The British home international open series is the Camrose Trophy. From the English Camrose pretrials a few years ago, John Froztega played this hand very nicely; but it was Marc Smith, the injured party in the East seat, who generously reported it. Given perfect defense, it is hard to believe that any of the four or more top tricks that East-West have against four hearts could get away!

Peter Czerniewski as West had done well for his side, up to a point, by not sacrificing in four spades, which would probably have gone at least two down. Instead, he passed out four hearts and led a low spade, and dummy’s nine held. A heart to the jack exposed the 4-0 break, and there seem to be at least two inevitable losers in each red suit.

Still, Froztega did not give up hope; he set about playing a cross-ruff in the black suits. He cashed the club king and ace and ruffed a club, then took the spade ace and ruffed another club. When he then ruffed a spade, he had reached a five-card ending with three diamonds and two hearts in each hand.

Now came a diamond exit to the king and ace. Czerniewski could cash one more diamond to let Smith discard his club, but then had to lead either a spade or a diamond, which Smith was forced to ruff at trick 11. That in turn required him to lead away from the heart king into dummy’s trump tenace, to concede 10 tricks. Remarkably, the defense’s sure trump winners had completely vanished.

Today’s deal shows a type of problem that is often encountered in real life. It is necessary to plan the play right from the start in order to visualize the ending.

As South, when you take advantage of the vulnerability to open one spade, you hear West overcall in hearts. North drives to game showing short hearts, and you wrap up the bidding in game.

When dummy comes down, you can see that you are certainly high enough. West kicks off with the heart king and shifts to the spade jack. You must now plan how to reach 10 tricks. The obvious line to follow is a cross-ruff, but be careful! The key is that you must win the trump shift in hand to ensure that your cross-ruff will not be interrupted by an over-ruff.

Your plan will be to ruff one heart low and two hearts high in dummy, while crossing back to hand with two club ruffs. Specifically, you win the spade ace and ruff a heart low, then cash the club ace and cross-ruff the next four tricks.

After taking seven tricks in a row, declarer can cash the diamond ace and exit from hand with a diamond. In theory, either defender can win the diamond, but in today’s three-card ending, declarer will be able to score both his 10 and eight of trumps in hand for his 10 tricks, no matter what the defenders do.

Note that if West had an original 2-6-2-3 shape with the spade nine and diamond king, he would win the trick with his king, but would only be able to lead hearts or a trump, so declarer would still be safe.

North’s jump to two no-trump is the Jacoby convention, showing game-forcing values with a real spade fit. In essence, North promises an opening bid and four or more trumps, although with an unbalanced hand including a singleton and trump support, he might jump directly to the four-level in his shortage, a splinter bid. South has minimum values and no shortage, so he shows this by bidding game at once. While other methods may be more effective, this has the virtue of simplicity, if nothing else.

After the initial club lead, declarer ducks (hoping the defenders will not shift to diamonds and put him on the spot). As hoped, the defense continue clubs, and South wins the ace at the second trick.

Next, he draws two rounds of trumps, ending in hand, and leads a heart to the queen and king. Back comes a heart; declarer wins the ace and ruffs a heart. Finally, declarer ruffs a club to dummy and a heart to hand, leaving himself with the diamond guess for his contract. Is it a blind guess, or can South tilt the odds in his favor?

All he has to do is to count the hand: The way the plays in clubs have worked out so far, he can reasonably assume East has the heart king and the king-queen of clubs. But he passed in first seat, so he cannot hold the diamond ace or he would have opened the bidding.

Thus, the correct play is to lead a diamond toward the king, intending to put up that card if West plays low.

The USA under-21 team lost to Sweden in the finals of the 2014 World Youth Bridge Championships held in Istanbul. The gold medalists included three players who have already represented their country and won medals in the European championships open and women’s sections! Among the Swedish players were Ida Grönkvist and Mikael and Ola Rimstedt, all of whom won the junior title two years later, and who will be stars at world level sooner rather than later.

The USA silver medalists included Ben Kristensen, who played with Kevin Rosenberg. The latter is the son of Michael and Debbie Rosenberg, both world champions. Their teammates were Christopher Huber and Oren Kriegel.

Today’s deal came up in the final. In the first room, the Swedish East (probably rashly) sacrificed in five diamonds at his second turn to speak. This decision seems unsound because he was too balanced in the side suits, and he was not bereft of defense. This was passed around to the USA North, who doubled and collected 500.

In the second room, the auction was as shown: East (Huber for USA) bid just four diamonds. This passed to the Swedish North, who bid four hearts.

Kriegel, West, led the diamond ace, and on seeing dummy’s singleton, tabled the only card at trick two that could lead to the defeat of the contract — the club jack — a textbook surround play to ensure three club tricks for his side, whichever club declarer played from dummy.

The player with the South cards was looking forward to opening two no-trump when his reverie was interrupted by East’s pre-emptive two hearts. At this point, South’s options were a clumsy leap to three no-trump, which might miss a spade fit, or the more delicate approach that he followed at the table, of doubling and converting his partner’s constructive three-club call to three no-trump.

(Many people play that calls of three of a minor are constructive here, since they use a bid of two no-trump as Lebensohl, a puppet to three clubs if the overcaller does not have significant extras.)

West led the heart five, and South, ever suspicious, ducked the first heart, won the next as West reluctantly pitched a spade, and then had to decide how to play the rest of the hand. A reasonable approach would be to play for 3-3 clubs, but if you cash the top clubs, cross to the diamond ace and test clubs, you will almost be out of chances if they do not break.

South inferred from West’s reluctance to part with a spade that he had started with no more than four cards in that suit and a singleton heart, so a distribution of 4-1-4-4 seemed likely. Thus, South made a very thoughtful play when he cashed the club king and overtook the queen with the ace. When the 10 dropped, he could lead the club nine and establish four tricks in clubs to go with his five plain-suit winners, making nine in all.

After North’s Jacoby two-no-trump call, promising four-card spade support, South started cue-bidding, asked for key-cards, then confirmed that the partnership had them all by bidding five no-trump. When North showed the club king, South bid what he thought he could make.

West led the heart 10, and declarer counted 12 winners (five spades, four hearts, and three minor-suit tricks). If spades were no worse than 3-1, he could draw trumps and discard a diamond from dummy on the fourth round of hearts; then dummy would be able to take a diamond ruff.

Declarer played low from dummy at trick one, winning his jack in hand. Next, he carefully played a high trump from hand. When West discarded a diamond, declarer could see that trying to ruff a diamond was too dangerous a policy to pursue. Instead, he decided to ruff two clubs in hand without using the heart ace as an entry. He cashed the club ace and king, then ruffed a club low when East followed suit. Next, he led the trump queen to dummy’s ace and ruffed dummy’s last club with the jack. His remaining trump, the five, went to dummy’s nine. After drawing East’s last trump with the 10, declarer claimed thirteen tricks: four trumps, four hearts, a diamond, two clubs and two club ruffs.

Note that the bad heart break means that if declarer had been prodigal with his trump entries (by playing a low trump toward dummy at trick two), he would have gone down.

The Common Game in the U.S. allows for the same deals to be played all around the country. A good declarer was in the driver’s seat here, playing four spades after a typically aggressive auction, and if the defenders had simply led hearts, he would have needed to find the trump jack to make.

When West instead led the club queen, South could infer that trumps were likely to break, with the ace to his left. It was unclear whether he could afford to let East in early, so he led a spade to the king and a spade back to West’s jack.

At this point, West fell from grace: A heart switch would now leave (South him) with nowhere to go, but (West he) actually cashed the spade ace before exiting with a low heart. The defenders seemed sure to collect one trick in each red suit. It did not work out that way; after declarer took the heart king with his ace, he cashed one more trump and ran the clubs.

South had reduced to a four-card ending where dummy had two cards in each red suit, and he had three diamonds and a trump in hand. What four cards should West keep? If (West he) came down to one heart, (declarer he) could set up the heart nine by ruffing a heart in hand, while when (West he) actually came down to two cards in each red suit declarer took the diamond ace and ducked a diamond, and his last two cards in hand were high.

This position could perhaps be described as a ruffing squeeze, and it is certainly an elegant position.

Bridge skill often runs in families; where one or both parents play the game well, they often produce talented offspring. Paul Hackett of the UK and his two sons (plus Justin’s wife, Barbara) would make a fearsome foursome, and the Groenkvist and Rimstedts of Sweden are each able to put forward at least four top players. But the world’s strongest family team may be the Bessis family of France. Here are the Bessis brothers on defense, from a recent Junior European Championships.

Olivier Bessis led the diamond queen against five clubs; the Greek declarer won in hand and drew trumps in two rounds. Thomas Bessis, East, could now infer that declarer’s shape was 3-4-2-4.

After “stripping off” the diamonds, declarer advanced dummy’s heart jack. Thomas ducked in tempo, and declarer, naturally enough, ran the heart to Olivier’s queen. What was he to do now?

A spade return would let declarer pick up that suit for only one loser, while a diamond would allow him to ruff in dummy and pitch a spade from hand, then ruff out spades. So Olivier carefully returned the heart nine. Declarer discarded a spade from dummy; if Thomas had risen with the ace, there would have been two more discards from dummy on the heart king and 10. But Thomas ducked again, letting declarer win the trick.

Declarer now had no choice but to try to play spades for one loser, which was not possible on accurate defense. This deal won the brothers the junior award for best play of the year.

In today’s deal, when South accepted his partner’s invitation, West led the club jack against four hearts. East overtook this with the ace and returned the club three, with West’s nine winning the trick. After cashing the club king, West continued with the club 10, and East discarded a second diamond as declarer ruffed in.

Declarer now needed to locate the trump queen. If he chose to play West for that card, he would probably need to make four tricks in spades too. Since that seemed to require too much good luck, declarer decided to play East for the critical queen.

Accordingly, declarer cashed the top spades, then ruffed a spade. After taking the diamond ace and ruffing a diamond low, declarer ruffed a second spade in hand, reducing himself to the ace and jack of hearts plus a diamond. Now, after trumping his remaining diamond with dummy’s king, declarer led a low trump and covered East’s seven with the jack. When that held, declarer had 10 tricks: two spades, five trumps, a diamond and two diamond ruffs.

Notice that if declarer had decided to play the diamond ace and ruff a diamond before playing on spades, he would have had to lead dummy’s low trump next and finesse against East’s queen. Then declarer would cash the spade king and ace and ruff a spade, reducing himself to the ace-jack of hearts and a diamond — the same position as above.