Good technique was rewarded on this deal, where the field reached three no-trump on a heart lead.

The auction put West on lead with an easy choice of the heart 10. With the heart suit lying as it does, it is necessary to consider your first move carefully. If the heart suit splits 4-3, it is irrelevant whether you win the first or second round of the suit. But as the cards lie, look at what happens if you take the first heart and drive out the spade ace (it is clearly more attractive to go after spades because of the intermediates in that suit, though playing on clubs might work, as the cards lie).

When East takes the spade ace and returned the heart jack, West overtakes and can clear the suit while retaining the club ace as an entry. Once spades do not behave, you are very short of tricks, and will have to let West in to cash out his hearts.

By contrast, if you duck the first heart and win the second in hand, then drive out the spade ace, East will have no hearts left to lead, and will have to exit passively, letting you drive out the club ace at your leisure.

Ducking trick one makes the difference between an undertrick and an overtrick.

One of the stronger bridge players in the country for the last 30 years has been Eddie Wold. He is currently fourth on the ACBL's list of all-time masterpoint winners, with more than 50,000 masterpoints, and he has won all the major U.S. titles at least once.

In today’s deal he lured declarer on a sequence where North had transferred into spades, then offered the choice of games.

Four spades looked comfortable enough, at first glance. The opening lead was the heart king, and declarer won to take the diamond finesse. Wold ducked his diamond king smoothly, then ducked again when a spade was led from dummy.

Declarer won the spade king, cashed the club ace, and ruffed a club to lead another spade. Wold won the spade ace and led a heart for dummy to ruff. Declarer now picked up the last trump with his spade queen, denuding everyone of trumps. He then confidently cashed the club king and led a diamond, finessing the jack when West followed low. Only now did Wold produce the diamond king, and East-West took the rest of the tricks with the club queen and two good hearts for plus 200.

Should declarer have done anything different? I hardly think so, but had Wold taken the first diamond, declarer would surely have brought home 10 tricks, either by finessing the spade 10 at once, or by ruffing hearts to dummy twice to play spades toward his hand.

In today's deal the bidding wound its way to six diamonds by South, when South elected not to make a simple rebid of three no-trump over two no-trump. Instead, he repeated his diamonds and North cooperated once, then went all the way to slam when South indicated suitability for higher things by going to the four-level.

Against the slam West found the best lead: the spade six. Declarer won with dummy’s ace, and it was clear to him that if the diamond queen fell in two rounds, he could discard a loser on the third round of clubs, ultimately losing just one heart trick.

Care had to be taken though, to preserve entries to the North hand, should diamonds misbehave. Accordingly, declarer played a diamond to the ace, then the seven to the king, carefully conserving the trump two. When the queen did not drop, it now became necessary for the club suit to provide four tricks, for both a spade and a heart discard.

Since the lead was in dummy, where it needed to be, a small club was led and the 10 was successfully finessed. The club queen was cashed and dummy re-entered with the heart ace. The club ace came next, on which the spade loser was discarded, and although East ruffed the third club with the master trump, declarer could re-enter dummy with the thoughtfully-preserved diamond two to North’s four, so that the heart loser could be pitched on the remaining high club.

In Scotland's match against the Netherlands in the 2002 European Championships, Derek Diamond opened with two hearts to show a weak two-suiter reached four hearts in two bids, and froze the opponents out altogether.

When Jan Jansma led the club king, Louk Verhees contributed the nine, using upside-down signals. With declarer known to have 10 cards in two suits, he was trying to show his five-card suit. (By contrast the play of the club queen would have suggested a high card in spades.)

When Jansma misread the position and played another club, Diamond ruffed, then played a heart to the jack. Verhees took his ace and returned his second trump. Declarer continued with ace and another diamond. In with the king, East returned a spade. South was sure, from the lack of a spade switch at trick two, that West held the king, so he played low and brought home his contract.

If West switches to a diamond at trick two, he should defeat the contract. Does declarer have any chance? Yes – but not a good one: he does best to rise with dummy’s ace, followed by leading the heart jack, trying to look like a man about to take a trump finesse.

If this fools East into playing low, declarer can ruff out the clubs and endplay East to lead spades for him. However, East does best to rise with the heart ace, cash his diamond king, then return a trump. He thus avoids the endplay, and leaves South with a spade loser.

Despite your opponents bidding and raising spades, you still manage to find your way to the heart game. Incidentally, do you like your partner's decision to drive to four hearts? I do. North knew you had made a vulnerable overcall on a suit headed by at most one top honor, so you had to have at least six cards in the suit, with approximately opening values. Therefore, bidding game was a sensible decision.

Not surprisingly West leads the spade king, then the queen and continues with a spade to East’s ace, which you ruff. When you draw trump you find East has three. How do you virtually guarantee your contract now?

It looks reasonable to try the minor-suit finesses, but if you do so, you can guarantee that the diamond finesse will lose – after all, what did east open on. Now you will be reduced to the very slim chance of the club king falling in two rounds to make your game.

There is a much better approach, based on the fact that East is known to have eight cards in the majors along with both minor-suit kings. Simple arithmetic demands that he must have either a singleton or doubleton king in one of those suits. So duck a diamond completely. Ruff the spade return, then on the next diamond, rise with the ace. Either East’s king will fall or he must have king singleton or doubleton in clubs, so you can pick up that suit without loss.

Since today is Christmas Day, I'm going to show a deal where East presented the opponents with a Christmas present. Put yourself in his position to see if you can do better.

You might argue that East followed a cowardly route in the auction, but it did seem reasonable to think that the majority of his hand looked wasted on offense. As you can see, though, the favorable lies in spades and diamonds meant that four clubs would have crawled home.

Against three hearts, partner leads the club king, and you discourage, suggesting an odd number. Declarer wins and leads a heart to the ace, partner pitching the club four. Then comes a second heart on which partner pitches the club nine. What now?

At the table East missed the point altogether here. Partner’s low club spots (remember he started life with six clubs to the K-Q-J so he doesn’t have many small clubs!) must suggest suit preference for diamonds. Since you may need to lead diamonds through twice, start now.

At the table East reverted to clubs and West could do nothing but return a spade, letting East exit with a third heart. But declarer won the heart queen and led out the spade queen. Now he had time to take advantage of the fall of the spade intermediates to set up the spade eight for the discard of a diamond: nine tricks made.

In four spades it looks natural to win the diamond lead in hand and lay down the spade ace, planning to cash the trump king. Remarkably, after one top trump, the game can no longer be made against the 4-1 trump break! West will ruff in on the diamonds, draw dummy's trump, and cash three hearts.

Suppose instead that you play a heart after cashing one round of trump. East will win and deliver a diamond ruff. The switch to the club king will then set up a fourth trick for the defenders, to go with West’s trump queen.

Since the contract will be easy if trumps break 3-2, you should assume a 4-1 trump break and direct your efforts to countering that. The answer is to lead a low trump at trick two!

What can the defenders do now? If West wins with the queen and crosses to his partner’s hand with a heart to receive a diamond ruff, you can draw trump when you regain the lead. If instead West ducks the first round of trump, you can duck another round. West has to win his queen this time and can do nothing to harm you. Whether he plays a club, or plays two rounds of hearts to force dummy to ruff, you will be able to draw his remaining trumps and run the diamond suit.

The message: When you can afford to lose a trump trick, lose it at a time when the defenders can do you no harm.

Here is a neat declarer play by Barnet Shenkin's from a Pairs game where he shrugged off the nasty splits to bring home his four-spade contract.

West led the diamond king to Shenkin’s ace — and, yes, as the cards lie, it might have been better to duck this trick). Shenkin then played the spade king at trick two to East’s ace. The diamond jack came next, followed by a third round of the suit, ruffed by Shenkin, who got the bad news in trumps when he cashed the spade queen. Undaunted, he continued with a heart to dummy’s king (it would not have profited West to ruff) and a club to his jack. Shenkin then cashed the club ace and played a spade to dummy’s nine. East was already starting to feel the pressure. He pitched one club and one heart, but was really under the gun when Shenkin cashed the spade jack.

A heart discard was out of the question, so he had to let go a club. Shenkin then exited with the club queen, putting East on play with the king in the two-card ending with the heart Q-10 left, obliged to lead into dummy’s tenace. Contract made; but have you noticed the defensive slip? East should win his spade ace and return the heart 10 — suit preference — to let West ruff. Now a diamond to the jack allows the defenders to take a second ruff and set the hand. That is why ducking the first trick was essential.