Against South’s contract of six no-trump, the opening lead is the heart two, to East’s seven. When South takes his king, his goal is to generate six tricks in the black suits. Unless East is truly a desperado (which is entirely possible, of course), he should have one of the black queens for his opening bid. If East has the spade queen, declarer should be in decent shape, but the play in spades can wait. The best play is to lead a club to the jack at trick two. If this loses, declarer will later take a spade finesse against East. However, when the club jack holds, declarer can focus his energies on taking three tricks from spades. Take a second to consider what declarer ought to do.

While declarer may be able to set up an endplay on West — by “stripping off” the sidesuits and endplaying him — that might require some very careful card-reading. Instead, South can come home straightforwardly against almost any lie of the spade suit — except a real spade stack in West.

The safety play of the ace of spades guards against any lie of the suit except East having a small singleton. In fact, East follows with the nine, so declarer can now lead a low spade from hand and cover West’s card. If East wins the trick, the spades have broken, and declarer can take the rest. But today, East shows out and declarer’s eight holds, so he makes three spades, two hearts, four diamonds and three clubs, losing a spade at the end.

Today’s deal from the 2009 European Open Championships saw some very unlucky players — some from virtue unrewarded, some suffering a far worse fate.

How should you play five diamonds when West leads spades, his partner’s suit? Matthew Granovetter found an intriguing line to improve on his simple chances in the club suit. He ruffed the opening lead, crossed to the heart ace and led a low club from the dummy. This line would work if East had a singleton trump, whether he had one or both club honors. When West captured the club queen with his king, he shifted to trumps, but Granovetter saw his plan through and won in hand to lead a second club. Since East had no second trump to lead, declarer was home.

Good news? Alas, no! In the other room, South declared five diamonds doubled. Declarer played a low club from hand at trick two, and East and West each led trumps at their earliest opportunity. Declarer had to fall back eventually on the heart finesse — and it worked.

It was possible to be unluckier still, though. A multiple world champion in five diamonds won the spade lead and led the heart jack from hand. When West ducked smoothly, declarer put up the ace and ruffed a heart, led a club to the 10 and ace, won the trump return in dummy and ruffed a heart, then led a second club. West took the trick and played a second trump, and declarer was dead.

“Bad luck — your finesse worked!” was his unfeeling teammates’ reaction.

At the 2019 European Open Championships in Sanremo, Italy, Boye Brogeland gave the bulletin a splendid hand. See if you can match his analysis.

He declared five clubs on a heart lead after West had shown the majors. Clearly, he needed to win the opening lead, or a spade shift would have doomed the contract. Then, his club finesse lost to East’s king.

Had East lazily played a heart back, West might have continued the suit to tap the dummy. Now what would declarer do? Leading out the diamond ace after drawing a second round of trumps will allow you to play the suit for no loser, but the blocked suit will keep you from enjoying any discards. Perhaps leading out the diamond jack would be a reasonable shot, since it appears that West has most of his values in the majors and appears to be short in diamonds. The only losing situation for running the jack would come when West had the singleton diamond queen.

At the table, though, East played back a spade after winning the club king. You can now succeed by running the diamond jack at once. But an alternative option now emerges on the hand. You can take the space ace, draw a second round of trumps with the ace, then play the diamond ace and run the diamond jack, which allows for West holding the diamond 10-x and loses only to the actual layout — which is what Brogeland did, to go one down.

If the defenders had cashed their heart winner, declarer would have had communications in hearts to survive by following either of the lines above.

This contract of three no-trump from the second round of the Swiss Teams event from the 2009 European Open Championships appears relatively easy to make. But on defense, Romania’s Veronel Lungu and Viorel Micescu weren’t ready to roll over.

Lungu led a fourth-highest spade two against three no-trump, and declarer played low from dummy, taking East’s jack with the queen. It now seemed natural to go after diamonds. East took West’s king with his ace and played another spade, ducked around to West’s king.

If the defenders had continued the attack on spades, declarer would have had no choice but to rely on hearts and would have cashed out his red-suit winners. Instead, though, West switched to a club at trick four. Declarer ducked in dummy, and East took his queen and reverted to spades.

The defenders were now up to four tricks, but declarer still seemed to be in pole position. However, when South won the spade ace and crossed to dummy with the heart ace, East dropped the jack, perhaps more in hope than expectation.

But it worked: Declarer decided that he had only four heart tricks, and so needed to set up a club trick. Since West had earlier failed to clear the spades at trick four, it seemed logical to place the club ace with East. Accordingly, declarer abandoned hearts prematurely and advanced the club king.

When West won his ace and cashed his last spade, another “unbeatable” game had bitten the dust.

In today’s deal from a teams event at the 2009 European Open Championships in Sanremo, Italy, Ismail Kandemir and Suleyman Kolata of Turkey were on defense against three no-trump. Here, both defenders found neat maneuvers to defeat the game by giving declarer a sequence of losing options.

Kolata sat East when Kandemir led a top heart. Instead of overtaking to unblock the suit, he deliberately ducked, as did South. Now, on the low heart continuation to the king, declarer was seduced into ducking again, assuming the suit to be 4-3. Kolata found the killing shift to a top spade, won in dummy. He ducked declarer’s diamond play and won the second diamond. Then he sacrificed his spade trick to kill the diamonds by continuing with a second top spade.

The best declarer could do was take the spade 10, pitching a diamond from hand, then cash the heart ace, but East could keep his clubs, and take the last two tricks with a spade and a club winner.

Let’s revisit the deal after a similar start: a top heart lead, overtaken by East, followed by a top spade shift when South ducked. East ducked the first diamond and won the second diamond to sacrifice his spade trick in order to kill the diamonds.

When the defense started this way against Pierre Zimmermann, declarer overcame the defense by cashing three clubs and a heart, then exiting with a diamond. In the three-card ending, East had a club to cash, but only two spades left, while dummy had spade and diamond winners.

There is no denying that if you want to do well at pairs, there are two essential ingredients: You need to be both skillful and lucky. This deal is from the Women’s Pairs in Sanremo, Italy, almost a decade ago at the European Open Championships.

As a passed hand, South, Nevena Senior, playing with Sandra Penfold, was no doubt pleased and surprised to find herself declarer in three diamonds. It was then up to her to make it.

West led the heart king and continued the suit, allowing the defenders to cash out three heart tricks. Next came a shift by East to the spade 10. What was declarer to make of the hand now?

Senior assumed that West probably had the spade queen, so she let East’s spade run around to dummy’s king, then she drew trumps in two rounds, West discarding a club on the second round.

From the fact that West had passed initially, plus the spot cards played so far, Senior thought it likely that East had begun with a 5-2-1-5 shape. And East surely held the club ace, so leading to the club king was a non-starter. Instead, she cashed the spade ace, denuding East of that suit, then played a club to the 10. East could win the trick, but was endplayed. If she led a club, declarer would pitch her spade loser on the club king; if she played a heart, the ruff-sluff would allow South’s losing spade to vanish.

Almost a decade ago, the European Open Championships were held in Sanremo, Italy. These events are open to players from all around the world, and there are mixed, women’s and open teams and pairs, competing over the course of two weeks. These events are truly open to everyone — as shown by the fact that today’s deal was played by both Ton Bakkeren of the Netherlands and Eric Rodwell of the U.S.

Each of them declared four spades from the South seat; neither received the killing club lead, which would have allowed the defense to obtain an immediate ruff. Both of them remembered to stay vigilant after the mildly favorable lead of the heart jack. (You could make the case that more contracts go down unnecessarily because of premature euphoria than for just about any other reason.)

Each declarer made the extra effort required to work out that the only danger to the hand was to run into a club ruff. So they both won the heart ace and crossed to the diamond ace to pitch their third club on the heart king.

Then they drew trumps and were in no danger, since the possibility of a club ruff had been eliminated. In the round of 32, a surprising (and disconcerting) number of declarers were defeated in four spades when they neglected to take precautions and received the punishment they deserved. Those declarers won the heart lead and played a trump, but West dashed up with the ace and shifted to the club king to get his ruff.

Today’s deal has the air of a constructed puzzle, doesn’t it? After the opponents have warned you of the risk of bad breaks all around (and North has shown a weak hand by doubling five clubs), you end up in the normal contract of five diamonds, having cleverly avoided playing your spade fit and running into a 5-0 break. As an aside, it makes sense to agree that after intervention at the four-level and higher, responder’s initial double is weaker than passing.

The defenders lead the club king; you win (nice play!) and take the diamond ace and king. Much to your surprise, it is West who has the doubleton diamond, and the carding in clubs suggests he has eight or nine cards in that suit.

Next you cash the heart king and ace. West follows up the line to suggest three, and no one is astonished when, on your (necessary) play of the spade king, West shows out, pitching a club.

East can do no better than win the trick and play back the spade jack. You win the spade queen then lead the club jack, throwing a spade from hand. That endplays West to give you a ruff-and-discard, which allows you to dispose of a second spade from hand. If East ducks the lead of the spade king, you lead a low spade and play low from dummy to put him on play. Since a spade continuation would clearly be fatal, he shifts to a club. Again, you again discard a spade and wait for the ruff-sluff to give you your 11th trick.