When you are in doubt, the natural defense is to lead partner's suit. That is generally a good idea, but one can take a good thing too far. Today's deal is just such an example. The contract was a tricky three no-trump, and West led the heart eight, guided by his partner's overcall. South rightly put up dummy's king to protect his vital entry, and East played a discouraging two, since his suit was weak and he could see that the best chance for the defense might lie in the club suit.

The diamond 10 was led from dummy, covered with the jack, queen and king. Incidentally, if East had played low, South would still have played the queen, since he could not afford a holdup by West, leaving the lead in the dummy.

The moment of truth had arrived, and West solved the problem when he trusted his partner’s signals and drew the only logical conclusion. Not only did he shift to clubs, but he led the jack, a play that would serve to defeat the contract whenever South held a small singleton or doubleton. As it was, the queen was played from dummy. East took the ace and returned the five, allowing West to win the king and return the two. Thanks to the seven in East’s hand, the contract had to go down two. But note that if West had shifted initially to the club two instead of the jack, the suit would have been blocked, and declarer would have made his game.

Larry Cohen and David Berkowitz, representing the U.S,A. in Maastricht in 2000 as members of the George Jacobs team, found themselves on defense against four hearts in this deal.

After a club lead, declarer has a tricky play problem. Perhaps the right thing is to ruff a club at once and lead the diamond 10 from dummy. Even if the defenders take two diamonds and a ruff, declarer can ruff his last club in dummy and come to 10 tricks. However, declarer actually took a diamond finesse at once. If Cohen wins the diamond queen to play a trump, declarer can arrange to ruff a club and play a second diamond to set up the suit, coming to five hearts, two diamonds, two aces and a club ruff for 10 tricks.

But when declarer led a diamond to the 10 at trick two, Cohen won with the ace! He then shifted to the heart eight, and declarer won the ace in dummy, played the spade ace, ruffed a spade, ruffed a club on which Cohen unblocked the king, ruffed a spade, and played two more rounds of trump.

In the ending, declarer had eight tricks, and even though Cohen still had a trump, there were chances for the contract. East confidently repeated the diamond finesse. Disaster! Cohen won the queen and played a club to Berkowitz’s hand. Another club allowed Cohen to pitch his low diamond, for down two.

I believe that one can survive pretty well without most of the gadgets that adorn the convention card of today's expert. But I'll grudgingly make an exception for the Smith Echo, an idea that has been around for 50 years. The idea is that at no-trump after the opening trick is won by declarer, the defenders' first signal (in a suit where giving count is irrelevant) signals attitude with regard to the initial suit. The most effective approach is to use the echo by the opening leader as a positive request for third hand to shift, but by third hand it indicates extras in the led suit.

In this deal from a national Board-a-Match Teams, three no-trump made 90 percent of the time it was attempted by South. Declarer’s best practical play on the spade-six lead is to hop up with dummy’s queen. Then the defense is likely to continue attacking spades when they get in. But declarer made what in practice, if not in theory, was a slight slip, when he played low from dummy at trick one and East put in the spade 10 to force the jack.

Now declarer led a club to the ace, and West signaled with the club six — Reverse Smith — asking for the shift that in context had to be to diamonds. East obediently led the diamond five to the queen and king, and West went back to spades. East took the spade ace and reverted to diamonds — hey, presto, down one!

We are taught in our cradles that "Second Hand Plays Low" and "Third Hand Plays High," but all rules are made to be broken. Today's deal demonstrates a situation that arises quite frequently where it is right for 'Second Hand to Play High'. It might have been better for North to raise two no-trump to three, given his balanced hand and honors in all the outside suits. However, then South would not have been put to the test in four hearts.

West led the diamond eight, and declarer correctly deduced that both the ace and jack would be with East. The reflex action would have been to play low on the diamond, but our South decided to make life difficult for East by rising with dummy’s queen. In with the ace, East had to decide what suit to switch to. In the event, he chose a trump, saving declarer a guess that he would probably have got wrong. West won his heart king and, for want of anything better to do, continued with a second trump to the queen and ace.

All declarer now needed was to find the spade queen, but again he gave the opponents every chance to find it for him. He drew the last trump, West discarding a diamond, and exited with king and another diamond. With little to guide him, East was in the hot seat yet again, and this time he chose to exit with a spade, ending declarer’s problems.

In today’s deal the contract of four spades looks to be very straightforward on a heart lead. But beware, there are breakers ahead! It looks natural enough to win the first trick and cash the diamond ace and king – which is indeed the essential start to the play. But next declarer must ruff a diamond to hand to try to score his small trumps in hand as safely as possible in case of bad breaks.

Now the next thing to insure is taking the club ruff in dummy. Declarer leads a club, and East wins cheaply, cashes the heart king, and leads the heart queen. Declarer must ruff high as West pitches a diamond and a club. Now comes a second club. East wins and plays the diamond queen. Declarer is again forced to ruff high, and when West discards, declarer knows West started with five red-suit cards. When he leads a third club from hand, West is down to just his four trumps. He ruffs low and declarer overruffs, leads dummy’s remaining heart, and ruffs with his remaining high trump. He then leads to dummy’s spade K-9 and takes the “sure” finesse.

The key move was to ruff a diamond at trick four. If he doesn’t, declarer will never be able to score his small trumps safely. If West is allowed to discard two diamonds early on in the play, the defenders cannot be prevented from arranging a trump promotion.

Today’s deal is a curiosity – I’m not sure whether the play could ever go as indicated at the end of the article – but I would take my hat off to anyone who found the winning move.

Let’s look at what happened at the table: South reached three no-trump after West had opened with a weak two diamonds. After South showed a strong no-trump, North used Stayman to check back for a 4-4 major-suit fit and settled for three no-trump when South denied a major.

West guessed to lead diamonds, and declarer was forced to hop up with the king from dummy. East followed with the jack in to unblock, preparing for a later finesse. Declarer now had to go after clubs. He led low from the dummy and put in the jack from hand. West won and shifted to a spade.

Reading the position perfectly, declarer won the ace and ran the club nine. When the clubs came in, declarer had one trick each in spades and diamonds, four clubs and three hearts for nine tricks.

It looks as if declarer had timed the play perfectly, and so he had. So what is the point of the deal? Remarkably, the defenders do have a riposte: if West ducks the club queen, declarer can no longer set up the clubs without letting East on lead in one of the black suits, and that will be fatal to declarer.

The 2010 Richard Freeman Junior Deal of the Year prize went to Carole Puillet of France for today's deal, played during the European Junior Pairs in Opatija, Croatia, and originally written up by Brian Senior of England.

The defense to two hearts began with three rounds of diamonds, which saw East ruff low and South overruff. A low club to dummy’s ace allowed Carole to play the heart queen, and when that held, a second heart drew trump.

Carole now knew that West had started with eight red cards. If clubs broke 3-3, then declarer could play king and another club. The defense would now either have to broach spades, giving declarer a winner in that suit, or give a ruff and discard. However, if clubs were 4-2 or worse, then East, the likely length holder, would return the suit and declarer would probably have three spade losers.

There was a small extra chance, which Carole spotted. Hoping that one player had started with precisely the doubleton club queen, she exited with the club nine. That was West’s holding; so at the next trick she had no option but to play a spade, hoping that East held the king and jack. No joy there.

Note that had clubs broken 3-3, then on winning the club nine, the defense could have returned a club to the king. But under these circumstances, West could only have held two spades; therefore leading toward the spade queen would have held declarer’s spade losers to two.

A fine bidding sequence propelled South into seven spades here, against which West led the club king. Declarer could count 12 tricks: six trumps, three diamonds, two hearts and a club. There are three possibilities for the 13th trick. One is setting up the heart suit, or East could hold a singleton heart honor, so that West can be finessed for the other. Finally there might be a squeeze on West. For the squeeze to operate, West needed to hold the club queen – likely given the lead – plus both the heart queen and jack. South decided to play for the more likely chance of hearts breaking no worse than 4-2.

As the only way to reach the long heart, should that suit break 4-2, is with a trump, trump needed to break no worse than 3-1. But care had to be taken in setting up the hearts, in case they lay as they did, with West being able to overruff South.

After capturing the club-king lead in dummy, declarer cashed the diamond king and queen and the heart ace — no heart honor appearing from East. Next came a trump to dummy, then the diamond ace, on which South discarded the heart six. Then a low heart was ruffed low in hand, and another trump to dummy allowed a second heart ruff – this time with the ace.

A spade to dummy, collecting West’s last trump in the process, was followed by the heart king and 10, on which South’s two losing clubs departed.

In today's deal South started low, then felt obliged to make one exploratory call above game, getting him to the Goldilocks level: not too low, not too high, just right for a newspaper article! North's four-spade bid simply suggested a minimum with four trumps, while his five-heart bid showed the ace or king, while denying a diamond control.

Against five spades West was not challenged to lead the diamond jack. The defenders cashed two rounds of the suit and led a third, and declarer made the natural play of ruffing high, protecting against a possible overruff and prepared to claim his 11 tricks. However, when he led a top trump from hand and found the 5-0 trump break, a reassessment was required

South found the solution when he cashed the two top clubs, then played the heart ace and king to put the lead in dummy in a five-card ending where dummy had the J-10-9 of spades and a high and low heart, while declarer had the trump Q-6 and three low clubs.

At this point declarer led the low heart from dummy, giving East a problem to which there was no solution. If he ruffed high, declarer would overruff and draw trump, taking trick 13 with the master heart. If he ruffed low or discarded, declarer would score his small trump and take the last four tricks with a high crossruff.