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.

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.