On this deal from the Cavendish pairs, it was demonstrated that the downsides of opening light are not limited to getting too high once in a while. Where I was watching, Amos Kaminski passed the South hand, and a transfer auction to four spades saw Piotr Gawrys (North) have no problems on a club lead.

By contrast, both Geir Helgemo and Fred Stewart opened the South hand, the former fueled by youthful exuberance, and the latter by a strong club system. After a game-forcing trump raise, both played four spades on a diamond lead to the jack.

It looks normal to go after clubs now as East, doesn’t it? Think again — there is no hurry to lead clubs. Partner’s tricks in that suit won’t go away, so now is the time to look for something better.

Both Alain Levy and Roy Welland, at their respective tables, found the devastating trump shift. Declarer took his ace (if he finesses, he is sunk on a second diamond play), but in doing so, lost his only fast entry back to hand.

Each South now tried the club king from hand, but both Wests continued the good work on defense. They ducked the first club, won the second and played a second diamond. Declarer rose with the ace and now only needed to return to hand in order to discard the diamond loser on the clubs.

So they played the heart ace and king, and ruffed a heart high as their hand entry. No such luck! The defense could over-ruff and cash the diamond king for down one.

Zia Mahmood achieved his first reportable coup of the 2001 Cavendish Invitational pairs competition on the very first deal. (And what took him so long, you might ask.) Zia, as South, opened one heart, and his partner, Billy Eisenberg, jumped to three clubs (systematically, to show a limit raise with four trumps or an unbalanced three-card limit raise). Zia tried a delicate six hearts, and Espen Erichsen, as West, led a spade to the king and ace.

When Zia advanced the club queen, Erichsen won with the club king to play a second spade. At this point, Zia had to find the heart queen. He reasoned that Erichsen’s decision to win the club king and return a spade (instead of a trump, or as opposed to letting his partner win the club ace) meant that he must have the heart queen.

Accordingly, Zia, who has never lacked the courage of his convictions, ruffed the spade return and ran the heart jack to make his slam.

I was lucky enough to make the slam against world champion opponents after the defense cashed the club ace and tried to cash the spade ace. Now there were enough inferences for me to negotiate the trump suit, though it was by no means a foregone conclusion to get it right.

While I was happy with my result, I will not name the declarer who made a more expensive play. At another table, Ishmael Del’Monte and Neville Eber got to defend against six diamonds doubled, but declarer misguessed hearts, turning a huge potential gain into a huge loss.

The 2001 Cavendish Invitational pairs competition featured a number of well-played hands. This deal saw two declarers follow similar routes to success.

Guido Ferraro, playing with Giorgio Duboin, declared six hearts on the auction shown. After a spade lead, Ferraro correctly assumed that East’s jump to game — with what appeared to be a Yarborough and only four trumps — argued strongly for shortness in hearts. So he made the critical play when he won the king and cashed the diamond ace and king before leading a heart to the queen.

This maneuver is sometimes referred to as the Dentist’s Coup. It had the effect of extracting West’s troublesome doubleton diamond. Accordingly, when West won the heart ace, he had to return a black suit. That let declarer cross to hand to finesse in hearts and make his slam.

Note that if declarer had not cashed two rounds of diamonds, West could have won the heart ace and exited in diamonds, locking declarer in dummy.

Peter Weichsel and Rose Meltzer reached the same contract on a broadly similar auction where East had also raised spades aggressively. Weichsel received the spade queen lead and played the hand similarly to Ferraro, with one very slight refinement. He won the spade king, cashed the diamond ace and king, then played the heart 10 (unblocking, to facilitate later communication) to his queen and West’s ace. Again, West had to concede a black-suit entry to the South hand, allowing him to take the heart finesse through the opening bidder.

The Cavendish Invitational brings together the world’s best pairs and teams for a week of competition with some of the largest cash prizes in bridge. It is currently held in Monaco, but for many years it was organized in Las Vegas. One of the favorites in those years was the partnership of Brad Moss and Fred Gitelman, who had considerable success both as a partnership and individually. Gitelman combines a talent for playing the game with a real acumen for marketing the game through computers and the internet.

Gitelman is the developer of Bridge Master, educational software that features many useful elements of technique to improve the game of everyone from beginners to experts. It was therefore especially piquant that today’s deal cropped up as a problem for Gitelman in the 2001 Cavendish Pairs.

Of all the little-known percentage plays, one of the most obscure is featured in the spade suit on this deal. There might be something to be said for playing six clubs here, but six no-trump looks like the more normal spot. How should you play the key suit of spades to maximize your chances for four tricks?

The answer is to run the spade queen! If the suit is 3-3, you have a blind guess; if the suit is 4-2, you can pick up three of the four honor-doubletons by leading the queen. No other play achieves that result. It is only fitting that when Gitelman was faced with the challenge in six no-trump, he duly made the right play and was rewarded when the cards cooperated.

When this deal came up at the 2001 Cavendish teams event in Las Vegas, the daily bulletin remarked that Bruce Ferguson has made a career of trying to fool all of the people all of the time. The more outrageous things he does, the more people suspect him, so he has to keep trying ever more unusual tricks. But he still keeps reeling in the victims!

Consider this affair from the last match of the teams, where he caught another world champion and added yet one more notch to his belt.

If you play three no-trump as South, as did the vast majority of the field, you find the cards lying exceptionally well. With the diamond ace doubleton and spades and hearts apparently favorably located, it looks very hard to go down.

As West, Ferguson started the war of attrition by leading a deceptive heart four, playing fourth-highest leads. When you have a hand this strong, that can be a good move. When South ducked the first heart, Ferguson had won the first battle. Back came a second heart; South won, crossed to a top diamond and passed the club queen. Ferguson won and put the spade four on the table!

Declarer eyed this suspiciously and decided to duck. We can all see that this may not be technically supportable, but Ferguson had given him the chance to go wrong, and he took it. Now, when the club finesse lost, West had five winners. Ferguson left the table chortling, with yet another victim added to what is by now a rather long list.

Today’s deal from the 2001 Cavendish Invitational teams event is a curiosity: How often do you gain IMPs for going five down in a freely bid game?

At one table, where Jon Wittes and Ross Grabel of the Onstott team were East and West respectively, their opponent in the North seat opened two spades. I’m not sure I agree with that action, and not just because the spade suit isn’t really strong enough for it. The problem is that the hand is so playable in two other denominations, and the combination of that with the two aces means that you will occasionally mislead your partner as to what your hand is all about. It rarely works as badly as it did today, however.

Over the two-spade pre-empt, Grabel (West) balanced with three diamonds, and Wittes bid three no-trump. There the matter rested, and after a club lead, the defenders took seven clubs and two aces, which was down five for minus 500. No double, no trouble.

The auction from the other room was as shown here. Roger Bates was South and Jim Robison North, the latter judging the auction very nicely by staying silent initially, then more than making up for it later. As the auction progressed, he could infer his partner’s length in hearts, and the potential of his own hand increased even further.

After a spade lead, Bates was able to pitch his diamond and crossruff. With trumps splitting 1-1, the play was straightforward for plus 1,540 and a gain of 14 IMPs.

The ACBL organizes simultaneous pairs every year to benefit various different activities, and last month they had a senior pairs, with duplicated hands all around the U.S., plus a book of commentary.

This deal tickled my fancy because I suspect that the play that would produce the best result possible for the East-West pairs on defense would escape most people, even with the sight of all four hands.

Let’s look at how the bidding might develop. When East pre-empts to two hearts over North’s one-club opener, South can double, then introduce spades, or bid and rebid spades, neither of which would be forcing, though the second route suggests a real invitation. However, both approaches should see South declare three spades.

Strangely, however, it is hard to defeat four spades after the South captures the heart queen lead. West must duck his diamond ace at trick two. If South wins the diamond king then runs the spade nine around to him, West must next take his diamond ace and shift to a club.

Now if declarer cashes both top clubs and leads a third, East ruffs in with the spade jack and West will be able to avoid any end-play easily enough. But if South instead ruffs the second club in hand and cashes the spade ace, West must unblock in trumps to avoid the throw-in! If he doesn’t, he will be forced to win the third spade and lead a minor, after which dummy’s winners will let declarer discard his heart losers.

When I saw this deal reported from Honors Bridge Club in New York, it was written up with the heading of “The Curse of Scotland?” It came up in December 2017, and it was a hand where East-West were robbed of a chance for brilliancy — all because of the diamond nine.

Judy Weisman sat West, and she started the defense on the right lines when she led the club king, an inspired shot against the slam, because it forced declarer to take his discards at once. (If declarer had had a singleton spade, he would have been forced to cut his own communications.)

Declarer won the club ace and played two top spades, pitching a club on the first. Put yourself in East’s shoes and plan the defense. Lipkin found the defense that would set the hand no matter which three diamonds his partner had. He ruffed with the ace (an unnatural play in my opinion) to return a diamond; that killed declarer’s chances since, whatever he did, he was left with a heart loser.

As the cards lay, Lipkin could have ruffed with the diamond 10 — but only because his partner had the diamond nine (the Curse of Scotland). For example, switch the nine and eight of trumps, and declarer would over-ruff the diamond 10 with the jack, then play the heart ace and ruff a heart. He could now lead a spade and maneuver to draw trumps without West being able to promote a trump.