In today's deal from the Cap Gemini tournament of a decade ago, both sides have fair play for slam, but 11 tricks are the limit on perfect defense.

At one table, Marinesa Letizia, on lead against six hearts doubled, underled the diamond ace. Lisa Berkowitz got the message, returning a high club for her partner to ruff. That was all the defense got — their result of plus-100 came out pretty close to par on the board. However it was a little unlucky for Letizia — had partner not turned up with that club honor, this play would have been necessary to beat the hand. It was even more unlucky in that declarer would possibly have gone down even more on a spade lead. (Unless declarer plays a diamond himself at trick two, the defenders collect at least 300.)

Incidentally, Larry Cohen as declarer did make this diamond play at trick two — protecting himself against the foul splits — to bring home five hearts doubled at another table.

By contrast, where Chemla and Perron were sitting East-West they were lucky enough to run into a North who could not or would not open his hand. They got to buy the hand in five spades doubled and received the lead of the club king.

Perron, West, ruffed and led a heart, won by North, who led another club. With one heart ruff established, Perron played safe for 11 tricks and a gain of 12 IMPs.

A typical auction on this deal from the Cap Gemini pairs a decade ago was for East to open a weak two-spades and for West to double South's bounce to five clubs, then lead the spade king. At trick two it was up to West to decide on a course of action.

The natural play is to shift to a top heart, which seems neutral enough — how can it be doing anything for declarer that he cannot do for himself? However, declarer ruffs the heart in hand and lays down the club ace, then ruffs a spade and ruffs a heart and goes to dummy with the club 10. Now the heart ace, followed by a heart ruff, has eliminated all the major suits. The diamond ace and a second diamond leaves West on play, forced to concede a ruff and discard, on which declarer’s last diamond loser is discarded. Most declarers duly found this play and recorded plus-550.

Notice that if West does not lead or shift to a heart, declarer cannot arrange to eliminate the major suits — the trump entries to dummy are insufficient. However, at only one of the eight tables did a defender spot the trap. Michel Perron led the spade king, and when Chemla contributed the nine, Perron carefully continued the suit to beat the contract.

As a side issue, should this be a suit-preference position for East? If so, should you use a middle card to ask for a continuation of the suit led?

Themistocles Papadopoulos, the favorite opponent of Victor Mollo's immortal Hideous Hog, was reputed to be the only man capable of false-carding with a singleton. Alas for a number of declarers in the Cap Gemini, there were several opponents who seemed equally capable of the feat!

Seven out of eight pairs reached six hearts here. The slam is laydown if trumps split; but when declarer laid down a top heart from the South hand, the nine appeared. Now the question is whether this card is a singleton or the standard “expert” false-card from J-9-x-x.

Larry Cohen at one table and Lisa Berkowitz at a second were the only declarers prepared to pay off to the possibility of a brilliancy by leading a second top trump from the South hand, and as a result they picked up a handsome swing for their sides. The rest of the field played for their opponents to be superstars by leading a small heart to the queen, and went down.

As the Hideous Hog said on another occasion, “Maybe if you didn’t try to be so clever, you wouldn’t end up looking so stupid.”

Notice that when the hand was declared by South, if declarer had crossed to dummy with a spade at trick three and led a heart up to the ace, he would have been much more likely to believe the heart nine to be a singleton. Apart from anything else, the deceptive play from J-9-x-x would not be a success if West had the bare heart 10!

In today's deal from the Cap Gemini, Paul Chemla of France would have been doubly irritated with himself for misguessing the location of a high card — and even more irritated when it turned out that he had a line of play that did not require the guess at all!

Three no-trump may be best for North-South, but four hearts looked fair enough on the lead of a top spade. This was particularly true because, after the opening lead, Chemla knew the location of both minor-suit aces.

After some thought, West shifted to the diamond six, and East put in the nine. Chemla won in hand, crossed to the heart king, and continued with the heart nine, thoughtfully covered by East. Now Chemla could draw trump, but in the process he erred by pitching all of dummy’s spades.

At this point a diamond to the jack, ducked, left Chemla having to find the club jack. That was because when East won the third diamond, he had a spade exit-card that declarer could not extract. Since West was known to hold four clubs, Chemla got it wrong by playing him for the jack.

The correct play is to leave one spade in dummy while drawing trump, throwing a club from dummy instead. Now you lead a second diamond to dummy after drawing trump. East must duck, you ruff a spade back to hand, and lead a third round of diamonds. East takes it, but is now endplayed to lead clubs in the three-card ending.

The Solomon Cup is a Philadelphia tournament that my wife (Judy Kay-Wolff, an ex Philadelphia resident and big-time Eagles fan) avidly follows. Today's deal, from this year's tournament, gave both declarer and the defenders the chance to shine.

The contract of three spades was a Goldilocks contract — two spades would have been too easy; four spades, too hard. West led the heart king and North, Corey Krantz, playing with Howie Cohen, took the trick, desperately needing to generate extra trump tricks. When he ducked a diamond, West won the queen and played the diamond ace and another diamond. Krantz ruffed with the queen and could draw trump in three rounds thanks to the location of the spade jack onside. On the third trump he pitched a club from the board.

He next led a low club from hand, and when West followed small (a play that I suspect many of us might have made without overdue reflection), declarer carefully inserted dummy’s eight and let East win the trick. That player had a choice of leading a club back into the tenace or leading out top hearts, when declarer would ruff and cross to dummy to pitch the club loser on the heart 10. So Krantz made his contract.

Note that had West put in the club 10, declarer is faced with a choice of losing options. If he finesses, then East wins and returns a club to set up the defenders’ fifth winner before declarer can establish a heart trick.

This spade game is from the Seniors' final of a recent Australian Teams event. You can hardly blame East for leading a top club to the second trick (a diamond shift is easier to find with the sight of all four hands), but that was all the help declarer needed.

Declarer ruffed the second club and drew three rounds of trump with the king, ace and queen, taking care to preserve the trump five in dummy and the trump four in hand.

Now he played the heart king, West taking the trick and returning a heart. Declarer won and cashed the three heart winners to produce a four-card ending with three diamonds and a trump in each hand, while West was down to his four diamonds and East had the doubleton diamond nine and two irrelevant clubs.

The diamond king seemed to be marked in West, so declarer went for his one remaining chance, a one-suit squeeze. Does that sound impossible? Well, watch what happens when declarer leads a spade to dummy’s five. If West pitches his low diamond, declarer will duck a diamond to West and endplay him. If West pitches the diamond 10 or jack, declarer leads a diamond toward the seven, planning to cover East’s card. If East plays the five, South puts in the seven; if East plays the nine, South covers with the queen. Either way, South’s spots are just good enough to take the last two tricks.

This position works only when East has no diamond higher than the nine.

Today's deal raises the question of whether South was extremely lucky or unlucky. You decide!

South (who reported this deal from a national event with profuse apologies to his teammates) took an unjustifiably cautious view after a limited opening and rebid by North and missed the excellent grand slam in hearts. He won the club lead, crossed to the diamond ace, and played a top heart, to find the tremendous news of the bad trump break.

All that remained was to cross to the spade ace and ditch his diamond loser on the club king. Alas for South, East was able to ruff the first spade and cash a diamond for down one.

The probability of two suits breaking 5-0 meant that declarer had around 999 chances in 1000 of making his contract. But could South plead bad luck? No, the moral of the tale is that even when you spot a 99.9 percent chance for your contract, you should still look for something better.

The correct way to cross to hand is by ruffing a club at trick two. This line only fails if West has led a singleton club and East is void in spades or diamonds.

Of course, any gain for South would have been undeserved so perhaps South was just being magnanimous to go down in six hearts. The really unfortunate declarers were those who played seven no-trump, where the bad break and the poor communications meant that the grand slam had to go four off.

In today's deal, from a Far East Championship a few years ago, the defenders tricked declarer.

Three no-trump by North-South is untouchable, and it looks as if four hearts should be comfortable too, with the trump queen lying doubleton under the ace-jack — even if the defenders find their diamond ruff.

But in one match, West led the club seven, taken with dummy’s ace. Declarer continued with a low heart to the ace, under which West, L.H. Chin of the China Hong Kong Youth Team, smoothly dropped the queen. It now looked to declarer as if trumps were breaking 4-1 and that East had a natural trump trick.

Even had this been the case, declarer could still get home. However, reading West’s initial lead as top of a doubleton, and taking the heart queen at face value as a singleton, South decided that it was safe to ruff dummy’s losing clubs in hand, believing that West could not overruff. Declarer was shocked when, after cashing the club king and ruffing a third club, West overruffed with the 10. Chin made no mistake with his continuation: ace and another diamond, ruffed by East, who then promptly cashed the spade ace for the setting trick.

Had West not false-carded, declarer would have drawn trump, of course, and sailed home easily.

There are many good reasons that I'm always happy to let my readers know about Frank Stewart's writing projects. His latest, titled "Who Has the Queen? — The Bridge Player's Handbook of Card Reading'"is out in time for Christmas.

Stewart has put together an excellent intermediate-level book on card reading. There are themes and ideas that will prove interesting to all players.

However, the real reason why I can recommend this self-published project is that Frank has a history over the last decade of self-publishing, then donating the proceeds to his local charities in Fayette. This will be his fourth such project.

Consider today’s deal. Against four hearts West leads the diamond nine, and East plays the jack. You take the ace and lead a club, West playing low. Should you put in the king or the jack?

West’s top-of-nothing opening lead appears to mark East with the missing diamond honors, and you must hope he also has the heart king. But East never bid. If you play the club jack, you will probably go down, even if it forces out the ace, losing a trump to West’s king and two diamonds. The point is that East cannot hold all the diamond honors and club ace, as well as the heart king. Make a “second-degree assumption” and play the club king to give yourself the best chance.

The book is $21.95 postpaid, inscribed on request, from P.O. Box 962, Fayette, AL 35555.