In the qualifying rounds of the NEC Trophy, Sartaj Hans of Australia had the opportunity for a nice play. He declared six clubs on the auction shown; this was an elegant sequence to get back to clubs after initially agreeing hearts.

After a top diamond lead, Hans won and drew trumps at once, seeing East discard a diamond and a heart, then took the heart finesse. When it lost and a heart came back, the bad break there came to light. Now the key issue was whether to play East or West for four spades. In a sense, the location of the spade queen was irrelevant to declarer’s play.

If West was the player with four spades, South could simply cash the remaining heart winners and ruff a heart to reach a five-card ending. If West held only three spades, they would ruff out. If he came down to the bare diamond king, declarer would cross to the spade king and ruff out that suit instead.

However, Hans decided that East’s failure to raise diamonds at his first turn suggested that he had only three diamonds. So West had six diamonds, three clubs and one heart, and thus only three spades.

Accordingly, it was East who was going to be the victim of a squeeze. Declarer won the second heart, played three rounds of spades ruffing in dummy, and trumped a second diamond in hand. At this point, he led the last club from hand and caught East in a simple major-suit squeeze. Contract made.

Today’s deal from the 2017 NEC Trophy in Japan saw several declarers struggling in a delicate four spade game here.

Where Cenk Tunkok was declarer, West led a diamond against four spades, won his spade ace and shifted to hearts. Declarer won in hand and played a spade, which was ducked, and another spade. East won his king, and after some reflection continued with a heart.

Declarer knew from East’s opening bid that the club finesse was losing, but if he had taken it, he would have been home. Instead, he imagined East had begun with 4–4-4-1 shape, so he led a club to the ace and another club. A third heart from East now left him stranded, since he had no communication left in clubs.

Nicely defended, but in the other room, where East had not bid, Sally Brock led a heart, and declarer won in hand and knocked out the spade ace, won the heart return, and played a second trump. When the nine held, South could see that a third trump would be fatal if the club king was wrong. Instead, he crossed to hand with a diamond and passed the club nine, and Barry Myers ducked smoothly.

Declarer had no reason not to repeat the finesse, but now Myers won, cashed the spade king and played the third heart, again leaving declarer without the communications to draw trumps.

Curiously, ducking the club was an unnecessary risk here, since winning and playing back either a club or a heart would have been good enough to beat the game, regardless of what declarer did.

All the deals this week come from the NEC invitation teams in Yokohama, Japan, last year, a world-class tournament with a three-day qualifying event followed by a knockout for the surviving eight teams.

Where I was watching a match on Vugraph I saw both Easts pass in third seat. Both Wests therefore led an interior heart against three no-trump. In one room, Paw Cheng won in hand to lead a club to the jack and ace. Declarer ducked the next heart, won the diamond switch, then played on spades for his ninth trick.

In the other room, Teruko Nishimura played a club to the jack at trick two, ducked by East. Now declarer came to hand with a diamond to lead a second club up. East won and played back a heart, and the play essentially transposed into the same position as the one Cheng had reached, with the ninth trick coming from spades.

That looks easy, but other tables found the hand harder, especially when East-West joined in the auction. For example, Roy Welland opened one spade in third seat, and now against three no-trump Sabine Auken led a spade to the 10 and queen. Declarer led a club to the jack, and when it held, he fell from grace.

He should have crossed to hand with a diamond to lead a second club toward the queen (as Australian Tony Nunn did in the other room after the same spade lead). Instead, he led a low heart from dummy to his queen and West’s king. Now a spade back left declarer needing clubs or hearts to lie favorably, and today was not his day.

The deals this week come from the NEC tournament in Japan last February.

Today’s deal was the penultimate deal of a knockout match, with the Hackett team (the eventual winners of the tournament) trailing by a small margin. Both tables reached three no-trump, and in both rooms a spade was led.

In the first room, West led the spade six (high from three small in a bid suit). South covered with the jack, ducked Alex Hydes’ (East) king, won the spade return and played a diamond to the jack, queen and king. In again with the third spade, declarer led and passed the diamond nine to the 10, and Hydes quickly cashed two spades for down one.

In the other room, Paul Hackett was declarer. He also played dummy’s jack at trick one, but took the king with the ace to lead a diamond, losing the queen to the king, as in the other room.

When a second spade came back, Hackett ducked. Now the best the defenders could have done was clear the spades, but they actually shifted to hearts to make his life easy. What would have happened if the defenders had played a third spade?

Hackett would have won and led the diamond nine from hand. When West showed out on the second diamond, declarer would have risen with dummy’s ace and turned his attention to clubs instead. The fall of the jack-10 would have meant he would have taken four clubs, a diamond and two tricks in each major.

I’m guessing many of my readers will be only slightly familiar with the concept of an intra-finesse.

Even straightforward finesses are not always easy. Intra-finesses can be quite complex, in that they are a combination of finessing followed by pinning a vulnerable doubleton, in a sense creating bricks with very little straw.

I’m sure today’s deal isn’t a record (maybe some reader with more time than me can find the minimum position for creating an extra trick), but the hand does feature an elegant example of the theme. It occurred in the Common Game, played all over North America.

The auction was revealing, in that declarer knew East had length in diamonds, so West had either a singleton or doubleton. Against three no-trump, West led a spade to the ace, and East returned his second spade. Declarer won in hand, tried the diamond five and let it run to East, who won cheaply with the nine to return a top club. Declarer won the club in hand and now tried a diamond to the jack, queen and ace.

When a top club came back, declarer ducked; now East could do no better than play a diamond, allowing declarer to finesse. That got declarer up to eight tricks; he cashed the top club to find the bad break, confirming that he needed to find the heart queen to make his game.

Since East had shown only 11 HCP outside the heart suit, it was clearly the percentage line to play East for the heart queen, and the game duly came home.

Cenk Tuncok gave the daily bulletin at the NEC tournament some analysis on this deal. It is a defensive problem, so look at just the West and North cards, and see if you can work out what to do.

South has opened a strong no-trump, and you have decided to let discretion be the better part of valor because of the vulnerability. When you lead the heart king against three no-trump (requesting the unblock of an honor or otherwise a count signal), partner contributes the two and declarer the jack. The position seems very straightforward, so why am I posing it to you as a problem? It looks obvious to continue with a heart — though whether you play a high or low one doesn’t seem critical.

But what if you play upsidedown count and attitude? Now partner’s two and declarer’s jack appear to be incompatible; someone has mis-sorted their hand or is playing a very deep — or clueless — game.

If playing standard signals, I do not see how you can do anything but continue hearts, and that would be fatal. As you can see, declarer has the doubleton spade ace and very little hope for a ninth trick unless you continue hearts. However, if you do fall into his trap, he can win his ace and play back a third heart to build the heart eight into his game-going trick.

Should you work this out if partner’s heart two is inconsistent with three small? I think you should — and especially from now on if the declarer is Cenk Tuncok!

When West leads a spade against four hearts, East comes in with the ace, while declarer follows with the queen. East must decide on his defense at trick two without knowing whether his partner has the spade king.

In view of the strong dummy, East can see that the least West will have to produce to give the defense a chance to beat the game is a trump trick plus at least one more winner from spades and clubs. Without two top cards, the defense surely has no chance to succeed, whether partner has a diamond winner or not.

In theory, a prompt attack on the diamonds might knock out the ace and queen before declarer can clear both the trumps and clubs. But what does that give declarer in the way of an opening bid? At most a nine-count if partner has a high heart, club and diamond!

But the ace of clubs and a high trump in the West hand would enable the defense to defeat game by means of a club ruff — assuming that South has any three small clubs. This hope requires far less to come to fruition, since it does not involve placing a third high card in the West hand such as the diamond king. East should therefore switch to a club at trick two, which West will win to return the suit. Then when West gets in again with the king of hearts, he can lead a third club, and East can ruff to set the game.

As South, you overcall two spades over two hearts without much enthusiasm, and at your next turn, your partner insists you bid slam if you have a heart control. How can you resist with such a perfect heart holding, even if the rest of your hand is uninspiring?

When dummy comes down, your slam appears to have excellent chances; you just need to hold your minor-suit losers to one. After winning the heart, you play the spade king and another spade to dummy, East pitching a heart. How should you plan the play from there on in, assuming East to have precisely six hearts?

The best sequence of plays is to cash the club and diamond aces, then ruff a heart to hand and lead a club to the nine, assuming West follows suit with a small club.

This line of play wins in every case when West has three clubs, since you have a discard coming eventually. It also works when he has four clubs, since when East wins the second club, he will be endplayed.

It also wins outright if West has the doubleton club queen or 10, or any singleton. And even if East had four clubs to the queen-10, then all he could do would be to return a club. At that point, the finesse for the diamond queen would be heavily favored to work. So you can cross to hand in spades and take the diamond finesse.

This line of play loses only when East has a 1-6-2-4 pattern with both minor-suit queens and the club 10.

Four hearts was an excellent contract here, essentially cold unless trumps were 3-0 offside. That happens no more than one time in seven, but today was that day.

Declarer was doubly unlucky that West had a natural spade lead; on any other defense, declarer can arrange to strip off two rounds of spades plus all the minor-suit cards. Then he can endplay East with the master heart to give him a ruff-sluff.

However, when West led the spade jack, declarer won and played the heart king (since he could protect against West having queen-third of hearts). When trumps refused to cooperate, his chances were down to slim and none, and slim appeared to have left the building. But South refused to give up, and found an ingenious way to come home.

He ducked a diamond, won the spade shift and led a club to the ace. When East neglected to unblock an honor, South played a club back to his king and led a third club, discarding dummy’s last diamond. East won the trick, perforce, and exited with a diamond, but that merely postponed the evil hour. South ruffed the diamond in dummy, took the heart ace and exited in trumps to East, who was now well and truly endplayed.

For the record, had declarer held the club 10 instead of West, the defenders would have been helpless here, so maybe East should have worked out what to do. But it is a great deal easier to pass that judgment when one can see all four hands.