Today’s deal features several rather subtle points in the play. The auction to three no-trump was straightforward enough, but the final contract was a very unattractive one. The risk of the defenders cashing four hearts and a spade was a high one — and as it turned out, the spade blockage generated other additional problems.

After West led the heart jack East cashed the queen, king and ace, on which West had the opportunity to signal suit preference. By following up the line, with the four then nine, he was strongly suggesting no spade honor. Since East could infer that declarer rated to have his precise distribution, he thoughtfully shifted to a club. When declarer saw what might happen if he played a spade at once (East would win and play a second club to leave the spades blocked), he found an unlikely resource by leading the diamond 10 to his king. Then he played the spade king. East won and continued with his plan by returning a second club. Declarer ran all the clubs, pitching his spade queen, and came down to a three-card ending with the doubleton spade jack and a small diamond in dummy, and the heart eight and the diamond K-9 in hand. East could keep his diamonds but West (forced to keep the doubleton spade 10 and the master heart) had to pitch his last diamond.

Now declarer led out the spade jack to pitch his heart, then finessed the diamond nine for his contract.

The opposition bidding frequently leads declarer toward the winning line. In today’s deal, however, although that should have been the case, the best play was only discovered in the post mortem.

Against three no-trump West led a low spade to the 10 and queen, and now with six top tricks, declarer hoped that hearts, via a 3-3 break, might furnish the other three. A heart to the jack lost to the ace and back came a spade, removing declarer’s last stopper in that suit. When hearts proved to be 4-2, South cashed the club ace then entered dummy with the diamond ace and ran the club 10. It lost, and the spade return saw the speedy demise of the game.

In view of East’s opening bid, South was unlucky to find the club queen offside. But, unless East’s opening bid was an out-and-out psyche, declarer could have guaranteed the contract by entering dummy with the diamond ace and leading the heart four toward his queen. If East rises with the ace, declarer has three heart tricks, to bring the trick count up to the requisite nine.

And if East plays low, the queen wins, and declarer can turn his attention to clubs, where four tricks are always available by playing low to the 10. (Although at pairs, cashing the ace and king would give you a shot at 10 tricks if the queen lies singleton or doubleton, that play would not cater for a 5-1 or 6-0 break.)

Against four spades West leads the club queen, which holds the trick. West then thoughtfully continues with the club 10 to your ace. Everyone follows when you cash the trump ace. What now?

At the table, after winning the club ace, one declarer drew two rounds of trump with the ace and king, discovering the 4-1 break. Next he played on diamonds, but West held up his ace until the third round, then exited with a trump to the dummy’s 10. The contract could no longer be made, since dummy had no more entries and West was poised to ruff a fourth round of diamonds. Declarer had to try a heart, hoping that East held both honors, but it was not to be, and so declarer could not avoid losing four tricks.

The declarer at the second table showed better technique. The first two tricks were the same, but instead of drawing two rounds of trump, he cashed the trump ace, then played on diamonds. Like his counterpart, this West held up the ace until the third round, then exited with a trump, taken by dummy�s 10. Declarer now played a good diamond and threw one of his heart losers. West could do no better than ruff and try a heart. Declarer took East’s queen with the ace and crossed to dummy by playing a trump to the king, drawing West’s last trump. He then cashed the fifth diamond to dispose of his remaining heart and claimed 10 tricks.

Any contract that will make if a finesse succeeds cannot be considered hopeless. Sometimes, though, the auction will tell you that there has to be some better chance because the bidding has converted your 50 percent play into a no-hoper. Put yourself in South's shoes to see if you can spot the improvement.

When Denmark played Canada in the Venice Cup a decade ago, both declarers (Francine Cimon and Trine Bilde) reached three no-trump and knew that the auction had indicated that the heart finesse would fail. They ducked the first two clubs and worked out that West had the long club from the defensive signals.

They won the third club and decided against trying to find a favorable heart distribution (such as playing East for the singleton or doubleton jack). Instead, they cashed the diamond ace and king, then the two top spades, and exited with the fourth club. At this point West had nothing but hearts left and had to lead into declarer’s acequeen to concede the ninth trick.

As you can see, the natural play might seem to be for declarer to win the second or third round of clubs and cash all the spade winners, but then there is no way back to hand to endplay West in clubs. To succeed, declarer needs to find West with relatively short spades and diamonds; but the auction has made that virtually a racing certainty.

Today’s contract of three no-trump sees West lead the spade jack, and — following general principles — you duck the trick. Spades appear to be the only danger suit, and ducking starts to cut the defenders’ communications.

East overtakes with the queen and advances the spade king, which you duck again. If the defenders continued with a third spade you would knock out the diamond queen, knowing that there is no danger from the spades; but as the cards lie East cannot continue with a third spade; instead he shifts to the heart 10, and now you appear to be home free.

But beware! If you win the first heart and play three rounds of diamonds, West will win and exit with a spade, locking you in dummy and cutting you off from your second heart winner. And if you cash the second top heart, West will unblock the queen and you are again doomed to go down.

Having identified the problem, no doubt you will have spotted the solution. After winning the heart king at trick three, simply play the diamond ace and then lead a low diamond. When West wins the diamond queen (and he might well duck!) he cannot simultaneously dislodge dummy�s spade and club aces. The best he can do is clear the spades, but you can arrange to cross back to hand with the diamond king, cash your heart winner, and go back over to dummy with the club ace to run the diamonds.

Having a nasty surprise for the declarer in the trump suit may be sufficient grounds for doubling the final contract, but by alerting declarer to the bad break, you may provide a blueprint on how the hand should be played.

In today’s deal, having given a restrained preference to two spades, North could hardly be faulted for going on to game when South issued a somewhat dubious invitation. West doubled and led the diamond three; declarer took East’s king with the ace. Alerted by the double, declarer left trump well alone, and prepared for a diamond ruff by returning the diamond jack at trick two, making sure that East could not gain the lead and switch to a trump.

West won and tried the effect of switching to a cunning club six. Declarer put up dummy’s ace and played the heart queen, covered by the king and ace. He ruffed his last diamond, returned to hand with the heart jack, and ruffed a heart. Then he trumped a club, revealing West’s deception, and ruffed his last heart with dummy’s remaining trump.

Declarer was now down to the spade K-Q-9-6 while West had his four trumps left, and dummy was reduced to just clubs. With eight tricks in the bag, declarer played a club and ruffed it with his spade queen. West overruffed with the spade ace and returned the jack, but declarer ducked and left West on play to lead into declarer’s spade tenace. Contract made!

In this deal from the final of the Memphis Life Master Pairs, I assume that most of us would fall from grace and open the South hand one heart, thus ending up in four hearts.

At the table, South received a club lead and led a heart to the nine, jack and king. Declarer won the club return, pitching a spade, and played a heart to the ace. He then went to the diamond queen, ruffed a club, and ran the diamonds. West discarded a spade on the fourth diamond, so South simply played for the spade ace to be onside — no dice.

By contrast, Sabine Auken reached four hearts on an auction where East had been able to double an artificial club call. When she got the lead of the club three (third from an even number, low from an odd number), she played for clubs to have been 3-6 originally. After running the diamonds, she exited with the third heart and endplayed West in trumps to lead spades.

Note that East should have put up the heart queen on the first round of the suit. Now declarer could not arrange the endplay no matter what he did.

At another table, when West was stewing over what to lead against four hearts, his opponent asked sympathetically if he would like some help and pulled out a card for him. West accepted the choice — the heart three! This play forced East to put up the heart queen, and now declarer had no chance.

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.