Today's deal features a trump coup, a maneuver by which declarer can find a way to draw trump by the aid of a finesse when one hand has no trumps in it. Does that sound impossible? Look at the deal and see if you can work out how South can avoid a trump loser without seeing through the backs of the cards.

Against four hearts the club jack is led, which holds the trick. After taking his club ace and king, East exits with a diamond. Declarer wins the diamond queen and cashes the heart king and ace, getting the bad news.

Now a trump reduction is required to bring South’s trumps down to the same number as East’s. So next comes a diamond to the king, and the diamond nine ruffed in hand. Declarer continues by leading the spade six to the king, and the diamond ace is ruffed in hand. Finally the spade queen is led to the ace, reducing everyone to two cards. A spade from dummy now traps East’s J-8 of hearts. Whether he ruffs high or low, you can claim the rest.

As the play went, declarer has to play a diamond after the heart king and ace to achieve the ending he wants. For declarer to succeed, he needs East to have begun with at least six cards in spades and diamonds, and at least two cards in each suit. Otherwise, East can pitch his spades on the run of the diamonds and disrupt the timing.

Today's hand comes from the Open Teams Semifinal between Italy and Norway at the first World Mind Sports Games from Beijing three years ago.

In the first room South for Italy bid and repeated his spades. When North now introduced his hearts, South bid three no-trump. The operation was successful, in a sense, but after a club lead, declarer had to use heart entries to try to bring the spades in. When it proved impossible to develop the spade suit, the defenders had time to enjoy their clubs and set up hearts, and declarer finished no fewer than four down!

At the second table the bidding was as shown here. The decision by South, Terje Aa, to remove to four spades was right, as it takes perfect defense to defeat the spade game. However, Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes were up to the task.

Fantoni led his lone diamond, taken by dummy’s ace, Nunes contributing the 10. The spade 10 ran to West’s queen and now, since declarer had not played for discards on the hearts, West inferred that his partner had the queen. So he switched to a heart. Winning in dummy, declarer played a second spade to the king and ace, and the heart return from Fantoni gave South no chance. He had to play a diamond toward his jack at this point, as he was in dummy for the last time. Nunes rose with the king and returned a diamond for Fantoni to ruff with the defenders’ last trump. One down.

Today's deal comes from a recent U.S. Nationals, where IMP scoring was in place. What that means is that just like in a team game the swings on the big deals would determine whether you did well or badly, unlike the standard pair game, where every deal is equally important.

The deal came up in the first final session of the IMP Pairs. The author indicated that he was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of a gift here, but that names would not be used, to protect the guilty. Where would you like to play? The slam of six spades is not great, but it is quite playable. South’s decision not to open two clubs is questionable, but once he found a moderate hand and spade support opposite, nothing could keep him below the six-level. How should South play on a club lead?

The right answer is to win the club ace, cash the top spades, then play off the heart ace. Now you take your two high diamonds and ruff a diamond. If the suit splits, you are home. If East overruffs, you were never going to make it. However, if you ruff the third diamond and no queen appears, but East cannot overruff, you take your second chance. You run the heart queen to pitch a diamond. So long as the heart king is onside, you rate to be able to pitch your diamonds on the winning club and a heart in dummy.

The late Dr. Nissan Rand, a former double World Champion, was one of the most fervent advocates of senior bridge. Under his auspices world championships at senior level took on equal ranking with the open, women and junior events. Because these days I have also become a devotee of senior bridge, I owe him a great debt of gratitude!

In today’s deal Nissan’s sequence of making a forcing pass, then removing the double, was conventional to show a stronger hand than a direct call of five hearts. At his third turn North felt he held at least a king more than he had so far promised in the bidding, so he took a shot at the small slam.

West led the diamond ace, ruffed. Hardly pausing for breath, Rand cashed the heart ace, then led a low club to dummy’s king. This held, as was expected from the bidding. Now came the diamond king, Nissan discarding his club 10, and next a club to his queen. West won with the ace, whereupon Nissan claimed the slam, as West was endplayed.

A spade would be into South’s spade tenace, a diamond gives a ruff and discard for the losing spade to be discarded; and if a low club is returned, the nine is inserted. Either it wins, or clubs break 3-3, in which case dummy’s 13sth club takes care of South’s losing spade.

Though technically the slam can be made after any lead, this line required no guesswork for declarer.

Today's deal presents a problem for South at teams. When your partner doubles three clubs, should you settle for the safe plus by passing, or should you go for the big prize by trying three no-trump?

In an Australian event, Marlene Watts and Jamie Ebery were one of the few pairs to go plus (almost) legitimately here. Against three no-trump, West started off well enough by leading a heart; East won and shifted to clubs to the jack and queen. Back came a low heart now, East winning again and continuing clubs — fatally. He should have inferred from his partner’s play of a low heart at trick three that West had four hearts, and have continued the suit.

Ebery put up the king, losing to the ace, and pitched a spade from dummy. Then he won his heart ace and carefully cashed the spade king and the diamond king. He then led a diamond to the ace, discovering the 5-1 break and getting a perfect count of the hand.

Now he ran the clubs, coming down to the spade ace and two small diamonds in dummy, with two small spades and the diamond queen in hand. East, who had to discard from his doubleton spade queen and the diamond J-10, elected to pitch a spade.

Since East was known to have two diamonds left, declarer crossed to the spade ace and came back to the diamond queen to score his long spade at trick 13 — a perfect crisscross squeeze.

When a top-ranked player slips up in a simple deal, it is always interesting to speculate why. At the table West led a low club to the two, the 10 (a helpful card from East to suggest to West that the defenders did not have a club trick) and the ace. South then played a spade to dummy's ace and a spade to the 10 and jack. Now West followed the basic principle of cashing the master trump to draw two of his opponents' trumps. Then he shifted to a diamond; too late! Declarer guessed the diamonds and had 10 tricks. Had West played a diamond first (logical, since he needs his partner to hold a red ace to have any chance to set the hand), he is a tempo ahead after East's heart switch.

Note that on an initial heart lead, declarer does best to take the queen, cross to a club, and lead a diamond up, building his discard before playing trump — but he had better guess well.

At another table Jan Jansma as South reached four spades after North had passed initially. He benefited from a fourth-highest diamond-two lead to the jack and ace, and a club shift. He won in hand and decided that East had long diamonds but had not bid, so could not hold much outside. He therefore advanced the spade queen at trick three! This was covered all around, and now he had only one spade loser once the nine appeared on the second round: 11 tricks, and a top board.

This excellent card-play problem arose during the second round of the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams from Louisville last spring. It's a two-parter: Consider it first in six clubs by North and then the actual problem of six clubs by South.

In six clubs by North on a trump lead, you draw trump, pitching a spade from hand. Now perhaps the best thing to do is strip off four rounds of hearts, then run the diamond jack to endplay East, unless he began with five hearts. Almost as good at trick four is to run the diamond jack to East’s queen. Even if East could exit with a heart and avoid setting up the suit for you, you can cash the ace and ruff a diamond in dummy. If the remaining high diamond does not appear, you fall back on the spade finesse.

At the table, in six clubs by South, you get the lead of the diamond four; you duck, and East wins the king. Back comes a trump, and you draw three rounds, then cash the three top hearts. If the heart J-9 fall, it’s all over. When East shows out on the third heart, you pitch the diamond 10 on the third heart and play the diamond ace, West following with the two, East with the eight. When you lead the diamond nine from dummy, East follows with the six. Who has the queen? Surely East. If West has led the diamond four from Q-4-2, he deserves to beat you!

Today's deal from the spring nationals at Louisville last year comes from the semifinals of the Vanderbilt Trophy. One of the four pairs played six hearts here and could not bring it home. The other three pairs all reached six spades, and one declarer was fortunate enough after a totally artificial auction to receive a heart lead, which he ducked to East's king. No matter what came back, declarer could arrange to draw trump and run the hearts.

But at the other two tables, on very similar auctions to the one shown, West led a low club. Since the lead could equally well have been from length or shortage, both declarers went up with the ace and ruffed a red-suit to hand to play trump from the top, hoping for a 4-3 spade split. They both went down a trick when spades did not break.

From a psychological and mathematical perspective, I believe both players misplayed the hand. The chance that West held a singleton club is no better than 15 percent, and, especially on this auction, you would surely expect a club lead, no matter what West had in the suit. The best play is to duck the ace and try to win the club in hand. If you do so, draw trump in five rounds, discarding the club ace from dummy, and knock out the club king for a painless 12 tricks. If the club king is to your right, you will still survive, so long as there is no immediate club ruff.

All this week's deals come from last year's spring nationals at Louisville, to mark the fact that this week the 2011 Nationals are being held in Memphis.

In this deal from the second semifinal session of the Norman Kay Platinum Pairs, the field played four spades with the North-South cards — a perfectly reasonable spot, doomed on the lead of the diamond queen by East.

Josh Parker and Bruce Rogoff play a strong club system. Parker’s one-spade showed a balanced positive response, so Rogoff bid what he thought his partner could make. Now the contract was played objectively the “wrong way” up. But while East had an easy diamond lead, West had a very unattractive diamond holding to lead from.

On the lead of the club jack, Parker put up dummy’s queen. East took the club ace and correctly continued with a club to remove the entry to the South hand. Parker won, went to the heart ace to unblock the suit, and now had to try to build an entry to his hand. To put maximum pressure on the defenders, he led the spade nine from dummy. East cracked under the pressure and put up the spade queen. So now Parker was able to get to hand with the spade 10 to pitch two of dummy’s diamonds on the top hearts, then lead up to the diamond king for plus 420.

If East had ducked the first spade lead smoothly, declarer might well have gone wrong.