Few would solve today's problem, although the correct play requires nothing more than a careful consideration of the opponents' bidding and a little thought as to how the play is likely to develop.

Against four hearts the opening lead is the diamond two to dummy’s ace. Clearly the spot-card led indicates that diamonds are 5-1, and while you are in no imminent danger of a defensive ruff, the possibility exists that the defenders may be able to arrange some inconvenient discards – if you let them.

On the bidding, it is both safe (and necessary as the cards lie) to cash the spade ace, king and queen. While you might feel this could expose you to ruffs, remember that West’s negative double showed precisely four cards in the spade suit. (With five he would have bid one spade.) The reason for cashing those winners is to prevent West from discarding spades on diamond winners.

It may feel that you have done the heavy lifting now, and can tackle trumps, but that is not so. Instead you must lead the club queen to drive out the ace. You can ruff the third round of diamonds high, then play a high trump from hand if you want, but after that you must cash the club king and ruff a club, thereby avoiding the loss of a second club.

If you lead trumps early, West will ruff his partner’s diamond winner and can then play ace and another trump to leave South with a second club loser.

Against three no-trump West leads the heart eight, and East wins the first trick with the queen and returns the heart five when you hold up the ace. You might as well duck this, just in case West has opened on a five-card suit. West wins with the jack and clears the heart suit, dummy and East each throwing spades.

You have eight top tricks, so an extra trick from the diamond suit will carry you to the finishing line. You will need to duck a round of diamonds at some stage and it must be to East, the safe hand with no more hearts. At trick four you lead a low diamond from your hand. If West produces the diamond six or seven you will cover with dummy’s eight, forcing East to win the trick. Nine tricks will then be yours when the diamonds prove to be 3-2.

Suppose West holds diamond Q-10-7 and inserts the 10 on the first round. You win with dummy’s ace and see that it would not be safe to continue by cashing the diamond king. West would win the third round of diamonds and cash too many hearts for your liking. Instead, you return to your hand with a spade and lead another diamond toward dummy. West has to produce the seven this time. You cover with the eight, and are now sure to make three diamond tricks without letting West on lead.

When this deal occurred in a local pairs game, most pairs landed in three no-trump. As North would occasionally raise a major-suit response to an opening one-bid with three trumps, South's three-no-trump call simply offered a choice of games. How would you play the game when West leads the spade six and East plays the queen?

Most defenders took East’s queen with the king and ran the club queen. East took this with the king and returned the spade seven. As the cards lay, the defenders now had no trouble in making four spade tricks, and those declarers finished down one.

One declarer allowed the spade queen to win the first trick and played the spade jack on the next trick. After some thought, the West at this table ducked, retaining his spade A-10 tenace over South’s remaining honor. This was enough to defeat the contract. When East won the club king and returned his remaining spade, West could take three more spade tricks.

The final declarer judged that West had led from spade length and, as he had not overcalled in spades, decided that the club king was likely to be wrong. He played the spade two at trick one and the spade four under the spade seven at trick two. East continued with a third round of spades to the jack and ace. However, when the club finesse lost, that was the last trick for the defense, and declarer could take one spade, two hearts and six tricks in the minors.

Some suit combinations are instinctive, but what your instinct tells you to do is not always right. With a trump suit of A-10-7-3 facing K-J-8-6, you can cash the king and run the jack, OR cash the ace and run the 10 to guard against 4-1 trumps in whichever hand you choose. But let's look at the full deal from last fall's nationals in Seattle to see how to apply the rules.

North-South competed to the three-level with only eight trumps (a violation of the Law of Total Tricks) when both players perhaps did a little too much. North’s decision to compete to two spades with only four trumps when facing a likely three-card holding was perhaps out of line. (North-South would have managed to collect 200 from three hearts doubled, though it is not so easy to defend with West declarer).

In three spades on a diamond lead, declarer had successfully crossed the first hurdle. Trumps were clearly 4-1, given East’s decision to compete so high facing a passed partner, so South ran the spade 10, covered all around, then ducked a club, won by West’s jack.

A passive diamond exit let declarer cash two more rounds of diamonds, then play a second club. Whatever West did, South could play to ruff a club with the spade ace and run the spade seven, finessing against the nine for nine tricks.

Incidentally, best defense would have held declarer to eight tricks in three spades if he had started trumps by leading the ace.

One aspect of the game that defeats beginners and intermediate players is the concept that every card means something. Take this deal from the second semifinal session of the Kaplan Blue Ribbon Pairs from Seattle last year, and focus just on East's cards and the North's hand (dummy).

North-South were playing Precision, which resulted in an inelegant sequence to one no-trump rather than two diamonds. But it was up to East-West to punish them.

Using fourth-highest leads, West started with the club four: jack, queen, six. The club two went to the nine and 10, and the club three was returned to East’s king. When West let the club eight hold the trick, East had to decide how to continue. Dummy had pitched a heart and two diamonds on the clubs; declarer had thrown a heart.

Should East play a spade, in case declarer started with the doubleton spade ace and five solid diamonds? Or should he play a diamond, in case declarer had the spade king and not the diamond king?

The answer came from West’s decision to win the second club trick with the 10, not the ace. (He knows East has the club king from the play to the first two tricks, so he has a choice of plays from equals.) When he then returns the club three, not the ace or five, he has played his lowest card at each turn, signaling for a diamond through.

The general rule about signaling is that you encourage to get a suit continued, and discourage to get the obvious shift. Occasionally, though, an unusual card should wake partner up to making a counterintuitive play.

In today’s deal from the Seattle Board-a-Match, Sid Brownstein, South, bravely balanced into his opponents’ suit, and his partner took him seriously. Against three spades doubled, the low heart lead went to the king and East’s ace, and East cashed the diamond ace, West signaling with a middle diamond. East now played back the heart jack, on which Brownstein carefully discarded his diamond king, eliminating the threat of the diamond ruff. When declarer subsequently located the club queen, he was able to wrap up 730.

In my opinion, both defenders were responsible for the poor result. East really should have shifted to a low spade at trick three — what high card other than the spade king could his partner hold that would set the contract and without that card how could West have doubled three spades? Equally, West might well have dropped the diamond jack on his partner’s play of the ace. This would have been an “oddball” signal to wake up partner to the need to play the unusual suit to get his ruff — in this case, a trump!

Here, by contrast, the diamond queen would simply show the queen and jack and suggest to East that he could continue the suit if he wanted to, or was able to.

In today's deal from the Seattle Nationals last year, South reached three no-trump after his vulnerable opponents had done a lot of bidding. So it was fair to assume suits wouldn't split.

The heart queen held the trick on opening lead. A second heart to the ace was followed by a third heart, on which declarer had to discard from dummy. Name your poison!

South erred in practice — and maybe in theory as well — by pitching a spade. He then crossed to the club king to play a diamond to his ace (hoping East had a doubleton queen or jack, in which case the suit might be set up without letting West on lead) as his best chance to bring in the diamonds.

The 4-1 break in diamonds — disappointing but hardly surprising — brought South up short. East discarded a spade, and the best declarer could do was finesse in spades against East and hope for the clubs to break. Hardly surprising that that chance failed, but declarer had already given up his best play for the ninth trick.

Had he pitched a club from dummy at trick three, play would have continued precisely as before. But after a spade to the jack holds, declarer cashes his spade king and plays three rounds of clubs. Because the spade A-10 remains in dummy, declarer would have been able to endplay East in clubs to lead a spade into dummy’s A-10 at the end for his ninth trick.

Many people find percentages at bridge dull. They may have a point, but today we are going to look a little closer at the old adage "Eight ever, nine never."

When you are missing four cards in a suit, you should normally play for the drop of the queen, but when missing five cards in a suit, you normally finesse for a key card rather than play for the drop.

However, note that use of the word “normally.” It is particularly true that when you are missing four cards, the slightest indication that one opponent has greater length in that suit than his partner — as few as a two-card differential — should sway you to play the defender who is short in that suit for the queen.

Let’s look at the first of this week’s deals from the Seattle Nationals last year. West’s jump to four clubs showed that suit and spades (so-called Leaping Michaels).

I suppose I’m getting old, but East and especially South seem to be well short of their bids. On lead against six clubs, West was hoping he had two tricks and that his partner might come through with a little something, given his vulnerable weak two-bid … not tonight, Josephine!

On a heart lead, declarer won and cashed the club ace, but then should he finesse or drop? This one is easy. Since East has six hearts and West two, West has much more room in his hand for the trump queen than East, so the finesse is a heavy favorite to win.