It is normal these days to use a negative double to show both majors after your partner opens one club and the next hand bids one diamond. Conversely, the negative double of a one-heart overcall shows precisely four spades. However, South in this deal decided that since he was happy to play in a 4-3 spade fit, it was more descriptive to bid one spade himself, suggesting five. That got him to a delicate spot, but at least it was a game that had play. Five diamonds would have been nearly hopeless.

The defenders led the heart queen and played a second heart, ruffed by declarer. Now what to do? Declarer needed trumps to be 3-3 of course, but he also had to establish a second club trick while he still had trumps in both hands, to avoid being forced. So he played the club ace and a low club to the next two tricks, East winning the club queen.

If East returned a heart, that would provide the 10th trick via a ruff and sluff, whereas if he played anything else, declarer would win and play a third round of clubs to set up his 10th trick. When he chose to lead a diamond, declarer won in dummy and played a third club. West could discard a diamond, but still had one left when East played a second diamond himself. Declarer could now win and turn his attention to trumps. When they split 3-3, he claimed the balance.

The auction in today's deal is worth a second glance. Playing standard methods, and whether or not two diamonds is a game force, it would be a mistake to assume that the rebid of two hearts promises six hearts. It suggests either six hearts or a rebidabble five-card suit with no better alternative. With a minimum hand opener strives to make a descriptive call at his second turn, which could be to raise partner, bid no-trump, or introduce a second suit economically. Bidding three clubs should show extras or a good second suit.

Hence North cannot raise hearts immediately, but his indirect route suggests a doubleton honor — perfect from South’s perspective.

Against four hearts West leads the spade queen and continues with a low spade. After declarer ruffs the third round of spades, he could simply draw trump now, planning to duck a diamond if trumps were 3-3. But if he does so, the 4-2 trump break will leave him reliant on diamonds splitting, and today is not his lucky day.

So the question is whether declarer can do any better by tackling the side suits before drawing trump. The answer is yes: Declarer can improve his chances by leading a club toward the queen at trick four. This is almost without risk, as neither defender has shifted to a club. What it does is to give him a third chance for his contract. Now if West wins the club king to play another spade, declarer can take the ruff in dummy and retain trump control.

In today's deal North-South were playing that if South doubled at his second turn, it would show any hand with three-card heart support. So South's two-diamond rebid denied three-card heart support, and North decided to bid game in diamonds without further ado. A reasonable alternative would have been to bid three spades at his second turn. South would then have bid three no-trump, which would come home today easily enough.

How would you play the diamond game when West leads the spade two to the ace and East returns a low spade? Were you tempted to make the “cost-nothing” play of inserting the 10? Do that, and, as the cards lie, you would go down! The problem is that you would use up an entry to dummy prematurely.

To make the contract, you must rise with the spade king. You then cash the heart ace and finesse the trump queen successfully. Your aim now is to set up a long heart.

You ruff a heart and play a trump to the ace, East showing out. A second heart ruff is followed by a spade ruff with dummy’s last trump. You then ruff a fourth round of hearts.

It makes no difference whether West overruffs with his master trump or discards on the trick. Either way, you will be able to cross to dummy with the club ace and discard your club loser on the heart that you have established.

When declarer has only seven or eight trumps between his hand and dummy, he often needs to resort to special efforts to retain control. Today's deal is just such an example — declarer has only a combined holding of seven trumps, AND they break poorly.

Against four hearts, the lead was the spade king, then the queen, and the spade jack was overtaken by the ace. If declarer blithely ruffs in and draws trumps he must go down; East has longer trumps than South and can play on spades every time he regains the lead.

To retain control, South must discard a club at trick three. Now, on a nonspade continuation, declarer romps home. But what happens if East plays a fourth spade? South must discard a club and ruff in dummy with the heart 10. After taking the heart jack, he plays a diamond to the king and takes the heart ace. Again, if trumps had split, declarer would be home. As it is, South notes the bad break and next plays the club ace and king. If East ruffs, South can overruff, draw trumps and claim. If East discards, South discards a diamond. Now the club queen offers East the same choice. When he discards again, South pitches his diamond king and leads a plain card to score all his trumps whatever East does.

In the end, declarer makes five trumps in hand, the heart 10 on table and four minor-suit tricks.

In today's deal from a set of international trials, a farsighted defense led to the defeat of South's four-heart contract.

West was unable to lead a spade, the suit that her partner had bid during the auction, so she attacked with a low diamond. Declarer rose with dummy’s king, and decided that the route to 10 tricks lay via a cross-ruff. But East had ideas of his own about that. He knew from West’s lead of what he knew to be a broken suit rather than his own suit that she had a void in spades. Accordingly he could see that declarer would need to ruff spade losers in dummy.

At trick two declarer led a spade from dummy and East made his first nice play when after rising with his king, he returned his singleton deuce of trumps. Declarer won cheaply in dummy – West withholding her jack – and South continued with dummy’s second spade. East now made his second nice play when he withheld his ace, so that West would be forced to ruff the trick.

This was the winning defense: it put West on lead, she of course being the only one of the partnership who could continue the trump attack – which she did.

Declarer was now a trick short for his contract, as he had only one heart left in dummy – insufficient to deal with three losing spades. This fine defense was not replicated at the other table.

Jeff Rubens' latest book, "It's All in the Game," mixes humor and technical material. Here, one of his characters, the doctor, is watching his friend in the South seat when today's deal pops up.

Against four spades West led the diamond two, an obvious singleton, which was taken by dummy’s ace. Declarer cashed the two top hearts to shed a diamond. What would you expect him to do next?

The doctor was surprised to see his friend trump a small heart with the spade eight in hand. Clubs were now led, East winning the king and cashing the diamond queen, on which West discarded a heart. East continued with a third round of diamonds, which South was forced to ruff with the 10.

East won the next club with the ace and played a fourth round of diamonds. Declarer again ruffed high, this time with the jack. He now trumped a club in dummy, played off the ace and queen of spades, and was left with the spade king for the final trick.

The doctor promptly asked about the strange play in hearts at the fourth trick. “Why, it was necessary to make the contract,” replied his friend. “Had I not ruffed that heart early in the play, West would have discarded his remaining hearts on the diamonds, and on the 12th trick, dummy would be forced to lead a heart. West’s spade nine would become a winner en passant.”

How would you play four spades when West leads the diamond queen? The key to the deal is that since you cannot avoid losing two clubs, you must try to hold your heart losers to one.

Declarer won with the ace and drew trumps with the ace and queen. Then, hoping to set up a discard on the clubs, he continued with a club to the queen.

East won with the king and switched to the heart jack. This was the key moment.

What would you have done, as South? Show the hand to someone learning the game and she might say that she had seen the theme already. After all, this looks like a classical example of a finesse. She would play the queen, losing to West’s king, and the defenders would set up a second heart trick, beating the contract. Instead you should rise with the heart ace. When you play another club, it is West (the safe hand, who cannot lead through the heart queen) who wins the trick. You will be now able to throw a heart on dummy’s club winner. If East wins the second club, nothing is lost except a potential overtrick. In other words, the game is still safe if the heart king was onside all along.

If you had climbed to five spades, you would need to risk the finesse. And if you were playing matchpoint pairs, you might consider risking the contract by finessing in hearts, playing for a top or a bottom.

Today's deal comes from the bulletins of a recent U.S. Nationals. (If you are interested in reading such reports, visit here.)

Both Souths reached four spades doubled, with the minority of high cards, after each of the North and South players had taken aggressive positions in the auction. After the lead of the heart king, both Souths took an immediate spade finesse. The unsuccessful declarer drew three rounds of trumps and ducked a club to East. But now two rounds of diamonds prevented declarer from establishing the club suit.

The successful, more fortunate, declarer played a second trump to hand and ducked a club to East, who exited with the third trump. Now declarer simply ducked a club and claimed. But the defense here could also have prevailed by playing two rounds of diamonds. Declarer then ruffs a heart to hand, but when he leads a club toward dummy, West can defeat the contract by rising with the club king! This maneuver is often referred to as a crocodile coup since you open your jaws and swallow your partner’s honor. If declarer ducks this, the defense takes a club ruff, and if declarer wins the trick, he no longer has an entry to the clubs.

Declarer could perhaps have done better by winning the second trump in dummy at trick three and playing a low club from the table. If East hops up with the queen, he beats the contract. But if he ducks, the crocodile no longer works for the defense.