David Berkowitz, playing with Larry Cohen, made his game contract in today's deal by hoping that a finesse would lose rather than win. Sometimes that works out to be good news, not bad.

North would likely have a relatively easy task in four spades on the defense of three rounds of clubs. But the play in four spades from the South seat is very challenging. (If West leads the club queen, East should leave his partner on play, and after a diamond shift, declarer will have to fly up with the diamond ace to make.

However, Berkowitz as South was treated to a trump lead, even though East had overcalled in clubs. He won in hand, crossed to the North hand with a second trump, and drew the correct inference from the bidding when he led a low heart from dummy toward his queen in hand. If East takes the king, the route forward is clear, in that declarer can discard both his diamond losers on the hearts, so East correctly ducked.

Berkowitz took the heart queen, played the heart ace, ruffed a heart high, then exited from hand with a club. East overtook his partner’s queen, cashed two clubs, and played the heart king. Berkowitz ruffed that, then led his last club, letting it ride, throwing a diamond from dummy to endplay East to give a ruff and discard or play a diamond back into the ace-queen.

After a tangled auction in which West started by overcalling in his five-card major rather than doubling (he expected to get a chance to show his extra values and short diamonds at his next turn, as he did), South bid on to three diamonds on his seven-card suit because of his lack of defense. East could not quite risk a double of the final contract, in case the diamond 10 was to his right, not his left.

West started off on clubs and continued the suit, knowing that a shift to any other suit would probably cost a trick.

Declarer ruffed the third club and played the diamond ace, discovering the bad news. Although declarer now appeared to have three top losers, careful timing enabled him to telescope them into two. The top diamonds were cashed, then dummy was entered with the spade king, and the fourth club was ruffed as East discarded a spade.

Then came the spade ace, and a spade ruff in the South hand. Finally, South led to the heart ace and advanced the last spade, having reduced his own hand to two diamonds and one heart. If East ruffed, South would discard his heart loser and score trick 13. If East did not, declarer would ruff in and concede the last two tricks twice over. If East had ruffed in earlier on in the hand, the heart loser would have been discarded in the same way. This technique is called a coup en passant.

In olden days questions North might have wondered if he had enough in competition for a free raise to two spades. These days North can jump in spades pre-emptively – since he would cuebid with a limit raise in spades or better.

When the opponents bid four hearts, South elected to sacrifice in four spades, not expecting to be more than two down and with little defense against hearts. West did not have enough in shape to bid any further, so he passed, allowing East to double.

Holding trump control, West thought it logical to lead his singleton diamond, which East won with the jack. East was uncertain whether the lead was a singleton or from length, so rather than commit himself one way or the other, he continued with the heart king. When West did not overtake to lead a diamond, but instead followed with the heart jack (an unnaturally high card), it was clear to East that the diamond lead rated to be a singleton.

It would have been easy for East to continue hearts. Had he done so, declarer would have ended up down two. Instead, he found the elegant play of continuing at trick three with a low diamond, giving West his ruff and preserving his own major tenace.

West exited with the spade ace and then the heart ace. That let South ruff and draw trumps, but he could not avoid losing two more diamond tricks for a penalty of 500.

This deal, all about timing and control, carries an important defensive lesson. The fact that the majority of a strong field did not all spot it (until too late) suggests it is less obvious than one might think, even looking at all four hands. Or perhaps the point is that we are all excellent Monday-morning quarterbacks.

The popular contract was four spades by South after an overcall by East, and the normal lead of the heart ace and another heart by West did not seem to accomplish all that much. However, it did begin to threaten declarer’s trump-holding. Dummy’s heart king won trick two, and a trump to East’s king and South’s ace came next, followed by the spade jack.

Now the defense looks elementary: the only thing West needs to do is to duck this trump trick, preventing declarer from retaining control of the trump suit. There is nothing declarer can do now. If he draws a third round of trump, a fourth trump kills him. If he plays on diamonds at once, a third heart gives the defense control; West can win the next spade and lead hearts, or make his two trumps separately. And if declarer plays on clubs directly, the defenders get a ruff to set the contract.

Interestingly, only three defenders in the field of eight found the duck in trump; five did not, and thus had to concede 10 tricks.

The three little pigs have been branching out successfully into duplicate bridge at their local club. Typically, after the game they go through the deals together, comparing their results. Here is one such analysis.

All three sat South, and they had all played in the no-trump slam. Against the little pig who made his house out of straw, West led a diamond and South decided to play for split major-suit kings. He won the diamond lead in hand, entered dummy in clubs, and led a spade to his queen and West’s king. Declarer took the diamond return in dummy and finessed the heart queen unsuccessfully.

The little pig who made his house out of wood started out well. He too won the diamond lead in hand, played three rounds of clubs, then eliminated diamonds, discarding the spade 10 on the fourth. Next came the finesse of the spade queen. On winning with the king, West, appreciating that South’s spade ace was now bare, returned a spade. After entering dummy in clubs, declarer’s last chance was the heart finesse.

The little pig who made his house out of bricks won the diamond lead in hand. Three rounds of clubs were followed by just three rounds of diamonds — as declarer did not yet know which black card to throw from hand. South now knew he had removed all of West’s exit cards.

Then came a spade to the queen. West won, but whichever major suit he returned, declarer had his contract.

Today's deal, played by Jeff Aker, comes from the American trials of 2011. The lesson of the day is that when one defender is the danger hand, we frequently have a choice of actions. Either we must try to keep that player off lead for the duration of the deal, or we can let him obtain the lead only for a price he is not prepared to pay. Let's see how that works in practice.

Declaring three no-trump on a low-club lead, Aker won the club jack in hand and saw that he had six winners in the minors. What is the best way to develop three tricks in the majors?

Assuming West has both top clubs, East must have one of the major-suit aces, or West would have opened. You must keep East off lead, unless he is prepared to sacrifice a trick to play a second club. The best route is to play a diamond to dummy’s jack at trick two, then lead a heart to your queen, a diamond to dummy’s king and a second heart to your jack. If this passes off peacefully, play a spade to set up your ninth trick. Should East hop up with the heart ace to play a club through you, you will have a third heart trick easily enough.

Note that if you play a heart to dummy’s king East’s ace at trick two, you will be defeated if hearts don’t break and the spade ace is with West.

Today's deal from the Cavendish Pairs shows two declarers who pay proper attention to their dental work. In each case they had reached an exceedingly delicate slam and needed to negotiate the missing honors in both hearts and clubs.

The auction had climbed to a great height before North-South found their heart fit, but both declarers knew East had very few high cards but lots of shape — hence, probably short hearts.

On a spade lead against six hearts, one declarer, Guido Ferraro, won the king, cashed the diamond ace and king, then led a heart to his queen. The so-called Dentist’s Coup had extracted West’s troublesome doubleton diamond, depriving him of a convenient exit card. When West won the heart ace, he had to return a black suit, thus providing declarer with a convenient entry to hand to finesse in hearts and make his slam.

Peter Weichsel and Rose Meltzer reached the same contract on a similar auction.

Peter also received the spade-queen lead and played the hand similarly to Ferraro, but with one slight refinement. He won the spade king, cashed the diamond ace and king, then unblocked in hearts by leading the 10 to his queen and West’s ace. Again West had to concede a black-suit entry to the South hand, allowing declarer to finesse hearts through the opening bidder.

If declarer does not cash the two top diamonds, West wins the heart ace and exits in diamonds, locking declarer in dummy and preventing him from taking the heart finesse for his contract.

Absolute par on today's tournament deal would see North-South double six hearts, since they have 11 tricks in spades, while East and West have only 10 in hearts. As happens so often, par was not achieved at any of the eight tables in play. On the contrary, a few North-South pairs managed to beat par handily. Today's deal is the most extreme example. Zia Mahmood was North; Tony Forrester, South.

When the six-no-trump bid came around to Paul Chemla, it looked so much like the final contract that he ventured a double, knowing he would also be on lead if they ran to diamonds. Nonetheless, against Tony Forrester, you had better think twice before giving him an opening, however small.

Realizing that West would be on lead against a spade contract, Tony retreated to seven spades, and then it was up to Alain Levy to work out what exactly was going on. Levy’s heart-holding marked Zia with the ace in that suit. Thus the double really had to be based on the top clubs. However, on Levy’s actual heart lead, Forrester racked up the grand slam.

At another table, after the same first three bids, one East thoughtfully joined in with four clubs to get his club lead against a spade contract. As a passed hand he could not have just clubs or he would already have acted. In fact, this led to West’s buying the hand in five hearts doubled, which cost only 100.