Gertrude Stein’s last words were, reputedly, “What is the answer? . . . What is the question?”

Take that as your mantra for the next problem, set by Kit Woolsey from the second round of the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams. You lead a third- and fifth-best club eight against three spades, to discover dummy has been playing a little joke. His two-no-trump call (simulating invitational values or better) succeeded in keeping your side out of the auction.

Your club lead goes to dummy’s nine and partner’s ace. Back comes the heart nine (which conventionally shows zero or two higher honors) to declarer’s ace. He plays a second club, and you win the king to continue hearts. Declarer wins in dummy, cashes the club queen to discard a heart, then plays a spade.

Partner shows out, discarding the diamond queen, so you take declarer’s spade king with your ace. There seems no point in underleading the diamond ace, since declarer cannot have a guess in the suit, so you cash the diamond ace and play a diamond, locking declarer in dummy. How does South get back to hand safely for the spade finesse? Declarer is going to ruff a club to hand (having registered your club spots and that your partner took the ace at trick one) unless you dropped the club jack under the queen a few tricks ago!

Woolsey found the play and declarer went with the odds when he tried to ruff a heart to hand. The overruff meant he was down one.

At the U.S. Nationals in Memphis last spring, the Stratified Open Pairs threw up a deal with a point of interest in the play. After a highly informative auction, South reached three hearts on a fourth-highest club lead from West. Declarer won in hand and advanced the diamond queen to West’s king. Back came a second club, and South won the club return in dummy to play a second diamond. East won the ace and shifted to a low spade. What should declarer do now?

The auction had strongly suggested that West, because of his failure to act earlier was 4-6 in spades and clubs. He would surely have opened three clubs or stayed silent without a side-suit. And the logical second suit for him to hold had to be spades.

If that inference is sound, then the right line, which declarer missed at the table, is to win the spade ace, which he did. But then it was right to cash only one top trump, not both — after all, on our projected arithmetic, West could have at most one trump and South needs to retain a high trump in hand, as we shall see.

If South had done that, he could then have played the diamond jack, pitching a spade from dummy. Then he can ruff a diamond, ruff a club, and lead the fifth diamond to discard the other losing spade from dummy. If East ruffs in on the third club, South overruffs and leads the fifth diamond as before.

It’s very easy to defend by rote. See if you can do better than the East-West pair managed on this deal, from the stratified pairs at the Memphis Nationals last spring. North-South had managed to reach four spades after a patented transfer auction to establish they had no club stopper, and had also done well to locate the more solid of their 4-3 major-suit fits.

The defenders led two rounds of clubs. So far, so good; but what next? East shifted to diamonds and declarer, Glenn Milgrim, could finesse, then draw trump when he got back in. That was 10 painless tricks and a top for him. Perhaps East should have led a third club instead for the ruff-sluff. Declarer should ruff in hand, could now lead a low diamond from hand, and might survive if he reads the position. But would he? Who can say? But making 420 rates to be very good here.

Let’s go back to trick one. The delicate bidding sequence means that West knows his side has the club ace and king, that both are cashing, and that the opponents are in a 4-3 fit. If he knows that he is going to get in with the diamond king later on, perhaps he can find the heart lead.

Now the club queen and diamond king will provide re-entry to give partner two ruffs, if declarer does not draw all the trump. (Incidentally, even a heart shift by East at trick two or three does the trick — and that is certainly easier to find.)

The first two days of the spring nationals feature the Baldwin North American pairs, for which one qualifies by district; a small field reduces down to a 14-table final. At last year’s event, in Memphis, the winners were Jordan Cohen and Barry Senensky, who were among the lowest qualifiers for the finals. If not for this deal from the first qualifying session, they might not have been playing on day two.

The deal emphasizes that one should not play bridge in a vacuum, but should take advantage of any indications provided to you by the opponents. You exploit such variations at your own risk, of course, but a skilled player soon learns what and whom to believe!

Against the delicate spade slam (I might use a less flattering term had the contract not come home), West led a trump, taken in dummy. Declarer, Jordan Cohen — who is the son of one of the stalwarts of the American Contract Bridge League, the late Ralph Cohen — followed up by running the club jack, which lost to West’s king.

He won the spade continuation in dummy and was now faced with a choice of lines. Rather than rely on strict percentages, he tested his table presence by advancing the heart king. When South played low smoothly, Cohen decided that the ace rated to be wrong. He ruffed the heart, then finessed in both minors to come to 12 tricks. He was lucky, perhaps, but he exploited the lie of the cards to the best advantage.

With the spring national championships currently taking place in St Louis, Mo., this week’s deals all come from last year’s championships in Memphis.

Sometimes you need the cards to lie just so to give yourself a chance to make your contract. And when they do, the satisfaction for you (plus the irritation caused to your opponents) is all the more. Today’s deal provides just such an example.

Nobody did anything too outrageous in the bidding, but four hearts was an uncomfortable contract for North-South. When West led a low club (suggesting a five-card suit in her methods), East decided to win and shift to a trump, reasonably assuming her heart queen was a dead duck. Notice that the club spots would have allowed South to set up the club eight for an extra winner had East played either her high or low club. Declarer won the trump in hand, ruffed a club, ducked a spade around to West, then won the trump return in hand and ruffed a second club. At this point East was out of clubs, so declarer could next play the spade king to force East to win. Since that player had no clubs to lead, she could do no better than play her low spade. This allowed declarer to ruff, then draw the last trump, and run the diamonds for four tricks.

In the end South scored six trump tricks (four in hand and two ruffs in dummy) plus four diamond winners.

As I'm sure my readers will have noticed, the deals I run on Saturdays tend to be slightly more complex than those in midweek. I have a mental image of my readers having slightly more time to drink their cups of coffee, and focus a little more carefully on the newspaper.

Today’s deal features a contract of four spades reached with just half the deck in high-cards. Once the spade finesse succeeds and trumpS break 2-2, South has excellent play for 10 tricks — but what is the best line? The answer may surprise you.

After the opening lead of the diamond king to South’s ace, declarer goes after trumps. He leads the spade queen, which holds, then leads a spade to the ace. Next comes the heart ace and a heart ruff. Now declarer exits with a low diamond to West, who wins the queen and plays the 10.

Declarer ruffs, ruffs a second heart as West pitches a club, and then leads his last diamond. West plays the nine and dummy discards a club rather than ruffing. West now plays the diamond three and declarer discards dummy’s remaining club while throwing a low club too. West is left on lead and whether he plays a low club or the club ace, declarer will be able to make a trick with the club king.

Declarer finishes up by making seven trump tricks and one trick in each of the side-suits.

West leads the heart 10 against your spade game. When this holds, West plays a second heart and you ruff with the eight. You cash the trump ace and king, assuming that if anyone is long in trumps, it will be West. East discards a heart on the second round, and now your aim is to make the contract when West started with the club king.

The key here is to cross to the diamond ace and ruff dummy’s last heart, removing West’s remaining card in the suit. Next, you run the diamond suit. If West refuses to ruff any of the diamonds, you will discard two clubs from your hand and throw West in with a trump. After scoring two trump tricks, he will have to lead away from the club king. The effect is the same if West ruffs one of your diamond winners. He can cash his other trump winner, but will then have to lead away from the club king.

Note that the defense at trick two was rather soft. East should have won the first trick with the jack and shifted to a club. Then West scores a trick with his club king. Now the contract can be made only with a double-dummy line that relies on your reading West’s original distribution. You would have to play one top trump and guess his precise distribution to reduce him to Q-10-4 of trumps and force him to ruff a diamond winner. He would then have to lead into the king-jack of trumps at trick 12.

Deciding whether to trump a winner or a loser is a common dilemma on defense. An unusual variation of the theme of whether to ruff in or discard comes on hands like today's.

West has to make two good plays as second hand to beat five diamonds, after being given a chance by declarer. On the club lead declarer wins the ace and would do best, as the cards lie, to draw only one round of trump before taking the club discard on the spades. If, instead, he cashes the diamond ace and king, then leads out the top three spades to pitch the club, West must refrain from ruffing.

West knows he cannot prevent declarer from discarding dummy’s losing club whether he ruffs or not, but there is a better use for the trump than ruffing a winner — drawing two of the opponent’s trumps. If West mistakenly ruffs in, then declarer gives up a heart and crossruffs the rest. So West must pitch a club on the third spade, after which declarer will try to sneak a heart through. If he can duck the trick to East, he will be able to play along crossruff lines.

Instead, West must hop up with the heart 10 on the first round of the suit, insuring he wins the first or second heart. He cannot now be prevented from drawing one round of trump, then tapping dummy with a club, preventing the establishment of the hearts.

Today's deal sees two different defenders at work. Both succeeded in defeating their opponents' game, but in very different ways.

At each table South was declarer in four spades when North treated his hand as worth a jump raise facing his partner’s free bid of one spade. Of course in this auction South had promised five spades since he would have doubled one heart with only four spades.

The defense started with West leading the heart jack, and East overtaking to play clubs. At one table East found the best technical defense when he shifted to the club jack. South covered with the queen, and West won and returned the club nine. Now, whatever declarer did, he had to lose two more club tricks.

In the other room East shifted to the club king at trick two, and when it held the trick, he continued with a low club. South looked at him suspiciously. Was East trying to pull a fast one, with an original club holding of ace-king-third, or did he have his actual holding and had given up on the legitimate way to defeat the contract?

In the end, South guessed wrong and went up with the queen, letting West take his ace and cash third club trick for the defense.

So which defender followed the better line? It is hard to say. Had East held the club nine or eight in addition to the king-jack, the technical play of shifting to the club jack would surely have been right.