The most popular win at the 1997 Dallas Spring Nationals was in the final event, the Open Swiss Teams. Edgar Kaplan had been battling cancer for a couple of years and had not been able to play all that much, but he paired up with Geir Helgemo to win the event.

Kaplan was dummy when Helgemo produced the play of the year. Put yourself in the South seat and cover up the East and West cards to see if you, too, can win a brilliancy prize.

Richard Pavlicek opened a weak two-bid in hearts, raised to game by Ralph Katz. Helgemo tried six diamonds, and all passed. Helgemo ruffed the heart lead, drew trumps and inferred that the hearts were surely 5-4, so Pavlicek probably had a little extra distribution for his bidding.

Since the contract would be easy if spades were 3-3, what if Pavlicek had five clubs, so that spades were 4-2? There was only one remote chance to play for, and Helgemo took it. He led a spade to the seven, playing West for a doubleton eight. Katz won the jack and returned the five — and Helgemo ran this to dummy’s nine!

This deal produced awe from the other professional players in the event when they heard about it. Duplicate boards were in play, but few had found the initial move in the spade suit, and no-one else had had the nerve to make the second play.

Of course, if East had played the eight on the first round, declarer would have had some losing options.

Bridge players are all too inclined to blame other people for their own misfortunes. At a long-ago Vanderbilt Trophy match, having scored up my own set, I lingered within earshot of some of my Texan colleagues, who were clearly trying to allocate culpability amongst themselves.

When today’s deal came up for discussion, the least tolerant of the four had brought home four hearts after his table’s West had led a trump. He had clearly expected to pick up a swing here. As he said: “After West led a trump, I won in dummy and led a low club. West got in again and played a second trump. Now I cashed my four diamonds, pitching the losing club from dummy, and took a ruff on the board. I thought I played it well. But did you find the trump lead?” he asked his team-mates. “We didn’t,” came the response. “After a spade lead, declarer ruffed the second spade low, then gave up a club. East led a low spade, forcing declarer to ruff high. South then had to be extremely careful; he had to lead a trump to dummy — playing for the 4-1 trump break — then cash three diamonds, ending in the North hand. (It doesn’t work to finish in hand, as the defenders will get a second trump play in prematurely.)

“Finally, he ruffed a spade high, ruffed his fourth diamond in dummy and ruffed a spade in hand. Frankly, I think our declarer had a harder task than you!”

For once, there was no response.

In today’s auction, after spades were agreed, South’s four-heart call was a cue-bid. North inquired about key-cards, and his five-no-trump call confirmed possession of them all. South then showed the heart king by bidding that suit, but North could infer South’s hearts weren’t solid (or he would already have bid the grand slam), so he signed off in six spades.

West led the club queen, taken in dummy. Declarer cashed the heart ace, then the trump ace. After both opponents followed, declarer was on the point of playing the heart king when he foresaw the problems that might arise from a bad heart break. Revising his plan, he continued instead with a low heart. West took this with the jack and, in response to East’s discard, exited with a diamond, won by South’s ace.

Having registered East’s shortage in hearts, declarer asked himself what could be done if East had also started with four trumps headed by the 10. Demonstrating that this problem could be overcome, he called for dummy’s trump nine and overtook it with his jack. Next, after ruffing a heart with dummy’s trump queen, he led the spade five and simply covered East’s card. After drawing the last trump, South claimed the balance — making four trumps, four hearts, a heart ruff and three tricks in the minors.

Declarer’s line wasn’t fool-proof against 3-2 hearts with West having the length, plus a bad trump break, but it covered almost all the bases that could be covered.

It is painful enough when your own bad play earns you a poor result, but it can be especially galling when your opponents appear to have done the wrong thing and then score well, as in today’s deal. It seemed that North-South had misjudged the auction to reach a failing contract. But it did not work out that way.

At his third turn, North believed he was facing extra shape and values, so he eschewed playing three no-trump, instead heading for the club game. The no-trump game might have failed, but five clubs was hardly a comfortable spot either.

West led the spade king and continued with the ace and a third spade when he found his partner with a doubleton. Declarer ruffed with dummy’s club jack, and East was unable to over-ruff. In order to keep four cards in each of dummy’s and declarer’s side-suits, he decided to under-ruff.

South now drew the right conclusion from East’s play. He played three rounds of hearts before leading trumps, ruffing the third heart in dummy. The ace and king of clubs brought down West’s queen. Now South could lead out his remaining trumps to squeeze East in the red suits and bring home the game.

Had West shifted to a diamond after cashing the top spades, South would probably have worked out why the defenders had failed to try for a possible trump trick. But perhaps East could have given false count in spades; then declarer might not have realized what was going on, and would have taken the trump finesse.

There are several points of interest about today’s deal that have a general application. The first is that despite his small doubleton, there is no viable alternative to South’s opening one no-trump. When in the middle of the range, you must normally open one no-trump. Occasionally, though, you may be able to up-value or down-value hands at one end of the range or the other if they seem inappropriate for opening one no-trump because of their honor structure.

Second, North does best to transfer to the major, then offer a choice of games, rather than showing his diamonds at his second turn. With a singleton, or with maybe an ace more — so that slam isn’t entirely out of the picture — I might feel differently.

Declaring three no-trump, how should South judge the play on the lead of a low heart? The first thing to do is to put up the jack — if you don’t, you will get no use from that card. (With the heart nine in hand instead of the six, you would play low from dummy, by the way.)

When the jack holds, don’t relax prematurely! If you play a diamond, East will rush up with the ace to clear the hearts, and you will find that eight tricks are the limit today. Instead, finesse in clubs, knocking out the entry from the danger hand. West does best to win and shift to a low spade, and again you must be careful. Win the ace and clear diamonds; now you can ensure nine tricks for your side no matter how the opponents’ cards lie.

Everybody knows a quick peek is worth two finesses, but most of us would be happy to play a slam that depended solely on one of two finesses succeeding. That converts to a 75 percent chance — good enough, but hardly money in the bank. If you could improve your odds over that, you would not turn your nose up at the opportunity, would you?

Let’s look at a position that reflects precisely these chances. You play six hearts when North offers his partner a choice of small slam on a hand where the matching distributions mean that, despite his surplus of values and trumps, declarer must work hard to hold his minor losers to one.

After a spade lead, declarer draws trumps in three rounds and eliminates the spades. How should he advance from there? He can improve his odds over the simple diamond finesse followed by the club finesse. He should play the ace, king and a third diamond, eschewing the finesse since there is no need to take it. If West wins the diamond queen, declarer can claim the rest, whatever suit that player returns, since he must lead a club into declarer’s tenace or give a ruff-sluff.

But if East had held the diamond queen, he would be forced to open up clubs, and declarer would let the lead run around to dummy. Then, unless West had both the club queen and 10, declarer would avoid a club loser. In other words, this line succeeds unless not two but three cards are badly placed.

We saw yesterday how ducking an honor could persuade declarer to take his eye off the ball. An even more desperate duck was performed by Jeff Meckstroth in this deal from the 2000 U.S. Team Trials.

South played in four spades doubled; West led the heart ace and ruefully shifted to a club. Declarer won dummy’s ace, disposed of his other club on the heart king, then ruffed a club to hand and led a spade toward dummy. West split with the queen, and dummy’s ace won. This was probably a mistake both in theory and practice — declarer would retain control if he ducked, by not having to reduce his own trumps again to get back to hand.

Be that as it may, declarer took another ruff in hand to play a second spade. West won and tapped declarer yet again, and now declarer could not afford to draw the last trump, so he ran the diamond queen.

Had East won this, the defense would have been doomed. A diamond return would allow declarer to draw the last trump; any other lead would let declarer ruff in hand and cross to dummy in diamonds to draw the trump.

However, Meckstroth, East, was ready. When declarer led the diamond queen, he followed in tempo with the 10. Declarer repeated the finesse. Meckstroth won with his now-blank king and returned a club, allowing West to throw his last diamond and eventually obtain a diamond ruff.

Whatever you may think of declarer’s play, Meckstroth deserves plaudits for finding a chance to set the game.

The next deal from Larry Cohen’s new book, “Tricks of the Trade,” discusses how defenders can make life difficult for declarer by not rushing to take their high cards. Of course, anyone can duck a winner, but the key is to do it at the right time. Sometimes your plan is to distract declarer or persuade him to relax under the impression that a card is well-placed for him.

Obviously, these “blind” ducks, even when achieved smoothly, are riskier when you are ducking a high card from declarer’s hand than those where you can see all the key values in dummy. In exchange, though, they are usually more effective than their counterparts, because declarer will be less likely to believe your capability to make such a play. Watch the effect of a blind duck from the final of the 2000 Open Teams in Maastricht.

South, declarer at three no-trump, won the opening heart lead in hand and crossed to the club ace to play a diamond to his queen, which held. He crossed back to the other high club to take another diamond finesse, but it lost. Italy’s Lorenzo Lauria, West, had earlier made the good play of smoothly ducking his diamond king at his first chance to take it.

Once in with the diamond king, Lauria cleared hearts and defeated the contract by later regaining the lead in clubs and cashing out. If the first diamond finesse had lost, declarer would surely have tried the club finesse at a later stage in the deal and made his contract.

In Larry Cohen’s “Tricks of the Trade,” he makes many sensible points, one of which I will now echo wholeheartedly.

For most of us, the primary signal is attitude, and only rarely count; when following suit on declarer’s leads, we do not signal unless partner needs to know the count. So far, so good; however, many players slavishly switch to suit preference when dummy has a singleton. I can certainly understand this inclination, but it is important to regard those signals as suggestions, not commands.

Here is Cohen describing a defense he and David Berkowitz produced. Against South’s four hearts, David led a top diamond. In view of dummy’s singleton, the partnership treated the meaning of East’s card as suit preference. Since Cohen had strong spades, he could afford to play the diamond 10.

But, as Cohen says, this does not mean, “Please skewer me by shifting to the spade jack.” Instead, it simply suggests that East has spade values. Armed with this information, West can judge that best defense is a trump switch (rather than a shift to the spade jack, which would cost a trick as the cards lie). If, instead, West had three low clubs, then he might have switched to spades.

As an aside, Cohen adds that showing he likes a suit does not necessarily demand a shift to that suit, and he has persuaded his partner to that effect. Cohen says Berkowitz wouldn’t mind if he called him an old dog — even though he has learned new tricks!