At last year's Lederer Invitational Teams, held in London, two Souths reached the pushy four hearts doubled. Each defending pair had a chance to defeat the game, but both fell at a late hurdle.

Against John Salisbury, West led the diamond king. Declarer won and exited with the club queen, won by East, who naturally enough led the diamond jack. Salisbury covered, and West had to discard to beat the contract. When he ruffed and exited with a club, Salisbury could ruff and run the heart queen, covered with the king and ace. Now South had just enough entries to establish the long club and play to ruff a diamond to dummy. Then he could cash the winning clubs to dispose of his losing spades for plus-590.

At another table, after the same first two tricks, East, David Burn, did extremely well by winning his club ace and shifting to the spade five instead of leading the diamond jack. Now declarer, Zia Mahmood, knew that the spade finesse was hopeless, so he put in the eight. West won with the nine, and now exited with a spade, fatally, giving declarer 10 tricks. A club would have been equally unsuccessful here — West gets endplayed, forced to lead a spade or allow the long club to be developed. However, West did have an escape, albeit one that is very hard to find at the table. He could have exited with a small heart, playing his partner for the trump nine, after which declarer has no way home.

Today's deal comes from the Premier League, a domestic competition in the UK that is used to select the international team. The heroine is the late Michelle Brunner, who died last year. Ironically, Brunner had been co-opted herself as a substitute to the Hackett team after the sudden and unexpected death of John Armstrong.

The auction to four spades was competitive, and a minor-suit lead would have set this contract, but West led his singleton heart — a reasonable choice. Careful play and accurate timing was needed to emerge with 10 tricks, and Michelle Brunner was well up to the task.

Correctly spurning the free finesse because of the entry problems to the South hand, she accurately rose with dummy’s heart ace, then drew trumps to remove the ruffing danger. Next came the finesse of the heart seven, followed by the heart king. It might look natural to discard a club loser from dummy. However, it was critical to pitch a diamond rather than a club from the board. Now came the heart jack, and Brunner ran this to East’s queen, pitching another diamond from dummy. This established the heart 10, to take care of the club loser in due course.

When East was in with the heart queen, he could cash two but not three diamond tricks. Five spades, four hearts, plus the club ace — the entry to the fourth heart — added up to declarer’s requisite 10 tricks. Very well played.

When deciding which opponent to play for length in a particular suit, you need to consider how you might recover from a wrong guess beyond simply playing the probabilities.

Against today’s three-no-trump contract, one West led ace and another spade, ducked by East. Declarer played a club to East, who continued with the king and a fourth spade. Declarer discarded two hearts from dummy and now had to guess diamonds for his contract. He started by playing the king (on which East carefully played the eight), and when he followed with the ace, he had to go one down.

In the other room, where the contract was doubled, the defense started with three rounds of spades (dummy discarding a heart). Declarer won and played a club, which East again won to clear the spades, dummy discarding a club. On the spades West had discarded two clubs.

Declarer could assume from the double that West held hearts guarded. So it was possible that he had his actual shape, though he might have fewer clubs and four diamonds.

However, declarer could see that if he played East for four diamonds, it wouldn’t matter if he was wrong. He cashed the heart ace, then played the diamond ace and a diamond to the queen. When West showed out, it was simple to pick up East’s jack. But suppose East had shown out. Declarer would simply have played his top hearts and exited with a heart. West now must return a diamond, giving declarer his trick back.

A first look at West's hand might suggest that South is in deep trouble in his four-spade contract. However, provided declarer is careful, he can overcome even this terrible trump break!

West leads the heart 10, overtaken by East with the jack to play the heart king.

As long as declarer discards a diamond, the defenders can take only one more trick, a trump.

On a diamond shift, declarer wins the ace, draws one round of trumps, then plays on clubs. West can ruff the third round but dummy’s trump six will take care of a heart exit. If at trick three East plays a third round of hearts instead of shifting, South discards a second diamond and ruffs in dummy. Next, he draws five rounds of trumps, then plays on clubs. As West no longer has a heart left, he makes his long trump, but then has to return a diamond. Declarer makes five trumps in hand, a heart ruff in dummy, the diamond ace and three clubs. Note that if declarer ruffs the second heart, the contract fails, as it allows the defense to make a heart and either three trumps or two trumps and a diamond.

The only risk of discarding a diamond is a club ruff, but that is a highly unlikely risk, particularly since East did not follow with his lowest heart on the opening lead — which he would have done had he wanted the ruff.

Today's deal comes from an internet game where South did not take full advantage of his extra chance.

After South’s one-no-trump rebid, a jump to three diamonds by North would have been merely invitational, so North jumped in the fourth suit to hear more about South’s hand. When all he could do was reiterate his heart strength, North was happy to settle for three no-trump.

The defense was accurate. West started with three rounds of clubs, East pitching a small heart, then switched to a spade. Declarer won and cleared diamonds, giving West a chance to discard a small heart to deny interest there too. On winning his diamond jack, East astutely played back a spade rather than a heart, hoping his partner would have a spade stopper. And so it proved: Locked in dummy, declarer had to concede the fifth trick to West.

It looks as if declarer needed either spades or diamonds to break, and with neither suit cooperating, he is destined to fail. However, there was an extra chance. When declarer finds that diamonds don’t break, he should cash a second top spade before giving East his diamond trick. Now, when East wins this trick, he has no more spades to play. He must therefore lead a heart, allowing declarer access to the winners in his own hand as well as to those in dummy, since South still has a spade left to reach all of dummy’s winners.

Because the opening bid of two no-trump promised 20-21 points, North had an easy raise to the small slam in no-trump. How do you plan to make 12 tricks after West leads the club 10?

You have 11 immediate winners along with the possibility of a winning finesse in spades, hearts or diamonds. While those who never get a two-way finesse wrong will have no problem, the rest of us have to find a plan that avoids guessing which finesse to take.

The secret is to win the club ace and cash the three remaining club honors. Next you should lead a spade from dummy, intending to cover East’s card cheaply. Suppose he plays the four, then your spade eight will force West’s queen and you will have 12 tricks immediately. Even if West were able to win the trick with the spade 10 or nine, he would then have to lead into one of your tenaces. Your 12th trick would then come in whichever suit he chose to return.

You may ask “What would happen if East played the spade 10 or nine?” Well, the spade jack would be taken by the queen, and the A-K-8 would then be good for three tricks if West chooses to get off play in spades. As a red-suit return would also cost a trick, you would still be certain of making 12 tricks.

The consequence is that this simple plan of covering the spade that East plays on the first round of the suit guarantees 12 tricks no matter how the cards lie.

How will you play six spades on a top diamond lead? You win it in dummy, ditching a club. You have five side-suit winners and will make the slam if you can add seven trump tricks. Since your main objective is to single in your small trump, you ruff a diamond at trick two and cash the spade ace, hoping for a 2-2 trump break. It looks disastrous when West discards a diamond, but you simply continue to score your low trumps. You take the heart ace, ruff a diamond, then cross to the heart king to ruff a heart. Now comes the club ace and a heart ruff. Next you cross to dummy with the club king and lead dummy's diamond 10.

You have taken the first 10 tricks (six tricks in aces and kings and four ruffs in hand) and are down to the K-10 of spades and one losing club. Meanwhile, East has the Q-J-9 of spades left, but he cannot prevent you from scoring your trump 10. If he ruffs with the spade queen or jack, you will discard the club 10 and finesse on East’s forced trump return; if he ruffs low, you can overruff with the 10.

The pitfall to be avoided was that if you take a third diamond ruff too early, East would discard the second of his three clubs. Then you would lose one of your club winners. However, by ruffing the two hearts before the final diamond, you prevented East from making a damaging discard.

One of the most successful formats for events in the United Kingdom is Swiss Pairs. An event of 12 eight-board matches typically takes place over three days. The format pits pairs who are doing equally well against one another, and it is now the standard format for the first weekend of the annual Brighton Summer Congress.

Today’s deal features a well-conceived defense by Richard Winter and Phil Godfrey from a recent championship. Against four hearts West, Winter, found the best lead, his bare spade queen, declarer winning in hand with the king. Seeing all four hands, one can easily see the way to defeat South’s game, but as the defenders were not blessed with X-ray vision, they had to rely on accurate signaling to direct the defense.

When South led a low heart at trick two, Winter split his heart honors. Declarer won with dummy’s ace and continued with a second heart. East discarded the spade nine on this, a card that could not convey attitude since both East and West knew declarer had all the missing high cards in the suit. So what should the card mean? Logically, it had to be a loud suit-preference signal for the higher-ranked of the other two suits — in this case, diamonds.

On winning with the heart queen, Winter underled his diamond honors. Godfrey won with the king and returned a spade. Winter’s ruff with his last trump was the third defensive trick, and the club king eventually set the game.