Today's deal comes from a collection of bridge tips by David Bird, who is best known for his humorous collections of stories about the Abbot and many others.

Against your contract of four spades West leads the diamond ace and switches to the spade five. Plan the play, and if you want to cover up the East and West cards to make your task harder, feel free to do so!

The obvious source of extra tricks is the clubs, but to establish additional winners in that suit, you have to surrender a trick. If you simply draw trump and duck a club, East will win and play a diamond through. You might try to lead a club to the king and duck the return, but if East flies up with the queen on the second round (or West unblocks his jack on the first round), the defenders will have the upper hand.

Is there any way that you can establish clubs without letting East on lead? Yes and no. What you have to do is find a way to get rid of that club loser, while losing the lead to West, not East. Instead of playing three rounds of clubs, win the spade shift from West in dummy (while taking care to preserve your spade two in hand), and play the heart king, pitching a club. Later you will be able to ruff the clubs good without surrendering the lead, and you can then cross to dummy with the spade four to cash them.

We have all seen hands where you are declarer in three no-trump, and you need to hold up your ace for at least one round to cut the defenders' communications.

Then there are some more-advanced hands where you have K-J-x and the lead is a small card to the queen. You may have to duck to sever opponents’ communications (when the suit breaks 5-2 and you need to lose the lead to your right-hand opponent). Today’s deal takes that principle a step further.

Against three no-trump doubled, West led the heart four to the jack and queen. When declarer discovered the bad diamond break, he played a club, but East rose with the ace and played a second heart for one down.

Declarer felt that he had been unlucky not only with the diamond break, but also that West had not led spades, and even that East had a second heart to play. However, a careful look at the spot-card led at trick one would have told him East had two hearts. If the heart jack was singleton, then West’s initial holding would have been A-K-9-7-4-3, from which he would have led the seven.

So hearts are 5-2, East must have the club ace, and diamonds strongly rate to be breaking badly, given the final double. Declarer should have ducked the heart at trick one. Now nothing can beat him if he leads a club to the jack after finding the bad diamond break.

Curiously, the way to beat three spades here is by leading dummy's short suit. However, although Tom Hanlon and Hugh McGann of Ireland did not find this lead when representing Europe in the 2008 Buffett Bridge Cup against the USA, they still found an ingenious way to defeat the partscore.

Against three spades Hanlon led a low heart to the two and king — McGann couldn’t be certain that South did not hold the singleton jack. At trick two, McGann found the fine switch to a low diamond, which declarer elected to win in hand. Had he taken with dummy’s ace instead, he would have been better placed.

Then came the trump king. If West wins this, then whether he returns a trump or a diamond, declarer can duck a club and later have two clubs available for diamond discards. But Hanlon withheld his ace, and now South could not chance playing another trump, as the defenders could then remove dummy’s trump and knock out the diamond ace before the clubs were set up.

Declarer therefore continued with three rounds of clubs, East pitching a diamond on the third. In with the club queen, Hanlon essentially returned a diamond. Since it was still unsafe to lead another trump, declarer continued with a fourth round of clubs. On this, McGann, to deter his partner from returning a heart, discarded the heart ace! Hanlon duly trumped the club and returned a diamond for East to overruff dummy. The trump ace was the defenders’ fifth trick.

After seeing dummy, on the auction shown, would you think your next move might be critical? If not, give the problem a couple of extra seconds' thought!

The hand is from the Individual at the 1st World Mind Sports Games, held in Beijing, where Pairs scoring was in use.

First, let’s see the action at the table where Gay Keaveney of Ireland was partnering Bob Hamman of the USA. Hamman had no easy way to get his values across, but decided to treat his hand as invitational, banking on his three black honors to be working overtime, and treating his spades as a three-card suit. Had this been teams, Keaveney would have bid the spade game, but at matchpoints he preferred to be circumspect and try to insure a plus score.

Against three spades West led the diamond queen; East rose with the ace and returned a diamond. Keaveney played his king, cashed the club ace and king and got off play with a third club. The trump return from East came too late. South could not now be prevented from ruffing his fourth club in dummy and coming to 10 tricks, losing just two diamonds and a club.

It was Patrick Huang of Chinese Taipei who found the defense to beat four spades. On winning the first trick with the diamond ace, he recognized the danger and switched to a trump, and continued with a second trump when in with a club. That killed the club ruff and set the game.

This month on Tuesdays I shall be running deals from a new book, by Robert Ewen and Jeff Rubens, editor of the Bridge World, the monthly publication that is generally acknowledged to be the world's most interesting bridge magazine.

The new book is called “It’s All in the Game,” a mixture of humorous and informative deals, together with a fair selection of mind-bending problems. Quite a few of the latter demonstrate that bridge and reality have only a small overlap. I can guarantee that all my readers will find something to enjoy.

Here is Ewen at work as South in a chapter mischievously trying to prove that one can take certain dictums at bridge too far — such as “second hand low.” Against four spades West stumbled upon a club lead; East topped the king with the ace and shifted to a trump. Ewen won and led out the three top hearts. “Second hand low!” chortled West, as he carefully ruffed with the lower of his two remaining trumps, the seven. Declarer would have made the contract had West discarded (he would pitch a diamond from dummy and score his 10th trick with a diamond ruff), or if had he ruffed with the spade nine (he would then use the spade eight as an entry to run the clubs), but West’s actual play left him without recourse.

Ewen overruffed and led the club queen for a diamond discard, but West ruffed, then cashed the two top diamonds for a one-trick set.

Check out The Bridge World on the net for details about the book.

In today's deal North's jump to five hearts showed good trumps and nothing else to say — just what South needed to hear. Declarer was lucky enough to receive a diamond lead against his slam, and therefore was in a position almost to ensure his contract.

South took the diamond queen lead with his king, drew trumps in three rounds ending in dummy, then cashed the ace and king of spades. Bad news: the 5-1 break meant that he could no longer take more than 11 tricks.

If declarer had received a club lead against his contract of six hearts, playing spades from the top would have been fine, since the defenders had established a winner and would be in a position to cash it as soon as they obtained the lead. So declarer would have needed to get the spades going without losing a trick to make his slam. (Declarer cannot afford spades to break worse than 4-2 — unless the jack is singleton — because two club discards are needed in dummy so that South’s second club can be ruffed.)

But after the diamond lead, once trumps are found to be 3-2, there is a cast-iron play for the slam. Win the third round of trumps in dummy, then run the spade 10. The spade jack is the only trick lost. Declarer can win the return, unblock spades, then run spades. Now dummy’s club losers vanish on the spades, and a club can then be ruffed in dummy.

The final deal from last year's European Open Championships was played by Vitas Vainikonis in four hearts. Consider it first as a single-dummy problem. You sit South, and no doubt when dummy comes down, you regret not doubling four diamonds. But you have to make the best of the spot you are in.

The good news is that when the defenders lead three rounds of diamonds, West has six and East can only ruff in with the heart six, not the jack. You overruff and draw the remaining trumps in two rounds. Now what?

You know that West has six diamonds and two hearts together with very short spades. The auction strongly suggests that he has five clubs, given East’s revealing pre-empt. So East has only two clubs, making the club finesse unnecessary — if East has the club queen, it is dropping.

Therefore, you cash the club ace and king, then lead a spade to the jack; East must duck his ace or it falls on empty air. Next you lead a spade to the king, and East must duck a second time, since if he wins he is immediately endplayed. With only spades left, he will have to play into the tenace.

But now you exit with a club. When West wins the club queen, he must give you a ruff and discard with the lead of one minor or the other, and your last spade goes away. Contract made!

Despite their natural disappointment at failing to reach the final, the French women made no mistake in the play-off for the bronze. They were in sparkling form, as this little gem by Veronique Bessis and Catherine D'Ovidio illustrates.

One could discuss at length what South should do when North doubles four hearts for takeout. Admittedly the South hand is very balanced and the spade suit bad, but with four hearts being stone cold, bidding four spades was certainly the right thing to do in this deal.

Against four spades West led her singleton club, and declarer won in hand and played three rounds of diamonds. West ruffed in with the spade five, and declarer discarded dummy’s heart.

Now West played the heart ace, and declarer ruffed in dummy and played a spade, West winning with the king and exiting with a heart. Declarer had to ruff, but now if she played a spade, West would win and cash a heart trick, so she played a club to her ace. West ruffed in yet again, this time with the spade ace, and played a third heart. As declarer ruffed in dummy, East discarded her remaining club. Since dummy was down to nothing but clubs, when declarer led one from the board, East was able to ruff in and defeat the contract.

Incidentally, declarer can get home by playing on clubs after ruffing the first heart. West ruffs and plays a heart, but declarer ruffs in dummy and plays another club.