One thing about rubber bridge is that you frequently have to make up in the play for what you drop in the auction. In the following deal six clubs appears to be far better than six no-trump despite the bad trump split. South can ruff a diamond and leave himself with many chances, but some ambiguity about whether four clubs was Gerber or showing a club fit led to the 4-4 fit being missed. A forcing three-club call by North at her third turn would perhaps have been wiser.

Still, six no-trump offered some fascinating play. On the lead of the spade 10 South won in dummy and cashed four rounds of clubs, on which East parted with two diamonds, echoing in the suit, and a low heart. Since she would surely have pitched a spade from three small, South cashed out the spades via the finesse, and that persuaded West to discard a small heart and a small diamond.

Reasoning that West would surely have led a heart without the ace, she was likely to hold that card. So declarer, going for the grandstand finish (on the grounds that anyone can take a finesse!), cashed the diamond ace and king to strip West of her exit cards. Then, instead of taking a simple finesse for the heart jack, he led a heart to the queen. West won the ace, but in the two-card ending she was endplayed, forced to lead away from the heart jack around to South’s 10, and the contract came home.

In today's deal North made a jump raise in hearts at his second turn rather than show spade shortage — he would have needed something like an additional trump honor to make that call. South also took the discreet route when he made one cuebid, then jumped to five hearts to ask for a spade control. North had enough for a grand-slam try now, but South declined to cooperate. He knew his partner could not have as much as five good diamonds, the spade ace and the club king. If he did, he would have cuebid six clubs over the jump to five hearts. (North could only make a grand-slam try if he had the spade ace.)

When dummy came down, South thought that his side might be cold for a grand slam, but that was no reason not to be careful. He won the spade lead, immediately led a low heart from dummy, and ducked East’s six. That player shifted to a club, and declarer won the ace, ruffed a spade, crossed to hand with a trump, ruffed a second spade, came to the diamond jack and drew trumps, with four diamond winners to take care of the two club losers in hand.

As the cards lie, with trumps not breaking and the club finesse losing, the only line to make the hand is to duck the first trump. Try it for yourself and you will find that if you win the first trump trick, you can no longer make the hand.

If you just looked at the North-South cards in four hearts ,you would expect 10 tricks to be a cakewalk, especially as East's opening bid suggests the diamond ace rates to be onside.

However, the fly in the ointment was the opening lead of the diamond three. Imagine that as declarer you were faced with that situation. You would let East win the diamond ace, cover the return of the diamond queen, and West would ruff and exit with a spade.

With two diamond losers to get rid of, you would ruff a club, go back to the heart nine to ruff another club, and try to put some pressure on the opponents — but nothing would materialize.

Instead, declarer must duck the second trick. No harm will come to South in the unlikely event that diamonds were originally 3-2: he will simply have invested an overtrick as insurance. But if the cards lie as in the diagram, at trick three East will lead a third diamond, covered and ruffed. When West exits with a spade, you win in dummy and ruff a club. Then you play a heart to the nine, ruff a second club, and run the hearts, pitching dummy’s diamond, followed by low clubs. First you squeeze West out of a spade (as he has to guard clubs), then, when you throw dummy’s club queen, East must pitch spades to keep the diamond guard. So trick 13 will be won with dummy’s spade seven.

The field in a pairs game generally played four hearts here and the traveler showed a string of scores of plus 50 to East-West, and yet when West leads the diamond queen against your heart game, you should really find a way to make the contract.

The mistake most declarers made was to win the lead in dummy and play a spade to the 10. West won, led a low diamond to his partner, and a club shift scuttled declarer’s chances.

Let’s revisit the play. Since you are not keen for East to be able to obtain the lead cheaply to lead a club through your king, you should play low from dummy on the first trick. East is welcome to overtake with the diamond king. If he pays this high price to gain the lead, the defenders can take their clubs, but you will finesse the diamond 10 subsequently, setting up a discard for your spade loser.

If East plays low at trick one, you win the next diamond with dummy’s ace and play a spade to the 10. If West wins with the king or queen, you will unblock the spade ace and later take a ruffing spade finesse through East after drawing trumps to set up a discard for one of your club losers. So long as the spade honors are split, the defenders cannot prevent this line of play. And if both spade honors are on your right, you still have the club finesse available.

How would you tackle today's spade game when West leads the diamond nine?

The original declarer did not give the matter sufficient consideration, and as a result, plunged to defeat. He won the diamond lead with dummy’s ace and finessed the spade queen. West won with the king and played another diamond. After cashing two winners in the suit, East tried his luck with a fourth round of diamonds. With the trumps lying as they were, this promoted West’s spade nine to the setting trick. Do you see how declarer could have avoided this trump promotion?

To kill the entry to the East hand, you need to duck the first round of diamonds. You can then win the second round with dummy’s ace and finesse in trump, and West can no longer reach the East hand for a trump promotion. There is absolutely no risk in ducking the first diamond. If the diamond-nine opening lead happened to be a singleton, West would be ruffing a loser after a diamond return.

Holding up an ace to break the defenders’ communications is a familiar idea when playing in no-trump, but it can be just as valuable in a suit contract. The purpose is exactly the same — to cut the communications between the defenders.

Incidentally, you must also resist the temptation to try to cash the top hearts early. There is no need to rush to take your discard — it can wait till after trumps are drawn.

Against your contract of three no-trump, West leads the heart seven to East's queen. You hold up your ace to cut the defenders' communications and win the third round, throwing a spade from dummy. You need three club tricks, but cannot afford to let West obtain the lead.

The normal play when you are missing both the 10 and nine is to lead to the jack, your best shot at four tricks, but here a first-round finesse of the club jack is not best. The point is that West would eventually win the lead by taking a trick with his remaining club K-10 and defeat you by cashing out his hearts. (You would also go down when West started with club K-9-6, provided East unblocked the club 10 under dummy’s jack.)

Since West is the danger hand, you should lead the club queen on the first round, planning to run that card. Here West will cover with the king, won with dummy’s ace. It will then be a relatively simple matter to return to your hand with a diamond and lead to the club eight, ducking into the safe hand.

Incidentally, a sensible play for three tricks in isolation, if you weren’t concerned with keeping West off lead, would be to cash the club ace first. If either the club 10 or nine falls, make your next play on the assumption that this card may be a singleton. For example, if East drops the club nine, you should lead to the club queen next.

.Today's deal illustrates what to an experienced bridge player is a rather unlikely theme because it runs counter to the idea of what a squeeze is. Simply put, if you guard one suit and your partner another suit, neither of you should be squeezed. If you each have to guard a third suit, you can understand a squeeze might operate – but if there are only two danger suits, and two of you to look after those suits, how can any pressure be brought to bear? Watch and learn!

Against four hearts West began by playing off his three top diamonds, eliminating that suit as a source of pressure for declarer. Declarer ruffed the third diamond and played a trump. East took the second trump and sensibly exited with the club two, giving nothing away.

Declarer won this in hand and simply ran his trump, reducing to a position where dummy had ace-third of spades and two small clubs, while declarer had three spades, a trump and the master club.

When South led his last trump, West had to keep the spades guarded and so pitched down to one club, while a spade was discarded from dummy. Now East had to throw a spade to keep control of the clubs. Reading the position, South (who knew West had the spade queen because of East’s pass in response to his partner’s opening bid) led the spade jack, covered all around. The fall of the 10-9 of spades meant declarer’s hand was now high.

When this deal came up a year or so ago in the later stages of a national knockout championship, I was surprised that neither declarer came a great deal closer to making his delicate game contract.

Both Wests led the spade king against four hearts and shifted to the club jack, at least reducing the total number of possible losers declarer had by one. Both declarers pulled out cards without any particular direction in mind, and eventually finished up by leading a diamond toward the king, thus going down one for a flat board. Running the diamond jack would not have worked any better, since East would have covered, of course.

Success requires nothing more than finding trumps not 3-0, with the clubs dividing no worse than 6-2 and the club 10 where you would expect it to be — in the West hand. The winning line is to cash the heart ace at trick three, then your remaining high club, before you cross to dummy with the heart king, drawing the last trump in the process.

Now you lead the club nine from dummy and throw your last spade away, endplaying West into winning and either leading a diamond, when you lose just to the ace, or playing a club. In that case, you pitch a diamond from dummy and play to ruff two diamonds in the North hand.