There is a lot to be said for the idea that playing bridge against opponents you can trust (either to play well or badly!) makes your life considerably easier.

Today’s deal came up in the later stages of a national knockout competition, so it was logical for declarer to assume that his opponents would not have done something dramatically inferior in defense.

Put yourself in South’s seat. You have reached four spades, and your chances do not seem so great on a low diamond lead, but when dummy’s diamond king holds, things look up. Also, you can tell that you are playing against resourceful opponents — just from the opening lead!

You draw two rounds of trump, ending in hand, and lead a heart to the jack and king. East cashes a diamond and returns the heart 10, on which West unblocks the queen. You ruff the last heart, cross to dummy in trumps, and lead a low club, intending to put in the seven. Naturally, East thwarts you by playing the club eight, so you try the queen, losing to the king. West returns a low club. What now?

Well, restricted choice might suggest playing low — but there is a much sounder argument for putting in the six, the winning play at the table. The reason? East, a fine player, would have broken up the endplay earlier on by shifting to a club when in with the heart king had he started with three small clubs.

Consider the play in four spades here, after an uninformative auction.

West starts by leading the heart jack to East’s ace, and a heart comes back. You win the trick in hand and presumably plan to draw as many rounds of trump as is appropriate, ending in hand. With three minor-suit losers looming if the cards are unfavorably located, can you see how to turn a good contract into an excellent one?

The answer is to lead the first trump to the jack, ruff dummy’s heart, then draw the second trump with the queen, (leaving a trump outstanding if it is West who has the length) and now lead a club to the eight, rather than to dummy’s jack.

Why? Well the answer is that when East takes the trick, he is guaranteed to be endplayed. He can only give you a ruff and discard (in which case you ruff in hand and pitch a diamond from dummy) or lead back a club or a diamond into dummy’s tenaces. Whichever minor he plays, you have the communication to be able to ensure that you lose only one more diamond trick, thus making your contract.

By contrast, if you had led a club to the jack as your first play in the suit, East would have won his queen and returned the suit. When clubs failed to break, you would have had to fall back on the diamond ace being onside. And when that chance also failed to come through for you, you would have been sunk.

Last month I told you I would be running occasional deals to indicate how well or badly computers play. Here is an example of a computer outplaying a human — although as the original reporter (Onno Eskes for IMP magazine) said, the human being did a pretty good job too.

At the 1997 Dutch Mixed Pairs Championship, only Tjeerd Kootstra made 10 tricks in four hearts without assistance from the opponents. West led a spade, and East won and shifted to the diamond 10. Kootstra took the ace, played a heart to dummy’s ace, and exited in hearts. East took his king and reverted to spades, taken by South’s ace. The last trump was pulled, and now Koostra played a small club from hand, covering West’s eight with dummy’s nine. East won his 10 and played a third spade. Declarer ruffed, cashed the club king, and finessed in clubs to find a discard for his diamond loser. Nicely done.

When Eskes gave the board to GIB (Ginsberg’s Intelligent Bridgeplayer) the play began the same way. But at trick six GIB ruffed the spade 10 in dummy, drew the last trump, and played a club to dummy’s king. Next, GIB ducked a club to West’s jack, leaving that player endplayed to lead into the diamond tenace. This line wins against any doubleton club honor with West or a 3-3 club break, and does not require the guess of whether to finesse in clubs or play for the drop on the third round.

It was not easy to see a way to reach four spades in today's deal, a contract that can be brought home with careful play even against a 4-2 spade break. Five diamonds looks hopeless, but when West paid more attention to the cards played by declarer than to those played by his partner, he paid the penalty.

West led the heart three, and declarer ruffed the heart continuation. When two rounds of trump failed to drop the queen, East pitching a heart, there seemed to be no chance of avoiding a club loser as well. Or was there? Declarer cunningly led the spade nine to dummy’s jack, then cashed the ace and king, dropping the queen from his hand on the second round. Next he led a trump to give West the lead and a problem.

West surmised that South had started with a 3-1-5-4 distribution. In that case, if his clubs were as good as A-J-x-x, a club lead would be fatal, but a ruff and discard would not help declarer, who would still lose a club at the end. So West obliged with another heart. Dummy ruffed, South’s losing club went away, and only later did South’s hidden spade eight appear.

West had not thought enough about the auction (South’s cue-bid strongly suggesting four spades). Had he watched his partner’s spades, he would have seen him follow up the line, suggesting an original odd number. Had East started with four small spades, he would surely have echoed to show an even number.

This deal, from a major pairs event, worked well for those playing a weak no-trump because they arranged for the spade game to be declared by North. As long as declarer managed to guess clubs, the game was unbeatable.

However, most of the field ended up in four spades by South, often on a diamond lead after East had overcalled in diamonds. How would you play four spades after West has led a low diamond? At several tables declarer went up with dummy’s ace and arranged to ruff a heart in dummy. A spade was played next, but West won and continued diamonds, forcing declarer to ruff. When declarer played a second spade, West again won and played a fourth round of hearts. Now even a correct club guess could do nothing to save declarer.

Can you see how South could, and should, have avoided this? If he ducks the opening diamond lead in dummy, all East can do is win and shift to a heart, but declarer takes the heart ruff and plays on spades. Now when West wins and plays another diamond, declarer is a tempo ahead. He wins with the ace and plays a second trump. West will win and force declarer, who can ruff and draw the rest of the trump. He is reduced to a three-card ending with three clubs in each hand, and should know enough by then to play East for club length, finessing him for the queen.

This column has often emphasized what a bad idea it is to double a contract when all you have is trump tricks. Sometimes the opponents run, sometimes they pick up the trumps because of your double, and sometimes they redouble. Today's deal provides an example.

In today’s deal East had made a trap pass over two no-trump, hoping North-South would arrive in three no-trump. When South emphasized his 6-4 pattern, North raised spades confidently, and West made a greedy double, without much justification, given his moderate trump spots.

Declarer ruffed the diamond lead and led a trump to the ace, getting the expected news of the 5-0 break. Now a club from dummy was taken by East with the ace, and he exited with the diamond king. Declarer ruffed and saw West’s echo in diamonds; he could now see a way home if West really did have a doubleton together with three cards each in hearts and clubs.

At trick five South cashed his club king, then took all of his heart winners, reducing everyone to five cards. If West had started with three diamonds, it might have been right to take another diamond ruff now, but South believed the opening lead, and so he exited with a club. West had to win the trick and play a trump, giving declarer an extra trick in that suit. Worse still, he then had to ruff the club continuation and lead into declarer’s remaining trump tenace to concede the contract.

An online discussion group devoted to bridge, called "rec.games.bridge," features problems and discussions. A while ago Andrzej Matuszewski posted this neat deal, in which you reach four spades after West has shown at least nine cards in the majors (and yes, five diamonds might have been easier). Plan the play on the defense of two top hearts.

If you ruff the second heart and play ace, king and a third round of trumps, West will win and lead hearts, forcing dummy to ruff with the master trump. Equally, if you discard a losing club from dummy at trick two, a third round of hearts dooms you, whichever hand you take the ruff in.

A good try is to ruff the second heart and cash the club ace, then cross to the spade ace and lead a second club to the king. If West has a singleton club, he does best to discard a diamond. You would then lead out your winning diamonds, and West must discard twice. That allows declarer simply to draw trump in the ending. However, today, with West having a third club, he simply ruffs the second diamond and cashes a club, with a trump trick to come.

The solution is to ruff the heart at trick two, and lead a spade to the ace and a low spade from hand. West must win his queen and play another heart, but you throw a club from dummy and ruff in hand, and now lose just one more trump trick.

Today's declarer went down in his slam after missing a tiny point in the play. Can you do better?

In the auction, after South had made a strong jump response in spades and rebid his suit, North did well to cue-bid four clubs in support of spades (with a club suit, North would have rebid three no-trump), and now after an exchange of cue-bids South used Blackwood and drove to the small slam when he found the trump king was missing.

West led the club king against the slam, and declarer won the trick; what now? It all looked too easy: South crossed to a top diamond and discarded his losing clubs on the heart ace and king. Then he turned his attention to the trumps, but now he ran into a problem. Should he finesse or put up the ace and continue the suit? As you can see, when West showed out, it did not matter! To avoid two trump losers, he had to reach dummy again, and East was unkind enough to ruff when the diamonds proved to be 4-1. Now there was no way to prevent East from scoring a second trump trick.

A change in timing would have made the difference. Try cashing the spade ace before rushing to take discards. The trump position is exposed, so now after crossing to a diamond and throwing the losing clubs away, only one trump lead from dummy is needed to hold the losers in the suit to one.