Today's deal arose in the Mixed Pairs in Biarritz, France, a few years ago when George Awad was tested as declarer in a tricky heart slam.

South’s rebid of four hearts would normally have ended the auction, but North, Marie Awad, decided that her strong hearts and minor-suit aces justified a slam invitation. Her five-diamond call was a cue-bid implying heart support, and South’s bid of six clubs suggested a club slam. With weak clubs and strong hearts, North reverted to hearts.

The opening diamond lead attacked a vital entry to dummy, and made Awad’s task vastly more difficult. But he found an ingenious plan that would succeed against a normal 3-2 club split, with the trumps divided no worse than 3-1. After winning the diamond ace, he cashed the club king and ace, then ruffed a club with the heart ace, establishing the suit while avoiding the risk of an overruff. He next crossed to the heart queen, led a winning club, and discarded his diamond loser. East ruffed in with the jack, but South was now safe. Whatever that player returned, South could reach the dummy with the heart king to discard his spade loser on a club winner. He emerged with seven trump tricks, three club tricks and two aces.

Awad’s safety play did not entirely rule out the chance of an overtrick. If West’s singleton trump had been the jack, South would have been able to overruff with the 10 on the fourth round of clubs without running any risk.

Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes finished at a somewhat disappointing 11th place in the 2012 Cavendish Pairs. Fantoni, however, produced the best-played hand of the tournament.

Against the heart slam West led the club queen. After East’s double at the three-level, vulnerable, facing a passed hand, Fantoni correctly placed him with a void in hearts, the black kings and some combination of the diamond honors. Even at double-dummy it’s not easy to see how the hand should be played.

However, after a long pause (so long that he ran into time penalties on the deal!), Fantoni made the spectacular play of a small heart to the seven in dummy. As expected, East showed out, pitching the diamond two. Declarer proceeded with the club 10, discarding a diamond when East played small. West won the club jack and continued with a heart to dummy’s 10. Now came the club nine, covered by the king and ruffed with the heart queen. The rest was relatively straightforward: the heart ace, a heart to the king, the two established clubs for the discard of another diamond and a spade, and a claim on the spade finesse. (East had already been squeezed, but that did not matter.)

Not surprisingly, Fantoni was the only player in the star-studded field to fulfill the six-heart contract. The first-round heart finesse may seem unnecessary, but if declarer starts with the heart ace and follows with the heart five, West can ruin his plans by inserting the heart jack, killing a vital entry to dummy.

Today's deal comes from a head-to-head match, where both declarers faced the identical lead in their game contract of four spades, after West had produced a vulnerable two-level overcall.

The unsuccessful declarer thought he saw the danger of this hand coming from the possibility that the defenders might get diamond ruffs — and he was right, but not in the way he had predicted. He imagined he was playing safely by rising with the diamond ace to protect against West’s having a singleton. He discovered his mistake when East ruffed away the diamond ace and led a heart to his partner for West to cash the diamond king and give East a second diamond ruff, for down one.

The second declarer knew that West was a heavy favorite to hold the heart ace, so he was not worried about East’s giving his partner two diamond ruffs. So he put in the diamond jack at the first trick. This turned out to be equally disastrous when East ruffed, crossed to the heart ace, and saw West play back the diamond king. Dummy had to cover, and East ruffed again, leaving West with the diamond 10-8 and a sure diamond winner. Down one again!

Declarer could have made all but certain of his contract by playing low from dummy at trick one. All he is relying on is that West has the heart ace. If that is so, then no matter how the diamonds lie, the defenders can take only three tricks.

The natural play in four hearts here on the lead of the diamond jack is to cover with dummy's queen. East will win with the king and return the diamond eight. Whether South covers or not, the defenders will establish their second diamond winner and be ready when in with the trump ace to cash their diamond and spade winners.

The winning approach features the concept of a frozen suit — a somewhat arcane designation of a position where neither side can successfully attack a suit except at the cost of a trick.

If declarer accurately reads the opening lead as coming from J-10-x of diamonds, then he can rise with the diamond ace and simply knock out the trump ace. With the cards lying the way that he had hoped, neither defender can successfully play on diamonds without establishing the third-round winner for declarer. Of course, declarer cannot play on diamonds himself without creating two winners for the defenders — but he doesn’t need to. Since he has five club winners, four trump tricks and the diamond ace, he can come to 10 tricks whatever the defenders choose to do.

This concept of a frozen suit would apply equally well if the East-West holdings were identical but the diamonds were Q-5-2 in dummy facing A-9-6. Again, declarer would have to work out that West had the J-10, then duck the opening lead to prevent the defenders from continuing the suit effectively.

This hand arose on the last round of the 2010 European Championships for the Open Teams. Poland, a contender for the gold medal, faced Germany, which was no longer in contention.

North’s jump to four diamonds showed short diamonds and set hearts as trump, since three diamonds would have been forcing. It got South, Michael Gromoller, to a delicate slam.

The heart suit needed to be played for no losers, and even if clubs produced five tricks, one more trick would still be needed – either from an accurate diamond guess or a diamond ruff. If all else failed, the last chance would come from the spades.

West helped by leading ace then another diamond. A low heart toward dummy garnered the queen – one more problem solved. Declarer drew the rest of East’s trumps, then started on clubs. Gromoller was careful to cash his king and queen first, in case clubs failed to break. He had realized that he would then need to turn to spades and would need to preserve the club ace as a late entry.

His care was rewarded when clubs failed to break. Now came a successful spade finesse, then ace and another spade, ruffed. The 3-3 break saw the slam home.

If Gromoller had gone down, Poland would have taken the Gold Medal, rather than the Silver. Israel failed in the slam against the eventual winner, Italy. Had they made the slam, they would have been second, relegating Italy to the bronze position.

You'd expect today's contract of three no-trump to be reached at most tables. North's diamond suit offers enough prospects for development that he should raise the two-no-trump opening to game, relying on there to be a decent chance that declarer has some length in diamonds.

West has a choice of attractive opening leads, a major and a minor. West should opt without question for the solid sequence. You should only settle for a major in the case of a tie, not true here.

After East overtakes the club lead, South wins the first club (to avoid a heart switch) and imagines that he will be able to cash out the diamonds. The 4-1 break is a rude shock, but declarer will still be able to come to nine tricks so long as he can take four spade winners. Can you see any possible snag?

If South runs dummy’s spade jack, which spade will he play from hand? If he drops the 10, then East can cover the spade nine on the second round and build a trick for his eight. If South does not unblock his 10, then he must win the second spade in hand and can no longer remain in dummy to play spades.

The solution is painless, though. Simply run the spade nine on the first round of the suit, then lead the jack and underplay it with the 10, retaining the lead in North for the third spade play from dummy.

When this deal came up at the very end of a match between the two Italian teams in the Yeh Tournament of 2008, Italy Two had just enough of a lead over their counterparts to be able to survive today's disaster.

At one table East balanced with three hearts over South’s three diamonds. West tried three no-trump and East corrected to four clubs, raised to five. With trumps 2-1, five clubs played like a dream for plus 600.

This figured to be a nice pickup, since three diamonds doubled looked destined for down one. However, instead of leading a top spade, Valerio Giubilo went for the brass ring by leading his singleton heart, covered all around. Declarer, Agustin Madala, returned a heart, and West pitched a spade rather than a club. Declarer took the heart ace and led the heart 10, discarding his club when East, Alfredo Versace, covered. The spade jack was ducked all around, then came a spade to the ace.

Declarer now led a winning heart to pitch his last spade, and West ruffed in. South ruffed the next club and passed the diamond eight successfully, holding his trump losers to one and making plus 470.

In the ending, West had to fly with the diamond ace on the first round and play a second club to get his second trump trick since South is locked in dummy with the diamond king. Whether South leads a heart or spade from dummy, West re-promotes his diamond jack to the setting trick.

Antonio Sementa of Italy was the hero of today's deal. If you want to try it first as a single-dummy problem, then cover the East and West hands and play five diamonds on the friendly lead of West's singleton club.

Sementa won the club cheaply in dummy and rejected the idea of drawing only two rounds of trump before playing clubs. Had he done so, West would have ruffed in and would now have defeated the hand by cashing his side’s spade winner and eventually collecting a heart trick. Instead Sementa drew all the trumps, ending in dummy.

In a comparable position, a fine declarer had ruffed out the clubs and led a low spade from hand. East won, and could now have set the hand by playing back a spade. That would have allowed West to keep a spade winner at the end, since both North and South were out of trumps.

Sementa instead made the key play of leading a heart from dummy, relying on East (known to have four clubs and two diamonds, and presumably only five spades, since East-West had not bid) to have a doubleton heart honor.

When West took the heart king and played back a spade, East could lead a further spade, forcing dummy to trump and denuding North of side entries. But Sementa ruffed out the clubs, then played the heart ace, dropping the queen, and dummy was good.

Although this play might have led to extra undertricks, this was really the only legitimate chance for the contract.

There are almost as many different ways to assign conventional meanings to three-level responses to one no-trump as there are calculations of the World's Top Player. (Only kidding: everyone knows that he would be the world's top player if he could just find a competent partner.)

In today’s deal North-South was using three-level calls to show both minors, in different ranges, with specific shortages, and thus reached a delicate game. For the record, three diamonds would have been forcing with both minors, three hearts and three spades would have shown shortage in the other major, 5-4 in the minors.

On lead against three no-trump, Migry Campanile (West) led a natural but unfortunate spade against three no trump, and declarer’s trick count was now up to seven. South, Mark Bompis of France, then made the natural, if potentially unsuccessful, play of the diamond queen from hand, trying to establish his eight-card fit, and Campanile won the king. If she had routinely returned a heart or spade, as was the case at many tables, declarer would then have had no problems both establishing diamonds and returning to dummy to make use of them.

In fact, where the board was played between two world-class teams on Vugraph, one West played a spade, the other played back a diamond. But Campanile returned a club to disrupt the entries to dummy, and now declarer had no chance when neither minor behaved.

That was a well-deserved 13 IMPs to the Israeli team.