A standard Roman Key Card Blackwood auction sees you land in what turns out to be a rather poor small slam in spades. How do you plan to make 12 tricks after West leads the heart queen?

A simple line would be to win the heart ace, play three rounds of trump ending in dummy, and take the club finesse. If that succeeds, then all you would need for a 12th trick would be for diamonds to be 3-2. However, there is an extra chance you should try to exploit when trumps are 2-2.

After winning the first trick with the heart ace, you first ruff a heart. After drawing two rounds of trump with the ace and jack, you find that trumps do break 2-2, so you ruff dummy’s last heart. Once the heart suit is eliminated, you play ace, king and another diamond. When West holds three diamonds, he has to win the trick, then must either lead a club into your ace-queen tenace or play a heart. The latter allows you to ruff in dummy while discarding the club queen from hand. Either way, you have 12 tricks.

If East had won the third round of diamonds, he would have to play a club, and the fate of the contract would hinge on which defender began with the club king.

If trumps were not 2-2, you would take the club finesse after drawing the second round of trumps with dummy’s jack.

There is no easy answer as to what plan South should have followed here, but his leap to six hearts was precipitous and perhaps an overbid. But how would you play the slam when West leads the spade three and East covers dummy's spade 10 with the jack?

At the table declarer won with the spade ace and drew trump in four rounds. With only one entry to dummy outside the diamond suit (the club ace), it seemed that he would need a 3-3 diamond break to make the contract. Declarer played ace, king and another diamond and shrugged his shoulders when East showed out on the third round. He ruffed in his hand and could do nothing but finesse the club queen. Had the finesse worked, he could have ruffed out the diamonds successfully. However, East produced the club king and cashed the spade king for one down.

Can you see how declarer should have made the contract? When the diamond queen and 10 fall on the first two rounds, dummy’s 9-7 have become equals against West’s J-6. All declarer needs to do is to lead the diamond nine and let it run, discarding his spade loser.

West wins with the jack and returns a club, but declarer can win with the club ace in dummy and throw his two club losers on the diamonds.

(Yes, a club lead would have beaten the slam, but I don’t ever want to play against anyone who could find that!)

On "Dad's Army," an old British television show, there was a character who was given to exclaiming "Don't panic!" A bad trump break can often inspire such sentiments, but stay focused and you can often limit the damage, or even emerge triumphant.

Today’s deal was just such an example. In six spades South appeared to have a decent chance to make 12 tricks in some comfort if spades behaved. He won the club lead and advanced the spade 10, covered by the king and ace, with West pitching a club.

The 5-0 break posed considerable problems. As East clearly had a singleton club, declarer needed East to hold three or four hearts and for at least one diamond ruff to stand up.

So he cashed the heart ace, king and queen, since East’s length in that suit would dictate the rest of the plan. To his surprise, West showed out on the third round, so South ruffed a heart in hand, played the diamond ace and king, then ruffed a diamond low.

In the four-card ending with the lead in dummy, North had the spade five and three losing clubs, South had the Q-J-6 of spades and a diamond, while East had his four low spades.

South led a club from dummy, overruffed East’s seven with his queen, then ruffed a diamond with dummy’s spade five, forcing East to overruff with the eight. In the two-card ending, East had to lead from his 9-4 of spades into declarer’s tenace — contract made!

Today's deal from the United Kingdom occurred in a Gold Cup match, a knockout tournament that is organized in its early stages across the whole country until the field is reduced to eight teams, whereupon the final stages are played at a single venue.

The hero of the deal was Gunnar Hallberg, who sat West. Gunnar is an expatriate Swede who came to London for the rubber bridge two decades ago and has since won a series of European and world titles for the English senior team.

You may want to cover up the South and East hands to see whether you would have found the winning play.

Against three no-trump the defense started with three rounds of spades, declarer holding up his ace until the third round. Declarer now needed to establish one of the minors, and the diamond suit is clearly the more promising option. It looks as if South will succeed because East cannot gain the lead to cash his spades.

However, when declarer cashed the diamond ace, Hallberg dropped his king! Now there was no way East could be prevented from gaining the lead with his jack, and three no-trump had to go down.

It was just as well for Hallberg’s team that he found such a good defense because in the other room North-South had lost their way and ended up in a hopeless five clubs. But Gunnar’s defense helped to level the board.

Reaching six no-trump from the North seat would be too hard for most of us. After you open two clubs and rebid two no-trump to show a good 22-24 points, you have failed the "test." Incidentally, North might have explored for a minor-suit fit, the easiest way being to jump to five no-trump to offer a choice of slams.

Of course, West leads a heart. Resignedly, you call for dummy’s heart queen, not in the least surprised when this loses to East’s king. How will you play the contract when East returns a second round of hearts, removing your safe entry to dummy at an inconvenient moment?

Five diamond tricks and four club tricks will bring the total to 12. You will need to find East with the club king, of course, but you must also solve the blockage problem in diamonds. The best line is to lead the club queen from dummy. If East follows with a low club, you must unblock the club 10 from your hand. When the finesse wins, as you must hope, you continue with a low club to your jack. If East began with a doubleton or tripleton club king, you will be able to pick up the clubs. Then you can unblock the three top diamond honors and finally return to dummy by overtaking the club five with dummy’s six.

Dummy’s two remaining diamonds, plus the top spades in your hand, will allow you to claim the slam.

The advent of senior events at European and world championship levels brought many names from the past back into the playing arena. For instance, Joe MacHale first represented Ireland at the 1953 European Championships, held in Helsinki. Fifty years on, he was again in action under the Irish flag, in Salsamaggiore, Italy. His handling of today's contract showed that his skills remained intact.

As South, MacHale reached four spades after West had suggested he held most of the outstanding high cards. By chance he had managed to avoid playing four hearts, which would have been hopeless on a club lead. (Perhaps that is what is meant by the luck of the Irish.)

West led the club king against four spades, ducked by declarer. Next came ace and another diamond. On the established queen and jack, declarer did not discard his losing club, but two hearts from hand. He had appreciated that the way home lay in making two heart tricks, but without first losing two tricks in the suit. The bidding made West the likely candidate to hold the outstanding honors.

Joe now played ace and another heart, endplaying West. West’s best exit is a trump, but if he leads the nine, declarer covers, thus establishing two spade entries to dummy, one to ruff a heart, bringing down the king, and the second to cash the established jack for a club discard in hand. If instead West had played the spade five, it would have been covered by the eight to achieve a similar position.

Only one line of defense will defeat South's contract, but to find it, East had to visualize the holdings needed in the unseen hands.

Against three no-trump West led the diamond 10, and declarer could count eight tricks, with the ninth to come from a 3-3 break in clubs or hearts.

Declarer put in the diamond queen, cashed the club ace and king, and on seeing the jack and 10 fall from West, decided, rightly as it transpired, that clubs were not breaking, so he broached hearts. As a heart trick had to be lost, and expecting to lose no more than three spade tricks, declarer played a low heart to dummy’s eight.

On winning the heart, East did some calculating. West could hold just one high card — either the diamond king, the heart king, or the spade ace. If he held one of the red kings, there would be no defense. But even if he had the spade ace, the defense would have to be precise. East appreciated that on any return bar a spade, the likely 3-3 heart break would see declarer home. Thus four quick spade tricks were needed. For this to be possible, South had to have exactly the doubleton spade queen, and the only way to take those four tricks was to lead the spade king right now. East did so, and a second spade went to the queen and ace. West’s last spade, through dummy’s 10-8, produced the requisite four tricks. Nicely done.

In today's hand from the Women's teams at the 2002 European Championship, declarer was able to restrict her losers in the fourth suit to just one, regardless of the location of the missing honors, by eliminating the other three suits.

Against four spades West led the heart nine. Declarer rose with the ace and immediately ruffed the heart jack. The spade queen came next, then another spade to the king and ace. At this point in the deal declarer has two sure diamond losers and thus to insure her contract needs to hold her club losers to one. It would be easy to guess the suit – but why guess when you have a sure thing?

With trump and hearts eliminated, declarer set about diamonds by leading the jack.

This ran to West’s king, and rather than give a ruff and discard or open up the clubs, West returned a diamond to East’s ace. East did her best by playing another diamond. Nicola ruffed her winning diamond queen in dummy to lead the club queen, (a low club would have had the same effect in this position). Irrespective of the location of the missing club honors, this was guaranteed to be the winning play. In practice East covered with the king, and on taking the ace, declarer conceded just one club trick to the jack.

Had West held the king she would now have been endplayed into either giving declarer a ruff and discard, or returning a club into declarer’s tenace.