The Yeh Bros tournament consists of generously sponsored teams and pairs events. There are consolation events in each category, and today’s deal sees a coup by the two pairs who finished third in the main pairs, Fu Zhong and Ji Lie, and third in the consolation pairs, Paul Hackett and Tom Hanlon. Both Hanlon and Fu were faced with the same declarer play problem; see if you can match wits with them.

Declaring four spades as South, you receive a friendly heart lead (the two, suggesting three or five cards) which goes to the king and your ace. Can you see anything better than hoping either diamonds or trumps will behave?

Both declarers passed a club honor around to East, who won the queen and returned a heart. The declarers won and played the club jack, covered by West. They cashed two top trumps and found the bad news, then ruffed a club to hand, hoping to see the nine appear.

Finally, each took the heart ruff. When West produced the jack and East followed suit, it was crunch time. The opening leader appeared to have jack-third or jack-fifth of hearts and three spades, and three or four clubs, the nine not having appeared. Should you finesse diamonds, or is there anything better?

Both declarers backed their judgment by ruffing a club to hand as West followed with the nine, then exiting in trumps. When West won his queen and had nothing but diamonds left to lead, they were home, no matter who had the diamond ace.

Today’s deal comes from last July’s consolation teams event at the Yeh Bros tournament in Tokyo. Chen Yeh sponsors the tournament, and it is great news for bridge that this is back to being an annual event, so that spectators can watch the world’s best bridge players competing for the largest cash prizes in the game, both online and in person.

As the daily bulletin sardonically remarked, it can be hard to console a team that is playing the secondary Swiss with a metaphorical big fat ‘L’ branded on its forehead. But David Beauchamp of Australia cheered his team up when he found a successful way home when playing game in one of the opponents’ suits.

The defense against four hearts doubled would have generated only 300, so it was right for him to bid on; but to what contract? Note that while four no-trump can be made, five clubs might be set on the spade ruff.

Fu Zhong, as West, led a heart against four spades, ducked the first trump and won the next to return a heart. Beauchamp now knew not to lead a trump again, since the suit was marked as 4-2. He discarded a club on the heart ace, won the diamond king and led a club to the ace, a diamond to the queen and a diamond toward dummy. When East discarded, West was marked with a 4-4-4-1 shape, so declarer could confidently run the club jack, losing just three trump tricks in all. Had both defenders followed to the third diamond, declarer would probably have played West to hold a 4-4-3-2 shape.

All the boards this week come from the 2017 Yeh Bros Cup, which is surely the strongest invitational teams event in the world.

The tournament is sponsored by Chen Yeh, who has set up an event that attracts the best teams in the world with generous sponsorship and excellent organization.

Today’s deal comes from a match where neither North-South pair could reach the ideal contract. It was up to the defenders to make them pay. If you want to put yourself in the hot seat, look only at the North and East cards.

The eventual winners of the teams event, Eric Kokish and Fred Gitelman, could not get to three no-trump after a strong club sequence where West had bid diamonds, and neither player could identify the half stopper in diamonds opposite. The other room failed to do so on a natural auction.

Both Wests astutely led diamonds. Both Easts won with their aces and needed to put West in at once to allow him to cash the second diamond winner. In the match we are focusing on, one defender switched to a heart, while the successful defender, Huub Bertens played a spade, declarer’s suit.

The spade shift is right both in theory and practice, I believe. Yes, declarer could hold five solid spades and a singleton heart — but then the losers don’t go away from dummy, do they? It is the discard of diamonds from hand that East has to worry about; if declarer has the heart ace, that is a real possibility.

Today’s deal sees a very neat defense against a three-no-trump contract from a pairs event at the end of the most recent NEC tournament in Yokohama last year.

Dawei Chen, playing with Takahiko Hirata, found the natural lead of a low spade to his partner’s king and declarer’s ace. South led a diamond toward the ace, and Chen played the jack. Declarer took the ace and led a diamond back to the nine and Chen’s 10 (probably an error in theory as well as in practice, since your best chance of playing diamonds for one loser is the actual layout). That gave the defenders a slim chance of success, and Chen was quick to take advantage of it.

He sensibly inferred that for declarer to be playing on diamonds rather than clubs, he rated to have a singleton club. So he shifted to a low club, and Hirata did extremely well to play low. The bare club ace was forced to take the trick, and declarer played a third diamond, letting Hirata win and unblock his club jack as South pitched a spade. Now East advanced a heart honor, which was ducked all around.

Hirata now exited with his second top heart to lock declarer either out of his hand or dummy. The best move for declarer would have been to win the third heart in hand with his nine, but he would then have had to concede trick 13. Declarer ran the hearts from the top and finished two down, representing a top for North-South.

After North’s Texas transfer response followed by Roman Key-card Blackwood, West knew to go passive on opening lead, so he put a trump on the table. Declarer counted 11 top tricks and saw that if trumps broke, he could arrange an elimination play. He would draw trumps, cash the hearts and play a diamond to the queen; if that lost, West would be endplayed.

South won the lead and drew a second round, realizing his hypothetical elimination play would now not work. So he drew the last trump and was about to go after diamonds when he realized that he might as well cash his hearts first. He took the three top hearts, then led a diamond to the queen.

West won his king but had no heart to lead. Since declarer was marked with the club queen, he could do no better than exit with the diamond jack, hoping his partner would produce the 10. But declarer could win his ace and throw a club on his good diamond 10: He ended up with six trumps, three hearts, two diamonds and a club to make his contract.

Notice that if declarer had failed to cash the hearts, the contract would have failed, since West would then have had a safe exit in hearts. As the play actually went, if West had had the fourth heart to lead after winning his diamond trick, declarer would ruff, then play the diamond ace and ruff a diamond. If the diamond jack had not fallen, he would have taken the club finesse as his last chance.

The best conventions are those that come up relatively frequently, are easy to remember and don’t require you to sacrifice a useful natural call to implement. Well, as Meat Loaf said in discussing Lebensohl, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” Lebensohl is an eminently forgettable concept, but once you have it in place after intervention to one no-trump, you can also use it in other relatively common sequences. Today’s auction is a case in point: South would have bid two no-trump, a puppet to three clubs, to show a weak hand with his own suit. His direct three hearts is encouraging, but not forcing (7-10 high-card points with either four or five hearts), and North has an easy raise to game.

The defenders cash two top spades, then shift to the club two. While this could be a singleton, East’s initial pass makes this somewhat unlikely. You win with the ace, ruff a spade in hand and lead a club to the king. When West follows up the line, you ruff dummy’s last club with the heart 10.

Having found West with six spades and three or more clubs, you cash the diamond king and lead a diamond toward the ace. You know that if West were to trump in, he would be ruffing a loser, and you would have the rest. When West follows twice, you know 11 of his cards. So, next play the heart ace and lead a heart to your nine. If it loses, West must give you a ruff-sluff; if it wins, draw the last trump and concede a diamond trick.

In today’s deal, South has too much to pass his partner’s rebid of two spades. But since no-trump could easily be the right final resting place, he explores first with three clubs, then cue-bids the opponent’s suit, suggesting half a heart stopper. North looks with favor on his good controls and drives to four spades.

Now the spotlight turns to East, who must abandon traditional thinking. When West leads the heart four, the partnership methods are to play third and lowest. What that means is that West leads low from an odd number, top of a doubleton, but third highest from a four- or six-card suit.

After winning two heart tricks, East can infer that because West led his lowest heart, he has precisely three cards in the suit. (This inference is one not always available when playing fourth-highest leads.) What should he do now?

East has two potential club tricks with which to defeat the game, but will not make both if South establishes dummy’s diamonds for club discards. If declarer has the diamond queen, the defenders are helpless. But East must hope that is not so. To forestall the chance that dummy’s third trump might constitute dummy’s late re-entry, he must force dummy to ruff the third heart.

Should declarer then play to establish diamonds via a third-round ruff, East must save his club ace to take down the king. He must not capture the queen if South leads it out of his hand to tempt him.

South’s balancing double of one spade followed by the two-heart call suggests a good hand, but not necessarily a great one. He rates to be in the 15-18 range with five or more hearts, so he certainly has enough in hand to accept North’s invitation to game.

When West starts with three rounds of spades against four hearts, South ruffs the third and must make a plan. Since East has produced the spade queen, declarer knows he is unlikely to have much else in the way of high cards.

Declarer’s task is to limit his minor-suit losses to one trick. If he could count on the diamond finesse to win, he could simply concede a club. But the diamond king is almost certainly in the West hand.

The better plan is therefore to try to develop two diamond tricks in dummy for the discard of South’s two low clubs. At trick four, South should lead the diamond three from hand. If West wins his king, declarer is almost home. He unblocks diamonds, then draws trumps ending in dummy to cash two more rounds of diamonds and pitch his clubs.

If West can steel himself to duck his diamond king, which would be the best defense today, declarer must still reckon with the possible two club losers. He should cash the club ace and king and lead a third round of clubs.

If the clubs break 3-3, declarer is home free. If the clubs split 4-2, declarer can arrange to ruff his fourth club high in dummy.

Over North’s quantitative sequence, South might accept the slam try by bidding six clubs (a 5-3 fit could easily be best here). However, when he bids six no-trump, he finds himself in an excellent spot; now all he has to do is make it.

After the lead of the spade jack, declarer counts two spades, three hearts and three diamond tricks, which adds up to eight tricks. The key to the deal therefore is that the he needs to take four club tricks, not five; declarer can afford to give up a trick in clubs as insurance to bring home his contract.

This is sometimes referred to as a safety play, though that term is rather misleading. A safety play should be a maneuver to avoid losing an unnecessary trick. Today’s deal is closer to a gambit, where a trick is potentially invested for the greater good of the contract.

In positions like this, if South had weaker club spots, the best play might be to cash the club ace. Here, though, declarer starts by leading a low club to the queen. If it loses, cash the club ace and finesse against East should West shows. This play loses only to a singleton king in East.

However, when the queen holds, do not cash the ace; that fails whenever West has K-10-fourth. Instead, come back to hand with the diamond ace and lead the club nine next, intending to run it if West follows with the six. Of course, if West discards on the second club, you rise with the ace, then finesse against East’s K-10.