Bridge writers occasionally introduce a deal as taking place in a local competition or in a knock-out match; this seems to be a way to add a touch of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Be that as it may, today’s deal really did crop up in a knockout match, I swear on the bones of Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalism.

Both declarers missed the point of this deal — though one earned a consolation prize for envisioning the problem, even if he didn’t quite put the defenders under maximum pressure.

Each South reached slam after North had forced in diamonds then invited slam in four no-trump. In one room, South won the club lead in dummy and played a diamond to the jack, and now lost two diamonds and a spade.

In the other room, declarer won the heart lead and passed the spade jack. East thoughtfully ducked, confident declarer had four spades from his partner’s low spot-card on that trick.

Now declarer safety-played the diamonds by laying down the king, trying to protect against a 4-1 diamond break, and eventually lost a diamond and a spade. If East had taken his spade king, South might have guessed to start diamonds by playing the ace, after which he could have finessed against East’s remaining spots. (Without the diamond seven, leading low to the jack on the first round is the right play for no losers.)

But would East have ducked the first spade if declarer had first led low to the queen? I doubt it!

North’s heart intermediates in this deal persuaded him to transfer to hearts, then offer a choice of slams by his jump to five no-trump, after which South selected hearts, of course. North could simply have invited slam with a transfer, then a quantitative jump to four no-trump. Had he done so, South’s aces and trump support would have been just enough to let him jump to six hearts.

When West led the spade queen, declarer won in dummy and tested trumps by cashing the ace to guard against 4-0 breaks. Then he drew trumps, crossed to the spade king and found himself at a crossroads. A reasonable line might have been to lead a diamond to the jack, relying on the diamond finesse or the 3-3 break in that suit, with an unlikely minor-suit squeeze to fall back on.

Declarer spotted a slightly different way to make the defenders’ lives just a little harder. Instead of leading a diamond to the jack, he advanced a small diamond from hand and covered West’s card with the eight. When East won the trick, he was end-played, since a diamond return would let declarer claim the rest.

Hoping for the best, East led a low club to the queen and ace. Declarer next cashed the diamond ace and king; when the suit failed to behave, he fell back on his last chance, crossing to dummy with a trump and finessing the nine of clubs.

If East had instead exited with his club jack, declarer would have won in hand and eventually finessed West for the club queen, playing for split honors.

All this week’s deals have a thematic link in that they involve the negotiation of a suit in which you hold the ace, king and jack.

In today’s deal, South straight-forwardly reached the contract of three no-trump when he elected to treat his hand as worth an opening bid. The spade nine went to his queen, as East ducked to preserve communications in the suit. Declarer could count on two spade tricks, bringing his total on the hand to seven top tricks. What would you consider to be the right way forward?

The heart suit looks like the obvious one to go after, but South looked a little more deeply into the deal and realized that the best line in the heart suit might depend on the result of the break in clubs.

So, he cashed the three top clubs and found that he had four tricks in that suit. As a result, he needed only three heart tricks and could afford the safety play of winning the ace, then the king, then leading toward dummy’s jack. When the heart queen put in an appearance on the second round, declarer had his nine tricks without needing anything further.

Had clubs not broken, declarer simply would have cashed the heart king and finessed the jack in an attempt to bring home four tricks.

This deal is a fine example of circumstances altering cases; the best play in hearts is dependent on the number of tricks needed for the contract.

All of our deals have a common theme this week: how to play suit combinations that include the ace, king and jack.

This deal occurred in the final of a major national tournament, on Vugraph no less, so that declarer’s eventual embarrassment was evident to all when he missed the best play. Out of deference to the player (and perhaps partly out of concern about what might happen to my grandchildren if I mention his name) I shall preserve his anonymity.

North treated his hand as very strong and balanced, then tried to get out in diamonds, but South wasn’t in on the joke and eventually, much to his disgust, ended in a grand slam with only two trumps in hand.

Perhaps the auction influenced his line of play: He won the club lead in dummy, cashed the diamond ace, then came to hand in clubs to finesse the diamonds. The finesse won, but the 4-1 trump break was too much for him to cope with.

Of course, the percentage play with this trump suit is to take two finesses. Win the club lead and pass the diamond nine at once. When it holds, repeat the finesse and draw trumps, after which you have 13 tricks.

The reason this play is right is that if trumps are 4-1, with West having the length, it is four times as likely that the singleton is a small one rather than the queen. With any other lie of the diamonds, the question of whether you take the first- or second-round finesse is irrelevant.

All the deals this week have something in common. Each includes the theme that declarer has to tackle a suit in which he has the ace, king and jack. With holdings of this sort, there are multiple issues that might arise. You may need to keep one defender off lead (a concept generally summed up as “avoidance”). Alternatively, you may simply need to maximize your trick potential. Finally, as in today’s deal, you may be looking at a safety play, where you are prepared to invest a trick in order to ensure that you do not lose two.

When the opponents lead the diamond 10 against your club slam, you count three tricks in diamonds, bringing your total outside the trump suit to nine tricks. So you need only three club tricks to make your slam — in other words, the focus should be on avoiding two trump losers. (It’s true that if both clubs and spades fail to break, you might not have 12 top tricks, but a 4-1 trump break is far more likely than a combination of foul splits.)

The simplest route to making your slam is to win the diamond lead cheaply in hand and avoid the knee-jerk reaction of leading a club to the ace and a club back toward the king-jack. Instead, cash the club king and play toward the ace-nine, planning to put in the nine if West follows with a small card. If West plays the 10 or queen, you take the trick; but if he shows out, you win the ace and lead toward your jack. After that, it is smooth sailing.

Today’s deal is a real-life hand from 45 years ago, reported in the Australian press.

It represents a missed opportunity for declarer, who had been given a roadmap by East’s double (maybe Dick Cummings was assuming his partner, Tim Seres, had a hand with some defense, given his overcall rather than a preempt.)

The defense began with a top heart lead to the ace. Perhaps assuming that hearts could not be 7-1, declarer unblocked clubs and led a heart from the board. Cummings discarded a club on this trick, and from here on in, the contract could no longer be made.

Declarer should surely have played for the diamonds not to break, and after winning the club ace, he should have led the diamond queen from dummy.

Say East covers, which looks right for preserving the tenace over dummy. Then four more rounds of clubs, discarding spades from dummy, forces East to ruff and return a high diamond. Now Declarer wins in dummy and cross-ruffs the majors. Though East can score his high trump sooner or later, that is all he gets.

The play is far more interesting on a spade lead, when East wins and returns a heart. After heart ace, then club ace, then the diamond queen to the king and ace, South cashes the club king and queen, throwing hearts from dummy. Then he takes the spade king, leads a spade to the queen, and ruffs a spade. In the four-card ending, South ruffs a spade and leads a heart from the board; now East can score only one more trump trick.

Bridge history records all too many slam bids missing two aces, or two top tricks. Some of these contracts have come home, but surely one of the odder entries into the record books is today’s hand, from the 1997 Vanderbilt Trophy quarterfinals in Dallas.

West led the diamond ace in an attempt to force out declarer’s trumps, and declarer made the odd-looking play of discarding a spade from dummy. Meanwhile East played the diamond nine, a discouraging card that, according to the partnership methods, suggested to West that he should switch to a high suit rather than a low one. What was going on here? West could see no future in trying to cash the club ace, since it was surely never going to get away, so he led a spade, which seemed passive enough.

Declarer Paul Soloway won the king, drew four rounds of trumps and took the rest of the tricks with his seven-card spade suit and his diamond king, discarding all of dummy’s clubs in the process!

So what was going on? Soloway had thought his partner, Bobby Goldman, was showing the two lower unbid suits when he bid five no-trump. His hearts were better than his clubs, so he decided to bid hearts to protect his diamond king. Didn’t he play it well?

This turned out to be a flat board, since the opponents played in six spades in the other room, but Soloway’s squad was clearly the team of destiny, since they squeaked through in this match by 1 IMP and went on to win the trophy after that.

This deal arose in the North American trials of 1999, where the next Hall of Fame inductee Michael Seamon was playing with Jimmy Cayne. It was a valiant effort in a losing cause. Against four spades doubled, West led the club ace, producing the three from dummy and the 10 from East.

As West’s jump overcall was expected to be a six-card suit, declarer suspected that East’s double was partly made on the basis of holding a singleton club; so, in tempo, declarer Seamon contributed the king!

West wasn’t quite sure whom to believe, but eventually came down on the side of declarer (a variation on “Who are you going to believe — me, or the evidence before your own eyes?”). He made the unsuccessful switch to a low diamond. Note that if he had led a heart instead, East might have found the return of a low diamond and then still received his club ruff. As it was, though, East rose with the diamond ace, cashed his other red ace, then returned a second diamond.

Granted a second reprieve, Seamon ruffed in hand, then discarded a club on the heart king and ruffed a heart in dummy. When he ruffed a diamond in hand, it brought down West’s king, and a second heart ruff produced the queen from East.

The 4-0 trump break could now be handled in style: The diamond jack let South discard his second club, and he could then take the last three tricks on a high crossruff, with East forced to underruff throughout.

When West led the diamond queen against six spades, declarer paused to form a plan, even though his play to the first trick was nearly automatic. He could count to 11 tricks if trumps divided, so he needed a 12th.

One possibility was to try to set up a long diamond in dummy, but that would almost certainly require both trumps and diamonds to behave. Declarer decided that a better shot was to ruff a heart high in dummy and finesse the trump nine after having done so. (This line does offer a better chance of making the contract than trying to set up diamonds.)

So at trick two, declarer led a low trump; but when West discarded a heart, declarer had to reconsider his options. Winning the trick with dummy’s trump queen, declarer then played a heart to the ace and cashed three rounds of clubs. After discarding a heart on the diamond ace, declarer ruffed a diamond low, then exited with a heart. West won the trick with the heart eight and exited with a low heart. As planned, declarer ruffed this with dummy’s trump king.

In the three-card ending, declarer had the trump ace-jacknine remaining, and any lead from dummy would ensure he could score all of the remaining tricks. Declarer made five trumps, the heart ace, a heart ruff, two diamonds and three clubs, for a total of 12 tricks.

It was critical here to cash the clubs and take the diamond ruff before East could discard from the minors on the hearts.