How would you play four spades when West leads the diamond queen? The key to the deal is that since you cannot avoid losing two clubs, you must try to hold your heart losers to one.

Declarer won with the ace and drew trumps with the ace and queen. Then, hoping to set up a discard on the clubs, he continued with a club to the queen.

East won with the king and switched to the heart jack. This was the key moment.

What would you have done, as South? Show the hand to someone learning the game and she might say that she had seen the theme already. After all, this looks like a classical example of a finesse. She would play the queen, losing to West’s king, and the defenders would set up a second heart trick, beating the contract. Instead you should rise with the heart ace. When you play another club, it is West (the safe hand, who cannot lead through the heart queen) who wins the trick. You will be now able to throw a heart on dummy’s club winner. If East wins the second club, nothing is lost except a potential overtrick. In other words, the game is still safe if the heart king was onside all along.

If you had climbed to five spades, you would need to risk the finesse. And if you were playing matchpoint pairs, you might consider risking the contract by finessing in hearts, playing for a top or a bottom.

Today's deal comes from the bulletins of a recent U.S. Nationals. (If you are interested in reading such reports, visit here.)

Both Souths reached four spades doubled, with the minority of high cards, after each of the North and South players had taken aggressive positions in the auction. After the lead of the heart king, both Souths took an immediate spade finesse. The unsuccessful declarer drew three rounds of trumps and ducked a club to East. But now two rounds of diamonds prevented declarer from establishing the club suit.

The successful, more fortunate, declarer played a second trump to hand and ducked a club to East, who exited with the third trump. Now declarer simply ducked a club and claimed. But the defense here could also have prevailed by playing two rounds of diamonds. Declarer then ruffs a heart to hand, but when he leads a club toward dummy, West can defeat the contract by rising with the club king! This maneuver is often referred to as a crocodile coup since you open your jaws and swallow your partner’s honor. If declarer ducks this, the defense takes a club ruff, and if declarer wins the trick, he no longer has an entry to the clubs.

Declarer could perhaps have done better by winning the second trump in dummy at trick three and playing a low club from the table. If East hops up with the queen, he beats the contract. But if he ducks, the crocodile no longer works for the defense.

In today's six-spade contract, the dummy comes down, you could justifiably echo the words of Ronald Reagan when he wakes up in bed and can't find his legs: "Where's the rest of me?"

How will you justify partner’s trust in you when the heart king is led?

Five tricks in each black suit and the two red aces will bring the total to 12. The club suit is blocked, though, so the question is how to untangle your tricks.

One possibility is to win the heart lead, draw two rounds of trumps with the king and queen, then try to cash the three top clubs. If the last trump is in the hand with three or more clubs, you can cross to the spade ace and score two more club tricks for the contract. This will not work today; East will ruff the third club, and you will be one trick short.

The answer is a spectacular one — and once you’ve seen the theme, you will not forget it. All you have to do is to lead the heart two at trick two, discarding your club ace! (If you don’t have a flair for the dramatic, you can throw the club queen instead.) On any return you will be able to play the king and queen of trumps, followed by your two remaining winners in the club suit. You can then cross to the trump ace and score three more club tricks, throwing all your losing diamonds.

Andrew Robson, bridge correspondent for The London Times and one of England's finest players, owns a hugely successful bridge club. In today's deal Robson was West. You may care to cover up the South and East hands and plan your defense against three no-trump. You lead the spade three and dummy's jack holds the trick. Declarer plays a low club to the queen and king. What now?

Suppose you play back a spade. Declarer wins and cashes his clubs, forcing you to pitch a diamond. He leads a diamond up, letting you win your king and exit in spades. But declarer cashes the diamond queen and throws you in with a spade to give the lead back in hearts, letting him cash the diamond ace for his ninth trick. If you discarded a heart on the club, declarer can play a heart instead. After taking two hearts and a spade, you will have to lead a diamond, and South is not going to guess wrong.

Robson found a more dynamic defense: when he was in with the club king: He switched to the diamond king. Declarer won and cashed his black-suit winners, but Robson discarded a heart. He could now establish a diamond to go with two hearts and two black-suit tricks.

Declarer missed a resource: He should have ducked the diamond king. He wins the diamond continuation, then cashes his diamond ace, his high clubs and spades before exiting with a spade, forcing West to give him a heart trick at the end.

It is unusual if there is no Zia coup to report from a tournament in which he is participating. At the 2008 Buffet Bridge Cup he did not let us down.

The hand is from the Individual, and the scoring was by Point-a-Board. That meant that overtricks and undertricks were just as important as bidding to the best contract. In turn, this led to players going for the jugular.

A word on the auction: Nowadays many players introduce a major before a minor, even when the minor is stronger — or even longer — on hands worth just one bid. That is why Zia preferred one spade to one diamond as his initial response.

The no-trump game can be beaten by a heart lead. The defenders can set up hearts before a spade trick can be established. However, since North was marked with a singleton diamond at most, there was little reason for West to look further for a lead. The diamond four went to the two and king, and now nine tricks are available if the ace is played. But Zia ducked, following with a deceptive diamond five!

A heart return would still have seen the defense win out. But East saw no reason to switch, given the relative strengths of dummy’s red suits, so he returned a diamond to the 10 and queen. Fully taken in, West continued with diamonds rather than cashing out spades, enabling Zia to wrap up an overtrick to secure the full point.

Every Tuesday this month I have been running deals from Robert Ewen and Jeff Rubens' new book, "It's All in the Game." These deals combine many technical points with an amusing format. In this one, I've kept Rubens' language, as the guru teaches a student how to play his delicate grand slam in clubs.

The student thinks he has cracked the problem: “South can’t be sure what to discard on spades until he plays hearts. So he wins the opening lead, draws trump, then plays three rounds of hearts ending in dummy. If hearts split 3-3, he throws the diamond queen on the high spade; otherwise, he pitches a heart and takes the diamond finesse.”

“No, you’re not with it yet.” The guru shook his head sadly. “Don’t be in such a hurry to jump into the main theme. Take your time. Do your discard thing later, but ruff a spade at trick two. West isn’t morally obligated to lead fourth-highest, particularly against a grand slam. He may have five spades, four hearts, and the diamond king. If you ruff a spade at once, establishing a menace against West, he will be forced to discard the diamond king when you run your trumps. But if East can guard spades, there is no squeeze.”

Rubens’ point is that if you do not ruff a spade, East keeps spades, West hearts, and declarer has to find the diamond king. But the spade ruff at trick two avoids any guess, as the cards lie, while giving up nothing.

One of the biggest problems we all encounter at the bridge table is what I have previously referred to as Premature Euphoria. This deal, which comes from a recent major championship, was played in four spades by South in both rooms.

In one room, where the Italians were declaring, West hit upon the devastating lead of the heart queen. Now whatever declarer did, he was sunk.

In the other room Alfredo Versace was not blessed with second sight. He led the diamond queen, which gave declarer a good chance to make her contract. Monica Cuzzi won her ace and correctly shifted to a heart. Versace inserted the queen and declarer won the first heart and crossed to the club king, then played the diamond king to pitch a heart. Now she ruffed a diamond to dummy to play a spade to her king.

Alas for her, Versace could win his spade ace and return a heart to his partner. A further heart then sealed declarer’s fate since the spade jack was promoted to a defensive trick whatever she did next.

Had the play not started so well for declarer, she might well have thought longer and harder about the route to success. All declarer had to do was to duck the first heart trick. She then can win the heart continuation and take the heart discard as before, then lead a trump. West has to win, but the key difference now is that he can no longer reach his partner via a heart for the trump promotion.

Terence Reese was the expert's expert when it came to writing. He was the first to publicize plays that are now part of every top player's repertoire. The following example, from his book "The Expert Game," shows how ruffing-squeezes materialize, and also how good players build up a picture of the whole hand and convert that assessment into a winning endgame.

When this hand occurred in the Cavendish Pairs, the field generally elected to open one diamond, although the hand offers an impossible rebid no matter what happens next. To my mind that argues for a strong opening bid. Be that as it may, a sizable percentage of the field went overboard in six diamonds, and only one pair was lucky enough to make it when the opening lead by an uninspired West was the spade king. However, the contract is actually laydown on any lead but a club, and should be brought in if East makes the understandable early discard of a spade, allowing South to read the position in that suit. Declarer simply runs all his trumps but two.

In the five-card ending, West must keep three spades and one heart and must thus bare his club king. Now declarer leads to the club ace and ruffs a heart, reducing West to three spades; then a low spade from hand endplays West at trick 12.

If West keeps two hearts and three spades in the five-card ending, a club to the ace executes the same squeeze. West has to release a nonmaterial card because declarer still has a trump left.