s winning hearts, declarer would have had a safe re-entry to hand with a diamond ruff.

"Cover an honor with an honor" is a well-known bridge adage, but as with most such rules, there are plenty of exceptions. Today's declarer exploited East's knee-jerk reaction to cover. But perhaps it would be best to start by concealing the East-West cards, and only then to make your plan on the lead of the diamond ace followed by a shift to the club five. (Yes, a spade switch would have been the killer.)

In four hearts, declarer won with dummy’s ace, drew the outstanding trumps with the ace and king, and astutely played the spade jack from the dummy. East played the king… and the rest is history.

East could not attack clubs to advantage, so he continued with another diamond. Declarer ruffed in the dummy and played a spade to the queen and West’s ace. West played another club, but declarer won the king, played a spade to his 10, crossed back to dummy with a trump, and cashed the spade nine, discarding his club loser.

When you think about it, it is hard to see how covering the spade jack could gain. Unfortunately for him, East did not think about it!

The “power of the closed hand” is worth remembering. All things being equal, it often works well to play toward the closed hand rather than toward the dummy. It generally makes it much harder for the defenders to decide whether to win or duck when they cannot see what third hand will play.

West leads the spade queen against six hearts. After winning the spade ace, you cash the ace and king of trumps. If both defenders follow, cash the club ace and continue with the club queen. If clubs are 3-2, life is easy; if they are not, you may have to cross to dummy with the trump 10 and take the diamond finesse.

When one defender discards on the second round of trumps, what should you do next? Obviously, you could cross to dummy with the trump 10 and take the diamond finesse. However, it is far better to develop dummy’s club suit.

One way is to draw the last trump and continue with the ace and queen of clubs. But East will hold up the king until the third round. You do no better by playing the club ace and queen while you still have the trump 10 as an entry to dummy. On this layout, East will win the second round of clubs and give his partner a club ruff.

Far better is to lead the club queen from hand first! If East takes the king, you will win his return, draw the last trump, and enjoy the club suit. If instead East ducks, you will continue with ace and another club. Then, after winning East’s return, you will cross to the dummy with the trump 10 and run the clubs.

This plan will succeed around two-thirds of the time, making it far more attractive than the diamond finesse.