John Armstrong, aged 56, died of a brain hemorrhage just days after returning from representing England in the 2008 European Championships. With his partner John Holland, John finished in second place in the Butler rankings (for average IMPs won) — quite an achievement for a pair from a team that finished in 12th place.

Armstrong was on the team that won the Silver Medal in the 1987 Bermuda Bowl World Championships — Britain’s best performance since taking Gold in 1955. And he was also on the teams that produced Britain’s most recent best Open results in European Championships — runner-up in 1987 and winner in 1991. (The British Open Team’s previous win was back in 1963.) Today’s hand is from that 1991 victory.

Armstrong, the declarer in three no-trump, could see eight tricks — he must come to at least two in hearts — but where to go for the ninth? Britain was on Vugraph at the time and the commentators made an assortment of erudite suggestions. But John’s solution was simple: he won the club lead and continued with ace and another spade. East won with the king and returned a club. John now ran the heart jack, which East could not afford to win. When the heart jack held, declarer played a third spade. West took the queen, but with the heart ace still in dummy, John could not be denied access to his established spade jack. Contract made.

Compare what happened in this deal from the first round of last year's Vanderbilt tournament, when a top-seeded team met a less highly ranked squad.

At the first table, where the expert was declarer, the heart jack lead went to declarer’s king. East held up the club ace twice, West discarding a small diamond. Now, instead of playing a third club and giving East the chance to shift to spades, declarer cashed his red-suit winners and took his nine tricks.

In the other room South also opened two no-trump and was raised to three no-trump. West led the heart jack to declarer’s ace, and declarer then played the club king, West playing the five. How did the expert East defend?

East could see that he would never beat this contract unless his partner had good spades. Since one of the red queens in dummy was sure to be an entry to the clubs, the holdup in clubs was never going to be that effective.

Accordingly, East decided to break the rules and win the first club (in case it was declarer’s ninth trick, as could easily have been the case if declarer had five diamonds). Now he switched to spades, and — more importantly — he covered the possibility that his partner had the ace and jack of spades by shifting to the spade queen.

Declarer was helpless now; whatever he did, the defenders had four spade winners.

When this deal occurred in a team game, at the first of the two tables West made his natural lead of the club king against three no trump. Declarer allowed this to hold the trick, as he did the club queen continuation.

South won the third club perforce, and counting eight tricks, chose to combine his chances in the red suits to seek the ninth. He cashed the heart king, then the ace, but no queen appeared. His last chance was the diamond finesse, but when that also failed, so did the contract.

At the second table, and against the same lead, South won the second club and was pleased to see that East followed. Declarer then led three rounds of spades, and this time was happy to see West discarding on the third round. He was about to cash dummy’s last spade when he paused to do a little arithmetic.

He intended to throw West in with a club, thereby effecting an endplay in the red suits. But for this he needed two discards for the clubs, so he had to retain the heart K-J-5 and the diamond A-Q in hand. Therefore he could not cash the fourth spade until West had taken his club tricks.

So declarer left the spade winner in dummy and played a club at once. West took his tricks as South pitched one card from each red suit, but then had to concede the balance.

Today's problem is all about defensive bidding and the opening lead. Here, I'd advocate that West jump to three hearts at his second turn — a pre-emptive rather than a limit raise, since with a strong hand you can cuebid instead of jumping.

When the opponents ignore you and bid to four spades, what should you lead?

Many regard the opening lead as the most difficult part of the game (because you have so little information with which to work). There seems to be no reason to lead anything other than the partnership suit, but if you lead a low heart and either declarer or dummy has a singleton, you may never get the lead again — and that might be crucial for the defense.

Quite frequently, when you are the weaker defensive hand, it can work well to lead an unsupported honor in your partnership’s bid and supported suit, thus giving you flexibility on your play to trick two.

If you do lead the heart king, partner should play the queen under it, a clear suit-preference signal for a diamond. Now three rounds of diamonds guarantees the defeat of the contract. Note that if you started with a low heart, all declarer needs to do is guess trump to make his game.

This tactic is NOT a good idea when declarer is playing in no-trump. All too often leading an unsupported honor allows declarer to capture a high card that would otherwise have been pulling its weight on defense.

This deal comes from Sally Brock’s “Leading Questions in Bridge.”

Bidding is all about exchanging information with partner, but in bridge all this information is also available to the opponents. So, a good bidder is selective, telling partner what he needs to know, but keeping quiet when the information is more likely to be of use to the opponents.

East’s double here was really foolish. If his partner couldn’t lead the fourth suit without the double, then it would probably not be right anyway. Look at what actually happened.

West’s natural choice of lead, with such a good holding in declarer’s first suit, might well have been a trump, but East’s double deflected him and instead he chose the diamond 10, which ran to declarer’s ace. Declarer played the heart queen, won by East, who switched to a trump rather than cash the diamond king and set up dummy’s queen. Declarer won the trump shift in dummy, played a heart to his jack, a spade to dummy, cashed the heart king while discarding a diamond, ruffed a heart, and ruffed a club.

Declarer now played the winning heart from dummy. East had to ruff this, and declarer discarded a club. East now played the club ace, and declarer found a very nice maneuver when he discarded a diamond from dummy rather than ruff and endplay himself. East now had no option but to play a diamond, which declarer ran to dummy’s queen. That let him crossruff the last two tricks.

Today's deal sees an interesting and quite difficult variation of a safety play; give it a few seconds' thought before starting the play!

In the contract of six hearts the opening diamond lead goes to the jack and ace. Declarer follows up with the heart ace and queen, drawing all the trump. At this point declarer has 11 tricks (two spades, six hearts, the diamond ace, a diamond ruff, and a sure club trick). East is marked with the club ace, and the best hope for a second club trick is to find the clubs 4-3.

However, an extra chance comes by ducking the first club altogether in case West has five or six clubs. Suppose East wins cheaply and plays the spade queen. Win the spade king and ruff a club low. When the ace falls, declarer has 12 tricks. But suppose, instead, that East had three or four clubs headed by the ace.

After the second club is ruffed, the diamond six is ruffed in dummy. Now the club king is played from North. East’s ace is ruffed out, and the heart king is the entry to the two club winners in dummy.

In other words, by ducking the first club and ruffing the second club before playing out the top honors, you make the contract whenever East has the club ace and fewer than five clubs, instead of relying on the clubs to break.

A brief but eventful auction ended with South in five hearts, against which West led the club king, ruffed in the dummy. Now a trump to the ace revealed the 3-0 break.

How would you continue to play the contract?

Suppose you ruff another club, cash dummy’s bare trump queen, and play a diamond. To make the contract on that line, you will eventually need to find West with the spade ace, so you can reach dummy with the spade king.

A far safer way to play the contract is to lead the diamond 10 at trick three.

Let’s say that West ducks the first round of diamonds and wins the second.

If the defenders play spades now, you will be able to draw trump, ending in the dummy, and enjoy the diamond suit.

West will probably force the dummy with a second round of clubs instead. You ruff with dummy’s penultimate trump, leaving the dummy with the bare queen and East still holding jack-10 of trump.

To neutralize East’s trump, you then lead winning diamonds from dummy. Whenever East ruffs in, you will overruff with the king and return to dummy with the trump queen, drawing East’s last trump. You can then play the remaining diamonds, throwing all of your spade losers, to claim an overtrick.

East could have taken his spade ace at the time West decided to force the dummy, but the contract would still have been impregnable.

Kit Woolsey reported that Fred Stewart found an amusing play in the following deal from the first final session of a recent Life Master Open Pairs.

But before we get to Fred, look at that West hand and plan the defense to four hearts.

It is highly unlikely that two rounds of diamonds will stand up. Since declarer’s clubs threaten to take care of his spade losers, it feels like you should take an active role in the defense and go after our tricks quickly.

If you think about it, surely the best way to beat four hearts has to be to put partner on lead to play spades through declarer’s presumed king —isn’t it? So our unnamed hero (or was it goat?) in the West seat led a low diamond. Imaginative and unlucky, you may say, but only if Stewart put up the diamond queen at the first trick — and he did! That was his 10th trick for a great score.

Of course the purists would point out that with hearts and clubs splitting, there were always 10 tricks except on the lead of the spade ace. Declarer could ruff out the clubs and end up in dummy after drawing trump in two rounds. He could have fallen back on the spades splitting if that line wasn’t going to work — but this was more fun, wasn’t it?

Debbie Rosenberg, who is married to top expert Michael, demonstrated here that the talent in that family is not limited to her husband. Debbie was also part of the U.S. squad that won the World Junior Teams in 1991 as well as having numerous major successes in the women's game. Here she is at work in a delicate contract of three hearts.

West led a club to East’s jack. It did not seem right to East to give up on the club tenace by continuing the suit (although that does defeat the hand), so East quite reasonably shifted to the spade nine. West took two rounds of spades and played a third spade. Rosenberg ruffed in dummy, and appeared to have five top losers. However, she realized that she had been given a chance, since the defense no longer had any communication in the club suit.

However, the winning path is by no means obvious. But, given that East appeared to have all the remaining clubs, West was marked with the balance of high cards to make up his opening bid. Therefore, Debby cashed the top hearts and led a low diamond to the 10 and queen. West hopefully led a spade, but Rosenberg could win her spade king since East was out of trump. She drew the last trump, finessed the diamond jack, and parked her club loser on the diamond ace to make nine tricks for an excellent result.