Put yourself in declarer’s shoes, playing three no-trump as South, before I disclose the theme of today’s deal.

When West leads his long suit against South’s game, declarer should be able to see that the risk of taking the first trick and playing on diamonds is that East will get in with the diamond queen and lead back a heart. This establishes West’s long suit, while that player still has an entry in the form of the diamond ace. Indeed, that is exactly what will happen if South takes the first trick and leads the diamond jack around to East; but South does not have to allow this position to materialize.

The crux of the deal is that South should allow the heart jack to win the first trick, which has the effect of beginning to exhaust East of hearts. East can play a second heart, but South will take West’s heart king in dummy and play a spade to hand, then run the diamond jack.

East gets his diamond queen, but no longer has a heart to play. He shifts to a club, but South carefully hops up with the club ace and plays a second diamond. West can only score one further trick in each minor suit. That is four tricks for the defense — but declarer has his contract.

In a similar position, declarer might be able to tackle diamonds deceptively by leading the suit initially from dummy. (Switch the heart 10 and nine, and declarer might choose to approach the play in this way.)

Schadenfreude, enjoying the discomfort of your friends and acquaintances, is a powerful emotion. It can be entertaining to be a fly on the wall when two teams are scoring up their match, particularly if you are watching friends of yours in the middle of trying to justify their losing efforts. It is not that you want your friends to fail, but you may not mind seeing them do less well than you.

In today’s deal, which came from a Spingold knockout match from a decade ago, I was sitting out for a set and took the opportunity to spectate at the table of some fellow Texans. After the set was over, the scoring-up started, and when it reached this deal my friends called out minus 50. “Lose 10 IMPs” came the riposte, and I could see my friends biting their tongues to keep from asking what had happened, until the scoring was complete.

But after the set was scored, one of them dropped an offhand comment about the deal, and his teammate asked him what had happened. “They led a heart to the jack and queen, and I lost another trick in each side-suit” came the response. “And at your table?”

His teammate replied, “I also led a heart, but declarer cleverly played low from dummy at trick one. He knew he could always finesse against the jack on the next round, but as it was, I had to guess who had the heart 10 at the first trick. When I got it wrong and put up the queen, the hearts played for a discard for the slow club loser.”

At last year’s Yeh Bros. tournament, both North-South pairs bid to four spades here, and they could have doubled their opponents if they had dared to bid on.

In one room, West sacrificed in five hearts doubled; the defenders took their club ruff, then played a top spade. What would you do now? If you tested trumps before ruffing a diamond in dummy, you weren’t quite careful enough. That was what our West did. North was able to pitch spades on the third and fourth diamonds, so though declarer could ruff his diamond loser and unblock the heart ace, he was locked in dummy and had to concede a trump promotion against himself for minus 800. (You have to play three rounds of diamonds without touching trump at all in order to escape for two down.)

In four spades doubled in the other room, the defenders led two rounds of hearts, and South ruffed. Like his teammate, he innocently played a top trump, which should have proved fatal.

He next crossed to dummy in clubs to lead the spade jack — ducked by East, of course — then ran the diamond six around to the queen and ace. West could force declarer in hearts once more, but when East took his diamond king, he did not have a fourth heart left to tap declarer for the last and critical time. So the contract came home. East would have had to fly up with the diamond king on the lead of dummy’s six, to continue with hearts. That would have let his partner play the fatal fourth round of hearts when in with the diamond ace.

Today’s deal was a missed opportunity in the match between Zimmerman and the Netherlands: If the Netherlands had made their game here, they would have won their match instead of missing out on a chance of winning a large prize purse.

For Zimmerman, Lauria-Versace had played in three no-trump rather than four spades. After a club lead, declarer naturally finessed in spades and was down at once.

In the room shown, Simon De Wijs played four spades after a blind auction where his partner’s initial response to his strong club opener had shown a balanced positive. After a trump lead, De Wijs finessed, and Geir Helgemo won to return a club, reasonably enough. What should De Wijs do now?

Declarer led a trump to dummy and a heart to the nine and jack. (Yes, maybe leading the heart 10 from dummy wouldn’t hurt — even against a player of Helgemo’s class.) Back came a club; now De Wijs simply played for hearts to break and went down.

A slight improvement at trick three might have been to lead a high trump from hand, or after playing a trump to dummy, to ruff a club back to hand. When East discards, West is more likely to have begun with honor-doubleton in hearts than with two small, since in that case he likely would have led a heart, not a spade, to trick one.

That being so, the right play is to lead a low heart to the eight at trick four or trick five, as appropriate. As the cards lie, you will now have three heart tricks and your contract.

At the Yeh Bros. tournament last summer, the New Zealand team did not have much to cheer about. But GeO Tislevoll (formerly of Norway, but now a New Zealand resident) found a nice line in the game here.

As South, declaring four hearts after a straightforward, if optimistic, unopposed Drury sequence, he received a club lead. He won the ace and took a spade finesse, then played the ace and another spade, ruffing with the seven. Then he played the club king and ruffed a club, and led his winning spade 10. When East followed small, Tislevoll carefully ruffed it with the jack as West pitched a diamond. That allowed declarer to ruff his last club in dummy and lead dummy’s heart queen.

East had to win his ace, of course, and he was then able to cash the diamond ace, felling his partner’s king for the defenders’ second trick. East could give his partner a diamond ruff now, but GeO’s trump ten-ace of the king-eight was good enough to take the last two tricks when West had to lead away from his 10.

Did you note the defensive resource? When declarer ruffs his winning spade to hand at trick seven, West must underruff, preserving his diamond holding.

The key difference here is that when declarer leads his trump from dummy, East can win the heart ace and underlead his diamond ace. Now the defenders cash two diamonds, ending in East, after which the defense can promote a trump for West on the lead of either plain card in the two-card ending.

Today’s deal from the Yeh Bros. tournament last year is out of character for this column: While the play is easy, the bidding is unusual. But the auction shows how good players think, even in a relatively unfamiliar partnership.

When the Poles were eliminated from the main event, they swapped partnerships for the consolation event. Michal Klukowski and Piotr-Pavel Zakorski won it, having found their way to a grand slam with the splendid auction shown here.

The one-club opener didn’t promise a good hand, but it could have had short clubs. After North’s natural and non-forcing two-club response, Klukowski (South) set clubs as trump with his rebid, then bypassed his heart ace to cue-bid his spade ace, knowing that if North did anything but bid five clubs, he would have a heart control. Then Klukowski would bid the grand slam.

When North denied a heart control, Klukowski’s five-heart call showed the ace and promised interest in a grand slam. That would let his partner bid the grand slam, sign off with no extras, bid five spades with second-round control (which would be bad news) or do anything else appropriate. North’s five no-trump call was intended — and interpreted — as extra club length or an extra diamond control.

Klukowski now knew his partner had at least two spades and two hearts, so relatively short diamonds were guaranteed. If his partner had seven clubs, he would be almost able to claim the grand slam; as the cards lay, there were indeed 13 top tricks.

Today’s deal comes from the Swiss Qualifier at the Yeh Bros. tournament in China last year. The tournament is the biggest cash prize event on the regular calendar; it consists of a Swiss qualifying tournament followed by a knockout.

Today’s deal presents a defensive problem. Put yourself in the West seat and see what you would do. You start by leading the heart 10 against three no-trump; partner’s seven is discouraging as declarer wins the queen. South now plays a diamond to the ace, and partner’s diamond four is part of a style where echoing in diamonds would have been a further discouragement in hearts.

Declarer now passes the spade jack to you, partner’s four suggesting an even number. Can you think of a good reason not to win this — and what will you do next?

At the table, West took his queen and decided the play so far was consistent with declarer holding A-Q-J of hearts. So, he decided to go for the gold with a shift to the club king. I’m not sure what he intended to do if declarer had ducked — as he surely would have if this shift had been the best defense. But as you can see, this line of defense did not test declarer.

In the other room, Ivan Nanev for Bulgaria, sitting East, did not give his partner, Julian Stefanov, that problem. He followed with the heart jack to his partner’s lead of the 10 at trick one. There were no further complications in the defense now. When you think about it, how can that be wrong?

In today’s deal from the Yeh Bros. tournament last July, one South opened and rebid clubs, and played in two clubs. The other followed the sequence shown; readers can decide whose method of handling the South cards they prefer. But certainly, reaching four hearts while concealing the major elements of the strong hand has something to recommend it.

For Chinese Taipei, Sidney Yang led a top club, and David Yang (East) won the first heart to play back a club. Declarer Keyzad Anklesaria put in the 10, forcing the jack, and ruffed in dummy, then led a spade to the king and ace, and ruffed the next spade high. Now he lead a heart to the nine and got the good and bad news.

Next he played a low diamond from dummy; had East ducked, declarer would have put in the jack and led clubs to neutralize West’s trump holding, with a diamond re-entry to hand if West ruffed the first club. East actually took his diamond ace and played back a second diamond, but declarer could simply win in hand and run clubs through West for the trump coup.

Nicely played by declarer, but where the New Zealand team was defending four hearts on a similar auction, also on a top club lead, Matthew Brown as East won the heart king at trick two and shifted to a low diamond. To make four hearts now, declarer would have had to put in the jack — a tough but not impossible play. When he played low, he found himself stuck in dummy and could do nothing but led a spade to West’s ace, after which a diamond return for the ruff settled declarer’s hash.