It is particularly satisfying to discover when looking at a deal played or defended by experts that you can do better than the participants . Today's deal is one such example.

It is easy to relax when you are looking at two and a half tricks in your own hand and your partner doubles a game contract before you get the chance to bid at all. As the field discovered, relaxation at the table can prove very expensive.

The point is that at six of the seven tables from a major event where South played four spades doubled, West led a heart, which allowed declarer to get rid of his losing club and wrap up 10 tricks.

Geir Helgemo, who led a club at trick one, must have been surprised to find it earned him a game swing. However, while I elieve the heart lead deserved the loss of IMPs that it generated, the club lead is by no means cast-iron, though it seems preferable to any other of the side-suits.

In my opinion the lead of the spade ace stands out if one considers all the options. West is essentially uninterested in ruffs, but it may, for example, be necessary to sacrifice a trump trick to stop a crossruff. More to the point, retaining the lead preserves a valuable tempo. The sight of dummy will frequently make the defense easier — on this occasion the shift to clubs becomes obvious, but on a different day another play might be necessary.

Patrick Jourdain has been secretary or president of the International Bridge Press Association for 30 years. He is also a player: his team won the Crockford's Plate in England earlier this year, and he presented the following deal from the event as an example of clear thinking.

Against three no-trump the lead of the club six went to East’s king. When the club two came back, South had a choice of hands in which to win it. Before you read on, you might care to consider how you would advance.

At the table declarer took dummy’s ace, preserving the queen as a later entry to hand. He then cashed his top spades in hand and dummy’s two top diamonds. On the second of these, West pitched a heart rather than a club. Declarer now decided to cash the spade ace, cross to hand with the diamond king, and exit with the fourth round of diamonds to East to force a heart play. Alas, with spades 5-3, East had two spades to cash and the heart ace was the setting trick.

If you judge that clubs are likely to be 5-2, you can avoid having to rely on the heart suit. You need to win the second club in hand and play four rounds of diamonds. With no club to return, East can do no better than exit with a spade. Having taken your spade and diamond winners in hand, the two black aces in dummy will give you nine tricks.

Today's deal from a recent junior championship was one of the coups of the year. It arose in the Norway-Portugal match, and it was somewhat ironic that all it did was hold declarer's losses on the board.

Three no-trump by South looks to be a fair spot, but you will see that it is very hard work for declarer to establish a ninth trick. Say you win the lead of the heart 10, cross to dummy, and successfully run the diamond 10. West wins and plays a second heart, and the defense has the tempo to establish hearts before you get a diamond trick.

All right: back to the drawing board. Win the second heart and play on diamonds. That is no good either; the defense still has the necessary communications to get hearts going.

Roderigo Soares varied the script when he found the excellent play of ducking two rounds of hearts! West naturally enough played a third heart, and now Soares crossed to dummy in clubs to run the diamond 10 to the king. (Yes, East would have done better to cover the diamond 10 with the jack, but this play is not so easy to spot at the table, and he did not find it.) As West had no heart left, declarer came to his ninth trick in comfort.

Alas for him, his teammates had been doubled in three hearts with the East-West cards and had gone for 800, so Soares’s coup only limited the damage. Still, it was a very well-played hand.

Bridge is as full of cliches and aphorisms as any sporting activity. A phrase that gets quite a lot of usage is the "power of the closed hand." It means that declarer, by leading toward his own hand, the unknown quantity, can put the defenders under a lot of pressure.

Consider today’s deal, which arose at Board-a-Match, which is a strange hybrid form of scoring. Each team takes on another at pairs scoring, and whoever does better on the board gets a point, regardless of the margin of victory. This leads to attempting to justify nonbridge decisions — which was my excuse for opening one no-trump with the South cards.

After a transfer and a mildly aggressive invitational raise by my partner, I declared four spades. Of course this auction has protected all the side suits, but the 4-1 trump split and the heart-honor location made the game contract extremely tough on the third-and-fifth lead of the heart three. A full point was at stake, since in the other room two spades had produced nine tricks.

Having won the heart queen at trick one, I decided to put East under pressure by playing the diamond ace, ruffing a diamond in dummy, then leading back a small heart. Falling for the bait, East rose with the ace, then shifted to a club. I put in the 10, and when it won, only the bad trump break held me to 10 tricks.

Imagine that you are West defending against two diamonds doubled. You elect to lead the spade queen. Declarer crosses to the club ace, ruffs a club, and advances the spade two. Over to you.

In this deal from a recent invitational pairs event, Zia had the South cards and must have been surprised to be doubled in two diamonds with such a good hand. When Marcin Lesniewski left his partner’s double in and led the spade queen, Zia won, cashed the club ace, ruffed a club and sneakily led a low spade toward dummy’s 10! When Lesniewski ducked this (and we’ve all made worse plays than that), Zia could put up the spade 10, ruff another club, cash the spade king, and exit with the heart nine.

This traveled around to the five, king and ace. East could lead trump once, but Zia simply ducked this to West. Lesniewski could cash his heart queen but then had to exit with his last spade. Zia scored his third low trump and exited with a low trump. West won, and had to concede the last two trump tricks to South for a doubled overtrick.

At another table South found himself in three diamonds doubled. On the lead of the spade queen, declarer crossed to the club ace and rather naively took the diamond finesse. From that point on, declarer could not avoid going down two for a penalty of 500.

Just as there is reputed to be honor amongs thieves, so bridge journalists tend to be on good terms with one another. My friend and fellow journalist Frank Stewart has written a new book on intermediate play and defense. Here is a deal from his book "Who Has the Queen? — the Bridge Player's Handbook of Card Reading."

You lead the club jack against four spades, dummy’s king wins, and East plays the deuce. When declarer next leads the spade jack from dummy, East wins with the king and shifts to the heart nine; South follows with the three.

South’s second bid suggested about 11 points with balanced pattern. If East’s heart is a singleton, you must take your ace and return a heart, but if East had a doubleton heart, you need to duck. What about it?

South probably has only four spades — if East had the doubleton trump ace-king, his defense would make no sense — and if South had four hearts, his response to one club would have been one heart.

Accordingly, signal with the heart 10. When East gets back in with the spade ace, he will lead his second heart, and you will win and give him a heart ruff.

Equally valid: If East had a singleton heart, he would have cashed his second high trump before leading his singleton, giving you no option but to win immediately and return a heart.

The book will be available at $21.95 postpaid, from PO Box 962, Fayette AL 35555.

When a contract seems simple, check for possible pitfalls, and if they exist, take evasive action. Today's deal from a recent junior trials sees South not getting the point until too late.

Given that this was a junior event, North’s initial pass seems surprising, but he did not have a two-diamond pre-empt available. In any event, the best contract of three no-trump was reached easily enough.

West led the heart jack, which South won with the queen. It seems as if South has an easy passage, with just three aces to lose, and possibly the club queen as well. So declarer set about establishing the diamonds. East took the ace and returned another heart, which declarer won in dummy, in order to continue cashing diamonds.

What South had failed to take into account were the five discards he needed to make from hand. He pitched three spades and two clubs, but when he led dummy’s spade, East nipped in smartly with the ace to return a club through South’s now doubleton king-jack. The defense collected three club tricks, in addition to the aces in the two pointed suits: one down.

Declarer should have countered this possibility by establishing a spade winner at trick two. If a defender takes the ace immediately and returns a heart — as good as anything — South wins in hand and cashes one spade before setting about dislodging the diamond ace.

Whatever happens now, the defenders cannot take more than their four top winners.

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.