While the world junior championships were being played in Bali 15 years ago, a tournament to celebrate Indonesia(s 50th anniversary was being run simultaneously. This problem came up for the British team — and was not solved at the table. As they failed to qualify for the final stages by the smallest of margins, this was an expensive slip.

South handled his very powerful hand sensibly enough, but North might well have reasoned that the club king was not likely to be pulling its full weight. The final contract looks next to impossible, even on the lead of the diamond ace.

However, after a lot of thought West switched to the club ace, then the heart nine to East’s queen and declarer’s ace. What next? The line chosen at the table was to draw four rounds of trump and try the heart 10, but East ducked that, and declarer had no chance now.

Can you spot the winning line? It is not so bizarre; West’s bids and opening lead suggest he has seven clubs and the bare diamond ace. You need to win the first heart and play West to be 4-1-1-7. You can test the theory by playing three top trumps, then throwing West in by leading your low spade to force him to play a club for you. Now you have an entry to dummy to take the diamond finesse, and eventually you will establish a second parking place for your losing hearts.

Over the last few months I have been addressing this question: How well do computers measure up to humans when it comes to the bidding and play of the cards?

Much depends on how well they are programmed, of course, plus computers still don’t cope with bidding that well. But they frequently best humans in cardplay, especially when the auction has been properly explained to them.

Today’s deal shows how computers stack up against the world’s top declarers. Onno Eskes of the Netherlands tested the computer with the following hand from the Macallan tournament in London a decade ago. At all eight tables the contract was four hearts, against which West led the trump jack.

Three experts went down but five out of eight declarers played the hand in exemplary fashion. The computer GIB joined this expert group (Andrew Robson, Gabriel Chagas, Franck Multon, Lars Blakset and Mark Bompis) by carefully taking the heart queen and leading a spade back to the ace. Then came a heart to the ace and a spade from the table. East could ruff in front of declarer, but he knew he would be ruffing a loser; therefore, he did his best by discarding a diamond. All the declarers won the king, then ruffed a spade in dummy, and were overruffed. East played a diamond to the ace and West exited with a club. But South ruffed, ruffed another spade in dummy, and had the remaining spades plus the diamond king for his 10 tricks.

One of the most heartbreaking boards in the 1995 Marlboro Bermuda Bowl in Beijing occurred right at the end of the quarterfinal match between France and China. The Chinese had led narrowly throughout their match, until the penultimate hand came up.

In the closed room for the French, Philippe Cronier had raised a 16-18 no-trump to game, and on a spade lead Michel Lebel had wrapped up 10 tricks with the aid of the favorable club split, for plus 430.

By contrast, in our featured room, Shao for China opened a 15-17 no-trump, and rejected his partner(s invitation because of his sterile distribution. The largely Chinese audience gasped, but realized that on any normal lead declarer would finish up with 10 tricks. The loss would be only 6 IMPs, and the home team would still lead by 1 IMP.

However, that was not the way it worked out. Michel Perron for France led a devilish heart jack, and Shao won his king and considered his alternatives. If he took the club finesse and it lost, then the defense would certainly have at least six winners to cash. It looked much better to play on spades. All that was needed was an original 4-3 split in hearts.

Accordingly, declarer gave up a spade, and the defense cashed their four heart and two spade winners for one down, and a 10 IMP swing to France, who won the match by 3 IMPs. If the heart suit had divided evenly, the match would have been tied and would have gone to extra boards.

When you are short of entries to a hand, a little lateral thinking may get you to the position you require. Today's deal provides an example.

Against four hearts West led the diamond king and ace, on which the seven then two from East suggested a holding of four diamonds. Declarer played low from dummy on West’s switch to the club four, and East won with the club king as declarer followed low. East now carefully returned a club to South’s queen, and after drawing trump, declarer had to rely on the spade queen dropping. It didn’t; and down went the game.

South’s play lacked imagination. We can all see that if the spade queen drops, declarer is home. But there is a second string to declarer’s bow, which he failed to consider. If South had unblocked his club queen under the king at trick three, the opportunity to finesse West for the club jack is a valid possibility if the spade queen fails to oblige.

This unblock will also come up in positions such as the doubleton queen facing A-9-2 or K-9-2, when West leads the jack and East takes the trick with his high honor. Unblocking the queen leaves a finesse against the 10.

Incidentally, East did well to return a club to South’s queen at trick four. On a major-suit return, South would have won, drawn trump, and tested the spades. Then he can run the rest of the trumps and squeeze West in the black suits.

Former president of the European Bridge League Bill Pencharz reported this deal, played by Mary Gordon at his duplicate bridge club in the depths of central France. As he said, Mary is a fine intuitive player, and when this deal came up at her table while she was playing with Bill, she got it right, without apparent pause for thought. Few of us would have been able to duplicate her play — or her speed.

Defending four hearts, after a spade to East’s queen, a diamond to West’s ace and a diamond ruff, East didn’t have the courage to switch to a club, which would have broken up the position. Instead, he played a heart, giving Mary her chance.

Five rounds of hearts followed (two clubs being discarded from dummy) and two further rounds of diamonds saw the lead in dummy in a three-card ending, with North holding the K-9 of spades and the bare club ace while declarer had two clubs and a trump left.

Both defenders now needed to keep two spades or declarer could establish a winner in that suit. If East bared his spade ace, declarer would ruff a low spade to hand, and if West came down to the bare spade jack, declarer would lead the spade king from dummy to establish the dummy’s nine.

Accordingly, both defenders reduced to one club. Mary cashed the club ace, ruffed a spade to hand, and took her long club at trick 13.

With a strong trump suit, all the ace-kings, plus good distribution, North-South should have no difficulty climbing to a small slam. Indeed, some might reach the grand slam — but six spades is challenging enough today.

South wins the opening lead, and plays a spade to dummy. After discovering the bad break in trumps, South needs to maneuver to take six tricks in the side suits, three spade tricks in dummy, and three spade tricks in his own hand. Declarer should cash all of his side winners before starting his crossruff to prevent East from ruffing in prematurely. (Delaying cashing the clubs would not be fatal here, but could easily be on a different day.) Declarer must also arrange to play from dummy after cashing all his six plain winners to be able to lead through East as often as possible.

East has a choice of defenses when declarer leads a red card from dummy at the eighth trick: If East discards a club, South ruffs low, ruffs a club in dummy, and leads a heart. He then discards if East ruffs high or scores his spade eight at once.

If East ruffs low, South overruffs with the eight and continues the crossruff. East cannot prevent him from singling in his last small trump at trick 12.

East’s best defense is to ruff high, but South can counter by discarding a club and will then crossruff and score all his small trumps one way or another.

Both defenders were to blame for allowing South’s game to make. In response to his partner’s overcall, West led the club four. Declarer rose with dummy’s ace, cashed the top diamonds for a club discard – West following with the two and three – and when East’s queen dropped, continued with the diamond jack, looking for all the world like a player with another club to jettison.

East ruffed low; South overruffed, then followed up with the heart jack. East took the ace and returned the club king, but South ruffed, drew the rest of the trump, and conceded two spades. Game made.

East certainly did not shine. Even if West had started with a singleton club and the club king had stood up, with West being able to overruff declarer on a third club, that, along with the trump ace, would only have represented three tricks. East should have appreciated that to defeat the contract, West needed to hold the spade ace. That being so, the fourth defensive trick would have to come from either a spade ruff or the club king.

Therefore, East should have played a low spade to partner’s ace and hoped that he could tell what to do from West’s subsequent action. When West returns the spade deuce, the ruff should be delivered.

West wasn’t blameless, though. He should have given a clear suit-preference signal of the 10 on the second diamond, and underscored it with the nine on the third.

In response to your overcall, West leads the heart jack against four spades. Plan the defense.

In situations of this sort it is sometimes difficult to approach the problem because your instincts point you in the wrong direction. So let me prompt you with some questions. Let’s agree that our target is to take four tricks and that we do not mind conceding overtricks in exchange for a chance to defeat the game. How many quick tricks does our side have? The answer is that we have two hearts and we have to assume that we have a club trick coming, or we can surely never defeat this game.

Our best chance of a fourth winner is our diamond king. Can we just sit back and wait to score our two tricks in the minors? No indeed!

As soon as declarer knocks out our club king, then — no matter what his original club holding — he is surely going to have as many winners as he needs to discard slow diamond losers from his hand. Additionally, even if that were not so, declarer is probably threatening to pitch dummy’s slow diamond loser on the heart queen.

If this is the case, you have no hope of defeating the game unless partner has the diamond queen. If so, you need to switch to a diamond now, before either the clubs or hearts are established for a diamond discard. Therefore play a diamond at once, and hope for the best.

In a team game, West opened one spade, was passed around to South, who was willing to risk bidding at least six hearts, but had no way to let North know what was needed for seven. By bidding only hearts and clubs before jumping to slam, he tried to give the impression that he was worth a drive to slam, but was missing a trick in one of those two suits.

North got the message that his partner had longer hearts than clubs, but felt obliged to pass six hearts in spite of his diamond ace because he could not be sure his partner’s hearts were entirely solid. Of course, seven hearts can be made with a 3-2 club split, but on the lead of the spade king, it was up to South not to waste his energies on what might have been and to focus on making the contract he was in.

South found the solution when he ruffed the opening lead and, before playing any trump, cashed one high club, then led a low club, and eventually ruffed a club in dummy with the heart nine to make his contract.

By playing one high club and one low one, South guarantees the contract unless clubs break 5-0. This is clearly the best available play, since if declarer draws even one round of trumps, the defenders can arrange to prevent the club ruff in dummy. The overtrick is irrelevant unless South is playing pairs — and maybe even then!