One of the countries that is fast rising to prominence at the North American Championships is Turkey. Here is Turkey’s Zeynep Yilmaz at the 2014 spring competition.

Against five clubs, West led the spade king, ruffed low in dummy. Yilmaz played a low club to the five, queen and six. Unless East had started with an unlikely doubleton club ace, declarer expected two trump losers; therefore, he would require the diamond king to be onside. But Yilmaz also expected a 4-2 diamond break, not only because that is the most likely distribution in abstract within the suit, but also because of West’s known six-card spade suit.

To come home in his game, he would need to be able to ruff the third round of diamonds with his club nine. Therefore East had to hold the doubleton club ace, or West must have begun with the doubleton club jack.

When Yilmaz advanced the diamond jack, it was covered by the king and ace. Yilmaz now played a low trump from dummy. East could not afford to rise with the ace and return a trump, as he would give up his second trump trick in the process. So he followed with the 10, won by West with the jack. Whatever West returned would be won in dummy, and a diamond could safely be ruffed with the trump nine.

Note that, in theory, it doesn’t help West to unblock the trump jack under the queen, since declarer could change tack and ruff a diamond high before playing the second trump.

Today’s deal is a relatively simple one from a recent Australian national event. Both tables bid the hand to five clubs by South, and at each table, the lead was the heart jack. However, one declarer looked further into the hand than did his counterpart, and he was suitably rewarded.

Where the unsuccessful declarer was at the helm, he won the opening lead and made haste to pitch his spade loser on the top heart. Then he played on trumps and could not avoid losing three tricks in the minors when clubs failed to behave.

David Beauchamp was South in the other room, and he also received the lead of the heart jack. However, after taking his two heart winners to pitch the spade loser, he tried a diamond to the jack and king.

If anything but a trump came back, declarer’s plan was to ruff a diamond in dummy, then lead trumps from the top, with something like a 2 in 3 chance of playing clubs for one loser. West continued hearts, so declarer duly put that plan into effect. If, however, West had shifted to trumps, Beauchamp would have brought the whole club suit in with no loser, so he would have come to 11 tricks in a different fashion.

This deal exemplifies the adage that there is no suit you are better off leading yourself than forcing the opponents to play it for you. Let them do the heavy lifting, and you will be pleased by the results.

Kit Woolsey’s latest book, “The Language of Bridge” covers a lot of ground. One of the topics discussed is how to help your partner do the right thing, as well as instructing you when to make the decision for the partnership if you know what is appropriate.

Here, after North has shown a balanced 12-14 points and you have discreetly decided to stay out of the proceedings, your partner leads the diamond queen against South’s four spades. You can see your own hand as East, plus the dummy, and the route to four tricks on defense may seem straightforward.

Defeating the contract should be simple, assuming declarer wins the first diamond, draws trumps and loses a club finesse. You will underlead your diamond king, and partner can put a heart through.

But can you see a potential problem? Declarer might sneakily duck the first round of diamonds. If you have encouraged, partner will not think to shift to a heart — why would he, since you might have king-third of diamonds and no heart queen? After a diamond continuation, the defense is kaput since West no longer has an entry for the heart play.

The secret is that you must discourage with the diamond two at trick one, even though you are happy with the lead. Now if declarer ducks, partner will know to shift to a heart.

Moral: it is worth remembering that attitude signals relate to the whole hand, not just the suit led.

The opportunity for an avoidance play presents itself when you can determine that one of the opponents is the danger hand, either because he has winners to cash or because he might lead a suit that would put your contract in jeopardy, whereas his partner cannot make those plays.

In such scenarios, you should be prepared to invest a trick to achieve your target, or to maximize your chances of keeping the feared opponent off play.

Today’s deal is just such an example; the easy part of the problem is to determine which one is the danger hand; once you have done that, the avoidance play should come easily.

Would you raise one spade to two as South at your second turn? I could go either way. But let’s say you choose the rebid of one no-trump and end up in three no-trump on a top club lead. Good technique is to duck two clubs, trying to cut the defenders’ communications. Having won the third club, you can see your way home in three no-trump even if you only emerge with four diamond tricks — as long as you keep West, the presumed danger hand, off lead.

The way to do this is to lead towards the diamond ace from hand. If West has Q-10-x of diamonds, there is nothing you can do. But if East has the singleton 10, it will appear at once. You can then successfully pass the diamond jack and keep West off play. Even if you lose to the doubleton diamond queen in East, that would constitute very cheap insurance.

It is a theme that bears repeating that when playing teams or rubber bridge, your main focus as declarer must be on making your contract whenever possible. Meanwhile, as a defender, the number of overtricks or undertricks is less critical than trying to beat the contract. Today’s deal is a fine example of needing to keep your eye on the ball. To make your contract of three no-trump, you must come to nine tricks; the 10th trick is far less important. With that huge clue, put yourself in declarer’s place and cover up the East and West cards. You are playing three no-trump on the lead of the heart jack.

The first point is that you should win the opening lead because you would not like it if the defenders shifted to clubs or spades at trick two. So you take the heart and duck a diamond; since you have to lose a diamond, you must retain communications if you can.

East overtakes his partner’s diamond seven to play a second heart. You duck the trick and win the third heart, as everyone follows, then lead a second diamond. When West deviously follows with the queen, it would be natural, but fatal, to assume that the suit was breaking, and to put up the king. If you do, you will limit yourself to two diamond tricks, and the contract can no longer be made. Duck the second diamond, and you will take three diamond tricks and two winners in each of the other suits.

Today’s deal comes from the qualifying event of last year’s Gold Coast teams in Brisbane, Australia. It cropped up at the table where Matt Mullamphy and Ron Klinger took on Grant Cowen and Paul McGrath. On a quiet set of boards, where there were few opportunities for swing, this significant opportunity went begging.

At the table North had elected to pass two hearts, pessimistically downvaluing his weak trumps and poorly placed spades. It was a good decision in a sense — since in practice four hearts was likely to go down. But can you spot the line where South in the other room could have made his game, after a friendly club lead into the tenace?

When, as South, you lead a diamond at trick two, West must duck. You win dummy’s queen, then ruff a diamond, cross to the club ace and ruff a second diamond. When no ace appears, you know West surely started with 5=1=4=3 shape. So you cash the heart ace to confirm that your count on the hand is correct, then take the club king and ruff your club winner in dummy.

You have scored the first eight tricks, with the lead in dummy, having reduced yourself down to the K-10 of hearts while your RHO has Q-J-6. Dummy has two diamonds, and you and dummy each have three spades left.

At trick nine, you lead a diamond from dummy; East must ruff high to prevent you from scoring your heart 10. Instead of over-ruffing, you simply pitch a spade and will now score two more trump tricks by force.

In the last session of the Pairs Final from the Gold Coast tournament last year, both Lilley-Nagy and Howard-Nunn did well here in their contracts of two hearts.

As North, on the auction shown, David Lilley judged his partner would not have five spades, but might have five hearts, so let his partner play two hearts. Justin Howard, as South, overcalled two hearts over East’s initial one-spade response and played there.

Zolly Nagy won the top club lead, led a spade to the ace and played a low heart from hand. West flew up with the ace to play the club queen, crashing the jack, then gave his partner a club ruff. When East returned a spade for his partner to ruff, that was the fourth defensive trick, but the heart king was their last trick.

Howard received a far tougher defense. He won the spade lead in hand and led a second spade. West discarded a diamond, so declarer won the king and played a third spade. East took the queen (West pitching another diamond), and the defenders now played three rounds of trumps. When Howard drew the last trump, West had to pitch a club. When he let go a small one, Howard led a club up and ducked West’s queen.

West had to exit with a low club, and Howard won the ace and played a third club, forcing West to win and lead diamonds. Whichever diamond he played, Howard had the rest, since dummy’s club was good.

On the last trump, West had to find the discard of a club honor to avoid the endplay.

Today’s deal comes from the 2017 Gold Coast tournament, held in Brisbane, Australia. It originally appeared with the headline “Neill before the president!”

Avi Kanetkar wrote up the deal from the finals of the pairs events, which was very nicely defended by the Australian Bridge Federation president, Bruce Neill. When South opened a strong (14-17) no-trump, North took his side to six no-trump, exploring for a minor-suit fit along the way.

When Kanetkar led the diamond jack against the slam, declarer had 11 tricks and needed to develop an additional trick from the black suits. South won in hand to lead a spade to the king, which Neill smoothly ducked. Now declarer cashed hearts (Kanetkar pitching a club) before playing the club queen and ace.

Had clubs split, declarer could have cashed four tricks in the minors. As it was, when Neill discarded and the 5-1 club break came to light, it seemed entirely logical to lead a spade to the 10. And that was down one.

Had East won the spade ace, then no matter what suit he returned, declarer would probably have cashed the spade queen and played either for clubs to behave or for the same hand to hold the spade jack and club length. It is worth noting that East does best to return a spade if he began with the ace-jack, trying to persuade declarer to commit himself either to spades or clubs, rather than allowing him to combine his chances.

Today’s deal comes from last year’s Gold Coast pairs tournament in Brisbane, Australia. It is not easy for North-South to bid to their best spot, the 4-4 fit in diamonds, where declarer can use the hearts to discard spade losers. With all the suits breaking in friendly fashion, nine tricks appear to be relatively straightforward. Should North have bid at all at his third turn? I’m not sure. Raising hearts with two doesn’t feel right, while bidding diamonds on such a weak suit also seems too committal.

Hearts rate to be a tougher place to play than diamonds, particularly if hearts were going to break 4-2. After the lead of the spade queen, declarer could see that he was going to be exposed to the risk of a force on repeated black suit leads. He had only seven top tricks and needed to develop diamonds to make his contract.

Declarer David Lilley neatly avoided this problem with the help of an intra-finesse in diamonds. He ducked the spade lead and, at trick three, after winning his spade ace, he led the diamond nine from hand. When West went up with the diamond queen and cashed a spade winner, then played the club jack and another club, Lilley ruffed, crossed to the heart queen and advanced the diamond jack, pinning West’s nowbare diamond 10 and making no fewer than nine tricks.

Had the diamond 10 not dropped, declarer would have given up a diamond and ruffed the next club, playing for hearts to be 3-3.