Four spades might have been best today here, but when West led the club jack against three no-trump, it left South in the awkward position of having no sure re-entry to hand. He could go after spades, but if he did, he might find himself at the mercy of the heart position unless the defenders continued playing on clubs (and even then there would only be eight top tricks). Did that mean it was right to play on diamonds immediately? No, because he would then have no certain entry back to his remaining club winners.

So, before tackling the diamond suit, South cashed the three top clubs, both defenders following. When he led the diamond 10, West covered with the king, and the second key moment of the deal had arrived.

If declarer had won this trick with dummy’s ace, then he would soon discover that East still had a stopper in the suit. Needing four diamond tricks, declarer would have to play a fourth round of diamonds. East (the danger hand) would gain the lead, and a heart switch would allow the defenders to score three hearts, two clubs and one diamond trick to beat the game.

Foreseeing this possibility, and needing only four diamond tricks rather than five, declarer allowed West’s diamond king to win. Now the safe hand (West, who could not attack hearts) was on lead, and though he had two clubs to cash, declarer would claim nine winners as soon as he regained the lead.

In this deal, from the 2002 European Championships, Peter Schaltz, South for Denmark, ended in four hearts on the auction shown.

After the lead of the diamond king, taken by dummy’s ace, declarer played a trump to the jack and ace. Norberto Bocchi cashed his diamond queen and continued with a third, letting Duboin ruff in with the heart queen to promote the setting trick in trumps via an uppercut.

In the other room, after the same opening, although North-South identified their heart fit, the Italians chose three no-trump as their final contract, played by North, Lorenzo Lauria.

East led the diamond 10, West played the queen and Lauria ducked. North won the diamond continuation and played a heart to the jack and ace. He won the third diamond and led another heart, allowing East’s queen to hold. As East had no diamond to return, Lauria ended with 10 tricks. The critical moment in the defense was that on the third diamond, East had to discard his heart queen, and that would have left declarer without resource.

Curiously, if West ducks the first diamond (normally sound technique in these positions), Lauria can always make the hand. He wins cheaply, leads a heart up, and East cannot unblock his queen — or West later gets endplayed in diamonds to concede a second heart trick. And if East plays low on the first heart, declarer puts in the jack, wins the second diamond, and ducks a heart to East’s bare queen, as happened at the table.

Against your four spades, reached after North's cuebid of two diamonds, which was artificial and said nothing about diamonds (it merely showed a high-card limit raise in spades.) West leads a diamond to his partner's jack. At trick two East returns the heart king. Plan the play.

This may look like a standard elimination-type hand (in which you eliminate hearts and try to duck a club to East to give you a trick in either hearts or clubs).

However, with such small club spots in both your two hands, that line is unlikely to work.

Instead, look at your diamonds. That is the suit where the good spot cards will come into play. Since the bidding and play thus far tell you that East must surely have the diamond ace, you can take ruffing finesses through him to establish discards for yourself.

Win the heart ace, play the trump ace and a trump to dummy, and advance the diamond king, ruffing out East’s ace. At this point you can lead another spade to dummy and pass the diamond 10, discarding a club.

West can win with his queen and shift to a club, but you win the club switch with the ace and cash the diamond eight, discarding your last club loser. You then give up a heart, and ruff the last heart in dummy. You end up losing two diamonds and one heart, but no clubs.

One of the pairs fighting for the top honors at the 1998 Cavendish was Bart Bramley, playing with Sidney Lazard. Sidney is one of an elite group of players who represented the U.S. in world championship play in the 1950s. By my count we are now down to a handful of such players, including Ivar Stakgold and Billy Rosen. Bart is a representative of the next generation who has now started a partnership with another of my regular teammates, Lew Stansby.

Bart drew an interesting inference to bring home this delicate four-diamond contract.

On the spade-king lead and continuation, Bramley put up the spade jack to force the queen and to confirm the location of the spade honors. He ruffed, drew two rounds of trumps, then led a club to the king. Now came a third diamond to dummy, and a second club.

East, Michael Cornell, took the ace and played a third club. Bramley won and paused to count up the hand. Since East clearly had both round aces to justify his cue-bid and had also shown up with the spade queen, he was less likely to have the heart jack than his partner — the point being that he might have opened the bidding with that hand, playing a weak no-trump that started at 11 high-card points. So Bart advanced the heart 10, and whether Lionel Wright covered that card or not, Bramley had his 10th trick.

South correctly opened one spade here, because with five losers he thought he would need two cover cards or some trump support to make game. Things turned out well when his partner was able to give a limit raise in spades. After cue-bidding and checking for key cards, he found himself in six spades on the lead of the heart jack. Put yourself in his shoes:. How do you plan to make 12 tricks? Whom do you want to play for the diamond ace?

After winning the heart lead, you should draw trump with the ace and queen, then lead the diamond seven toward the dummy. When West holds the diamond ace, as here, he is caught on the horns of a dilemma, also known as a “Morton’s Fork.” If he takes his diamond ace, the eventual discard on the diamond king will take care of the club queen.

West’s choice of playing low is no better. After the diamond king wins, you will throw a diamond from dummy on the third round of hearts. When you exit with the diamond queen to West’s ace, he is endplayed. A red-suit return will allow you to ruff in dummy and throw the club queen from hand, while a club back will guarantee two tricks in the suit.

This same position does not arise if you play East for the diamond ace; if he had that card, he could duck the first round of diamonds, then win his ace and lead a club through the ace-queen.

Two of the biggest truisms in the game are that second hand should 'always' play low while third hand should 'always' play high. Particularly if you've been listening to lecturers telling you how to preserve your honors, then here, when the defenders lead a spade against three no-trump, you know not to waste the spade jack at trick one. Right? Not exactly.

If neither opponent had bid, putting up the spade jack would probably be a very poor play; that is because you can insure your side a spade trick by keeping your powder dry and preserving the spade jack and queen for the purposes they were intended, not throwing them away. Imagine West with A-9-7-6 of spades and you will see that rising with the jack might be the only way to go down in this hand!

But that is not so today; you do have opposition bidding, which tells you that West has most of the partnership’s high-cards and five or more spades. Here if you play low from dummy then when East inserts the nine you score your spade queen at trick one but West will have four spades ready to cash when in with the diamond ace.

Instead put up the spade jack and knock out the diamond ace. That way you preserve the spade honors in your hand and West cannot run the spades. Note that if East began with either a doubleton spade ace or king you are dead in the water, whatever you do.

Today's deal is a tester. Against your slam of six spades West leads a trump — which certainly feels like a good start for the defenders, though in fact a low heart lead would have been fatal. With one diamond and six spade tricks, you need to score all five of your clubs, and that simply requires 4-3 clubs. But can you improve on those chances?

The answer is yes, but the play must be precise. Win the spade queen, and when both opponents follow, you lead a diamond to the ace, a club to the ace, and take a diamond ruff. This is followed by a low club ruff (do NOT cash the club king) and the sight of the club jack should alert you to the possibilities of a bad break in that suit.

A diamond ruff, and a low club ruff disclose the bad news. A diamond ruff high and the spade ace reduces everyone to four cards. You have a trump, a heart and the K-10 of clubs, dummy and West have four hearts, and East is down to the doubleton heart ace and the guarded club queen. On the last trump if East pitches a club, you cash two winners; if he throws a small heart away, you lead a heart and endplay him. And if he pitches his heart ace, you lead a heart to the nine and claim, whoever wins the trick!

In today's deal West entered with the unusual no-trump, showing at least 5-5 shape in the minor suits. South's double proclaimed a strong hand, and North now had a problem. His selection of three hearts on a hand containing an ace and a king was an underbid; I think that four clubs would have been best. All was well, though, when South rebid three spades and North raised to four spades. How would you play this when West leads the club king to your ace?

Declarer could see eight spades and only six hearts between his hand and the dummy. It seemed therefore slightly more likely that West held one spade and two hearts rather than the other way around. So he crossed to the trump king and led a diamond to the ace. A heart to the ace was followed by another diamond toward the South hand.

East saw that he could not gain by ruffing a loser with a master trump so he discarded, and declarer won with the diamond king. He then surrendered the third round of diamonds, planning to ruff the fourth round. West won the trick and could not thwart declarer’s plan. If he returned a diamond, declarer would ruff with dummy’s five and the defenders would then score just two trump tricks to go with the one diamond trick. If instead West returned a club, declarer would ruff in his hand and lead a fourth round of diamonds himself, ruffing in the dummy.

Either way, the contract was home.

At the table South knew that his partner's four-club bid would deliver a degree of spade fit and suitability for slam, and he gambled that he would be able to discard diamonds from dummy on his hearts, or that a well-placed queen would give him a finesse for slam.

A casual onlooker might take a cursory glance at today’s deal and remark on the dangers of reaching a grand slam that appears to hinge on a finesse. You would be right in theory, of course, but wrong in practice. The grand slam comes closer to an 85 percent chance if properly handled. With that hint, let’s reassess declarer’s best line on the lead of a top club.

The play is to take the club king with the ace, then ruff a club with the queen, followed by the spade ace, and the spade six to the nine. When trumps behave, as they will do at least two-thirds of the time, you take a second club ruff, then play a heart to the 10, take a third club ruff, and finally lead a diamond to the ace.

At this point South’s diamond loser can be discarded on the spade jack and the last four tricks are taken with South’s 100 honors in hearts.

This line of play is known as a dummy-reversal, in that by ruffing in the long hand you get six trump tricks where only five had seemed to exist. If trumps break 4-1, you take the diamond finesse, of course.