One of the nicest-played hands I saw all last year was declared by the Italian superstar Giorgio Duboin. Given the East-West cards, six clubs looks somewhat ambitious, but if you bid them up, you have to play them accordingly.

Repeated trump leads will defeat this slam because these disrupt declarer’s entries and force him to rely on the spade finesse. But Duboin reached the slam after a tangled auction, where North miscounted her aces, then moved on over a sign-off.

Still, West gave declarer a chance when he led the diamond jack and East won her ace and returned a heart. Now, Duboin could win in hand, lead a trump to his 10, ruff a diamond, cross to the spade ace, ruff the last diamond, and overtake his remaining club with dummy’s ace to draw the last trump.

Now, on the lead of the diamond king, declarer’s last small heart was thrown (blanking the king) and West had to find a discard. He was down to the Q-8-6 of spades and Q-J of hearts.

A heart was obviously impossible, as declarer would cash the heart king and ruff a spade to dummy to cash the heart 10. However, on a spade discard, declarer simply cashed the spade king and ruffed out the spade queen, using the heart king as the entry for the established spade jack. Well played and a fully deserved pick-up for Duboin’s team.

A neat elimination play saw South home in today's deal. But declarer had to play her cards in an order that disguised her intentions, so that her plan was less likely to be foiled.

Against four hearts West led the spade six, top of nothing, to the four, nine and king. Declarer immediately returned the suit. East won and was reluctant to open up diamonds, so played another spade, ruffed in dummy. There appear to be four losers, but South’s plan was to cash her minor-suit winners and, if trumps broke 2-2, hope that the player who won the second heart trick did not have the third club, so would be forced to give her a ruff and discard.

Had she set about her minor-suit elimination early, the defense might well have divined her plan and arranged for West, the player with the third club, to win the second heart.

To disguise her intentions, after ruffing the spade, she called for dummy’s heart jack, giving the appearance of finessing for the queen. An unsuspecting East played low, and on winning with the king, West equally unsuspectingly returned a diamond. Winning in dummy, declarer cashed the club ace, and when no honor appeared from East, continued with the king, then a diamond to her ace. The scene was set, and now a heart to East’s ace brought about the desired result. Whatever that player led, declarer would pitch her club loser and ruff in dummy.

In today's deal, North-South get to an excellent slam. (Indeed, South could not be blamed too much for looking for a grand slam.) How would you play six spades on the lead of a top heart?

Best is to win in dummy and ruff a heart immediately. (If you don’t do this, there are some lies of the cards where you will find it hard to get this ruff in). Next, cash the three top trumps to leave East with the master trump. Now you would appear to need the diamond finesse for your contract. But if it is working, you can always take it later. Why not delay awhile and cash your winners to see what happens?

Instead, play four rounds of clubs. If East follows suit, as here, or if he discards a diamond on the fourth club, you cross back to hand with the diamond ace and have reduced to an ending where East is down to two diamonds and his master trump. You exit with your losing trump, forcing East to lead away from his diamond queen into the K-J in dummy. If East ruffs in, he must again lead into dummy’s diamond tenace and concede the rest of the tricks, unless he possesses a third heart and three clubs (unlikely after his echo in hearts at trick one). Then he would be able to ruff the club and exit with his heart. Now you would have no choice but to take the diamond finesse.

Today's deal comes from Robert Ewen and Jeff Rubens' "It's All in the Game," a compendium of articles written over the last 50 years by the world's foremost bridge editor.

Here is Rubens explaining a hand to his wife. “There will be a lot of competitive bidding on this deal,” Rubens said, “but the player with the spades will usually prevail. Suppose South buys the contract in five spades. East has bid hearts vigorously, and the defense starts with two rounds of that suit, South ruffing.”

“It’s a laydown. South trumps the losing diamond in dummy.”

“Well, it’s not quite that simple. East has a singleton diamond and will trump the second diamond.”

“That’s peeking. I would have gone down.”

“What South should do is play just one round of trump before he goes after the diamonds. As luck would have it, this extracts East’s only trump and the contract rolls home. The incomplete trump removal is an interesting theme, and if this deal popped up (as it did at the club this afternoon), you could send it in to the papers if it had been played correctly.”

“Was it played correctly?”

“Yes, but not at five spades. North-South tried to mess up the story by doubling East in five hearts. South led the diamond king and switched to the spade king and ace. East ruffed, cashed one round of hearts, and was then able to trump his losing club safely in dummy. So the incomplete trump removal showed up anyway. That’s what I mean about things straightening themselves out.”

For today's deal put yourself in the East seat. After South had opened a strong no-trump, North's call of two no-trump showed diamonds, and South's three clubs indicated a maximum with a diamond fit, meaning that if his partner could invite three no-trump, he would accept that invitation. West, your partner, leads the heart three and declarer plays low from dummy. Plan the defense.

Everybody knows the rule “Third hand plays high.” Are there exceptions? Yes, and today’s deal provides one.

Consider what suit your partner has led from: you can see all the low hearts from the seven down. Your partner must have led from a four-card suit, which can only be either A-10-8-3 or Q-10-8-3. In either case there is nothing to be gained from playing your jack, since declarer will take the trick whatever you do. But can you see why it is important for you to withhold your heart jack? If you do not do so, you will be left with four small cards — and each is smaller than the three cards your partner has left. Consequently, your suit will be blocked, and declarer will knock out your partner’s diamond winners while you cannot cash out your suit. Take a look at the full deal to see why playing the heart jack at the first trick would let declarer make his game.

At the 13th European Maccabi Games in Vienna, Heinrich Berger made a nice play to bring home his spade game. Berger, for decades one of Europe's leading bridge players, is representing the host country, Austria, but nowadays lives in Berlin, Germany.

Today’s deal was played in a match between Austria and Hungary. In theory, only four hearts played by North makes: On a black-suit lead declarer cashes his three top spades and West has to surrender.

However, Berger played in four spades. The defense started with two rounds of diamonds and continued the suit. Berger ruffed in his hand, cashed a top spade, then played a heart. West flew up with the ace and returned the spade jack. Declarer won, played three rounds of clubs, then cashed the heart king and jack.

On that trick East and South pitched a diamond and a club respectively. When, at the penultimate trick, North led a heart, East’s 9-7 of trumps were swallowed up by declarer’s Q-8. So in fact Berger had executed a Grand Coup for his contract, and since the hand was played in Vienna, one could with only the minimum of latitude describe the play as a special version of the Vienna Coup.

Note that there was a defense to the game. After cashing two rounds of diamonds, the defense prevails by switching to a club. On coming in with the heart ace, West destroys declarer’s communications for the coup by playing another round of clubs.

Today's deal saw North produce an old-fashioned strong jump shift on a spade suit that would normally be regarded as subminimum, but he wanted to support diamonds next and get across the strength of his hand. The results were entirely satisfactory as regards the auction, since eventually South took control, finding out about the missing aces and trump queen. He could now bid seven diamonds with some confidence.

Alas for him, his play did not measure up. When the bad trump break came to light, he played to ruff a heart in dummy, but East could overruff. As Whitier said, “Of all sad words … the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.'” What declarer should have done on a club lead is to cash dummy’s two high trumps, then take the second top club and the heart ace, come to hand with the spade king, cash the club queen to pitch dummy’s small heart, and ruff a heart in dummy. Now he can draw the last two trumps, and his hand is high.

This line of play will go down only if the clubs break 6-2, while the unsuccessful line goes down when hearts are 5-2, a far more likely eventuality. (For those of you interested in the percentages, a 5-2 break comes up almost one time in three, a 6-2 break one time in six.)

Before we look at the contract of six hearts, a word on the auction. If you play two-over-one game-forcing (meaning that a two-level response in an uncontested auction sets up a sequence that cannot die below game), then North's jump to three hearts shows good trump support and slam interest.

South has minimum trump support but excellent side-suit controls. When he shows his spade and diamond cards, North takes control and uses Blackwood to bid six hearts.

When the spade jack is led, South should see at once that he has no losers in the side suits and should therefore focus his attention on holding his trump losers to one. The natural thing to do is to win the spade lead in hand and play a heart to dummy’s queen. If it loses, South will regain the lead and then play the heart ace — ready to finesse against East if he turns up with four trumps, and losing only to a singleton king with East.

What if the trump finesse holds? It would be easy (but fatal today) to cash the heart ace next. Instead, declarer must make the somewhat unnatural move of coming back to hand with a club to lead the heart nine. If West follows with a small trump, declarer must duck in dummy. This will sometimes lose a trick unnecessarily to East’s 10, but giving up on an overtrick to secure the slam is a price worth paying.

One of my regular correspondents is Sally Brock from England, who has been a regular on the national women's team for 30 years or so. (She started playing international bridge when in her twenties.) She has now formed a solid partnership with Nicola Smith, and they spearheaded the women's team that finished fourth in the recent world championships, then went on to win second place in the Mind Sports Games in China.

Here, Sally was declarer in three no-trump on a diamond lead to the jack and king. Back came a diamond to dummy’s ace, East pitching a middle spade. Brock took the heart finesse next, as the 10 appeared from East. The heart was won by West for a club switch. East won this with king, Sally following with her small card instinctively, then realizing she had forgotten to unblock her 10 — which would have made her task of endplaying East to lead another club much easier.

Declarer still managed to recover by playing East for both high spades. She cashed all of her red-suit winners, discarding a club from dummy. If East came down to two spades and three clubs, South would build a heart trick. If she came down to two clubs and three spades, Brock would take her two club winners ending in dummy and lead a spade toward her jack, collecting one more trick one way or another.