At the U.S. National tournament in Philadelphia last March, Sunday’s A/X Swiss Teams saw a match between the Sonsini and van Overbeeke squads. This resulted in an all-Dutch cast at one of the two tables. East-West were Bauke Muller and Simon De Wijs, while North-South were Maarten Schollaardt and Tom van Overbeeke.

In today’s deal, no game looks very promising, but in four spades declarer was lucky to find clubs blocked. On opening lead, De Wijs cashed the club ace-king, then played a diamond. (A trump is no better.) Now declarer pitched his club on dummy’s top hearts, ruffed a heart low in hand, then ruffed a diamond in dummy and ruffed a club high in hand as West pitched a diamond.

Now came a second diamond ruff and a second club ruff high (West underruffing), to reduce to a three-card ending where declarer had the Q-10 of trumps and the diamond queen left. Van Overbeeke led the diamond queen, forcing West to ruff and lead a trump into his tenace to concede the contract.

Perhaps West should have underruffed twice and unblocked the diamond king (in the hope that his partner had the diamond queen), but as the cards lay, the defenders could not get out of their own way. Give East the diamond king, and the double underruff would set the game.

Since three no-trump went down three in the other room, that was a huge swing to the van Overbeeke team.

At the Spring National tournament a year ago in Philadelphia, players came from all around the world to compete in the major events. The Vanderbilt Teams Trophy these days is roughly equivalent to a world championship, and the last eight teams could probably hold their own against most national teams.

This was a very nicely played deal by Tarek Sadek, a long-time regular on the Egyptian team, who had done well to reach the only playable slam on the North-South cards.

West accurately led a club; the lead of the six went to the king and ace. How would you have defended as East now? At the table, East returned the club jack. When given a chance to make his slam, Sadek made no mistake. The critical play was to pitch the spade jack from his hand at trick two, then ruff a small spade in hand. He could go back to the heart ace to ruff a second spade in his hand, then draw trumps and go to the diamond ace to run spades.

In fact, the defenders had two chances to beat the slam after the club lead. East could have removed a critical entry to dummy by playing either red suit, after which declarer would no longer be able to ruff out the spades. After a diamond shift (the best play, to remove the side entry to dummy), declarer could either play to ruff a diamond in dummy or for a spade finesse, allied to some additional squeeze chances. However, today, every line would fail.

When this deal originally appeared at the U.S. National tournament held in Philadelphia last year, it was called “Campanologist’s Delight.”

The author indicated that readers of bridge columns are always either advantaged or handicapped — depending on how you look at it — by the bell going off. When faced with a problem, the reader is always led to the critical decision and thus imperceptibly biased in his thought process. He is unable to play as he would have played if he had not been warned he was at the crossroads.

With that in mind, let us look at this deal from the second final session of the Rockwell Mixed Pairs. You sit East, and against three no-trump your partner leads a fourth-highest club five. You are allowed to win the queen and can see nothing better than to return the suit. Your partner wins the ace and returns the seven to clear the suit. Declarer wins the club jack and advances the diamond queen. Do you win or duck — and if you win, what do you return?

Answer: It doesn’t matter, because you can no longer beat three no-trump! If you failed to play the club 10 at trick one, you won’t beat the game. Your partner either has jack-sixth of clubs, in which case your play doesn’t matter at all, or his actual holding. If the latter, you want to persuade declarer to take his jack at the first trick, after which clubs will be ready to run.

Declarer can survive by not winning the club jack, but will he? I think not!

From the Silodor Open Pairs in Philadelphia last year, this challenge for both declarer and the defense saw Simon Cope and Peter Crouch, the eventual winners of the event, emerge on top.

In three no-trump after the spade nine lead, Crouch discouraged, perhaps suggesting he had the heart king. Declarer won the queen and decided that the right approach was to start with the club finesse. So he played the club king and a club to the jack, which held. Relieved, declarer could take the diamond finesse, thinking that if it lost to the diamond queen, he could reassess what to do.

To his pleasure, the diamond jack won as well. Declarer could now lead a heart to the ace, and rather than cashing the club ace (which would have squeezed his hand), he played a second diamond. He planned to score two spades, one heart, four diamonds and two clubs.

However, he was shocked when East showed out, and his plans collapsed; ducking the first diamond was very nice defense by Cope (West).

As usual, with the sight of all four hands, South can do much better; indeed, three no-trump is cold. Admittedly, though, you need to make the inspired move of laying down the diamond king at trick two — not obvious by any means! If the defenders win the first or second diamond, you set up diamonds using the club reentry to your hand. If they duck twice, you play on clubs and take four tricks there.

Neil Silverman and Robert Lebi have each represented their countries, the U.S. and Canada, respectively, but they were playing together in Philadelphia last spring. Here, Silverman had an opportunity to test his skills after Lebi had shown a distributional raise in hearts by his jump to three hearts at his first turn. Modern expert technique is tending to an approach in which most limit raises start with a cue-bid. Accordingly, the jump raise has morphed over the years from a forcing raise to a limit raise to a pre-emptive raise. These days, though, many use the jump raise as somewhere between a limit raise and a pre-emptive raise.

Silverman bid on to five hearts over five diamonds. After the lead of the diamond king, East went up with the ace, planning to continue the attack on diamonds. Declarer ruffed and led the club 10 from hand (just in case) to dummy’s queen. When that held, he ran the heart queen, covered all around, then drove out the club ace. West now played a second diamond, and Silverman pitched a club from hand, leaving the defense helpless. Whoever won the diamond would have to lead a spade or diamond. Declarer could ruff the diamond in dummy and pitch a spade from hand, then advance the heart nine and bring hearts in for no loser.

If East had been able to win the second diamond, declarer could have adopted the same approach, but would have needed the spade finesse to work.

These days in almost every auction where the opponents bid or double, it is possible for responder to play transfers — and today’s deal from the Silodor Open Pairs in Philadelphia last year was no exception. The auction might have developed in a similar fashion, with South declaring three diamonds, if West had made a pre-emptive jump to two spades, but his initial call of two hearts showed six spades of indeterminate range.

The question of how many tricks South would emerge with in three diamonds had a slightly surprising answer, though. You’d expect West to lead a doubleton club and South to take East’s queen, draw trumps in two rounds, then set up a club for the ninth trick.

Instead, East managed to throw an intriguing diversion at the first trick when he played the club king, trying to suggest a different lie of that suit to declarer.

It worked to perfection! South was now sure West had three clubs and six spades, and clearly at least three hearts from the bidding. So she drew just one round of trumps with the ace and played a second club. East won the queen and could have played for the spade ruff, but that would have produced only four tricks. Instead, he cashed the heart king as West gave count, then played a third club. Declarer guessed to discard a spade, and West ruffed in with the jack and played the spade ace and a second spade to give partner the ruff and set the hand.

This week’s deals are all linked directly or indirectly to the use of the cue-bid in modern bidding.

In days of yore, cue-bidding the opponents’ suit was typically the first step in a slam try, and the call promised a control in their suit. These days, as jump raises of partner’s suit are used to pre-empt rather than to show values, the cue-bid must be subverted to promise fit and values. Hence the use of the term “unassuming cue-bid” — the call does not promise a control in the opponents’ suit.

Today’s auction sees North promise fit and values, and when South denies any extras, the partnership can stop in two hearts. However, even that may prove to be too high after the lead of the diamond five.

Imagine declarer ducking East’s diamond 10 at trick one. He wins the diamond return with his ace and next crosses to dummy with a trump to lead a club toward his king. Whether East plays high or low, South can establish the 13th club without letting West on play for the killing shift to the spade jack.

That looks straightforward enough; can you see the defensive wrinkle that might lead to the defeat of the contract if you aren’t careful? If you play the diamond four from dummy at trick one, East can figure out to play low. (His partner has either the doubleton five or his actual holding.) Now you can no longer keep West off play, and if he can find the top spade shift, it will defeat the contract.

All this week, we are looking at different uses of the cue-bid in modern bidding. Part of the problem with deciphering how the call should be interpreted is that the word “cue-bid” is used in many different contexts. How are you to know what’s going on? Is the call an ask, a statement, a control or something else?

A good general rule is that any bid of the opponents’ suit above three no-trump promises a control. Any bid of the opponents’ suit below three no-trump, if that call does not come on the first round of the auction, is looking for a stopper for no-trump until it is proven that this meaning does not apply.

Here, therefore, North’s two-spade call asks for a spade stopper, and South is happy to oblige. When West leads a small heart against three no-trump, South must resist the knee-jerk reaction to finesse. That is the greedy play — and one you might consider at pairs. But if South yields to temptation, East will win the heart king and shift to spades, and down goes the contract.

Instead, declarer can avoid that risk by winning the heart ace and playing the king and ace of diamonds. Then when the bad break comes to light, he can play on clubs and knock out the club ace. West will win the third round and play a heart, but declarer is home free now, with the heart queen serving as an entry to his master diamond. The contract will be in jeopardy only against very unfriendly breaks in both minors.

We have established that in mid-auction you tend to bid no-trump if you have the opponent’s suit under control, but you can ask partner for help by cue-bidding that suit. But what if the opponents have bid or shown two suits? Does a call ask or state?

The general rule is that when there are two danger suits, you bid where you live. So on the auction shown today, South’s three-heart call shows a heart stop and, by inference he can’t have too much in spades or he would have bid no-trump himself.

North’s three-spade call suggests a half-stopper in spades or three small cards, since (once again) he would bid no-trump if he could, and would eschew no-trump with short spades.

When South bites the bullet and bids three no-trump, West leads out the top spades, suggesting to South that spades are 4-4; but whether they are breaking or not, South must find his best chance to bring in clubs for five tricks. If he loses a trick to the club queen, he will surely go down, since West has an entry to the spades in the heart ace.

With West having nine cards in the majors, it is correct to play East for the club queen. To do that, declarer crosses to the diamond king in dummy and runs the club jack.

This play picks up the 4-1 club breaks where East has the queen (of which there are four) while losing to the singleton club queen in West, a far less likely case.