Today’s deal from a past national event comes from the last day of the National Swiss Teams, and shows Zia Mahmood in an unfamiliar role as the victim, being the reporter of a fine play against him, rather than the perpetrator, this time.

Both tables in the match between Mahaffey and Schwartz reached six spades with East-West silent. In one room, East doubled the slam, making the play somewhat easier after a heart lead, though in fact declarer lost his way when he played clubs in routine fashion for down one.

In the other room, Jim Mahaffey was not doubled by Mahmood, since it sounded as if North-South were looking for a grand slam, as indeed they were.

Michael Rosenberg still found the heart lead, and Mahmood ruffed, then exited with a diamond. Declarer won, drew trumps ending in hand in two rounds, cashed the heart king, then advanced the club queen. When West played low, Mahaffey decided that since neither opponent had bid, East was relatively unlikely to have more than six diamonds. Accordingly, the club finesse was heavily favored to be offside, but the double club finesse had suddenly become an excellent chance. He needed to find West with only small clubs or the doubleton 10.

He overtook his club queen with the ace, cashed dummy’s two top hearts to pitch his club losers, and ran the club jack, prepared to repeat the finesse if Mahmood covered. Mahmood ducked the club jack, but Mahaffey ran it anyway and brought home his slam.

This week’s deals all come from national championship events from Philadelphia.

As West, you deal and pass, then hear one diamond on your left and one heart on your right. You bid two clubs, which produces two hearts on your left and four hearts on your right. You lead your singleton spade and see the diagramed dummy.

That opening spade lead goes to the six, partner’s seven and declarer’s queen. To your pleasure, declarer plays a heart to the ace, then a heart back to her jack as your partner pitches the spade four. What next?

The correct defense is to lead a low diamond now rather than the ace. You need partner to have the diamond king, and given that this is a teams event, you must assume he will know to rise with his king rather than duck (since if declarer has the ace, he cannot beat the game). Your natural play seems to be to play the diamond ace and 10, but when your partner wins the trick, how would he know you wanted a spade ruff, not a diamond ruff? Conversely, if you lead the diamond nine to his king, he won’t have any option but to get the defense right — you hope.

The good news on this occasion is that because your partner started with all the small spades, he will be able to read that you initially led a singleton and that you want a spade ruff — you may not be so lucky next time! To see what I mean, imagine that the spade two and nine were switched.

You declare four spades, after your partner has shown restraint in not going past game. It would be a shame to disappoint him by failing to take 10 tricks, wouldn’t it? West cashes the club king and ace, with East discarding a heart on the second club. West continues with the club jack, and East lets go of a second heart. Clearly, there will be 10 easy tricks if spades are 3-2, since you will be able to draw trumps, cash dummy’s diamonds and ruff a club back to hand to cash the diamond jack. The heart ace will be your 10th trick.

But when trumps are 4-1, the diamond blockage may be inconvenient. You could rely on diamonds being 3-3, but there is a much better chance.

Suppose the full deal is along the lines of the one shown here. After ruffing the third club, you cash the trump ace and king to discover that they do indeed break badly. Next you play the queen and nine of trumps, being careful to discard dummy’s heart ace on the second one!

Now after cashing dummy’s three diamond winners, you will lead dummy’s heart three toward your hand. East will take his heart king, but your diamond and heart winners win the last two tricks. In total, you will make five trumps, four diamonds and a heart trick for a total of 10 winners.

Once East is known to hold the heart king from the auction, but to be out of clubs, this line of play basically becomes a sure thing, regardless of the red-suit breaks.

In today’s deal, North and South disagreed about what South’s three-heart rebid might have suggested. Was it good hearts or doubt about the best game? Be that as it may, South’s slam was a particularly unattractive spot; declarer had to assume a very specific lie of the cards even to give himself a chance to come home.

When West led the heart jack against six diamonds, declarer saw there appeared to be a heart and a club loser. He played low from dummy, and if East had risen with the ace, declarer’s problems would have been solved, as North’s second club could have been discarded on the heart queen.

However, when East defended correctly by ducking the first trick, South won with the queen. He appreciated that East was sure to hold the heart ace, since West was unlikely to have underled it against a slam. His best chance was that East also held the club king, in which case he could be the target of an endplay.

So South set about eliminating the pointed suits. He crossed to the spade ace, then ruffed a spade high. A low diamond to the nine was followed by another spade ruff high. Crossing to the dummy in trumps again, he took the spade king, on which he threw a heart.

Now the stage was set to exit with the heart king, endplaying East. He was forced either to present declarer with a ruff-sluff, whereupon dummy’s second club could be discarded, or to play a club, allowing dummy’s queen to score.

Today’s deal cropped up in the finals of the 2012 Women’s World Championships between England and Russia.

Both tables declared four spades rather than the simpler contract of three no-trump. When Susan Stockdale was South, West led the heart 10. Stockdale won with dummy’s ace and advanced the spade queen. When that held, she played a spade to her 10 and drew the outstanding trump, while West discarded the heart two.

Now declarer followed the sound principle of eliminating the side suits by cashing her top hearts, with East discarding an encouraging diamond. Declarer exited with the diamond jack, and West put up the king and returned the 10 for the eight, five and ace.

South now exited with a diamond, and when East won to play a club, she ducked. She knew the defenders would be able to take only one club, since West would be endplayed on winning her club honor.

When Natalia Ponomareva for Russia was declarer, West also led a top heart, and the play to the first six tricks was identical. But when South led the diamond jack, Nevena Senior as West made a good play by ducking. Now Heather Dhondy was able to win and switch to the club six, which Senior won with her king to return a devious diamond 10, rather than the king.

Declarer assumed that East had the diamond king, so she ducked, hoping West had no more diamonds. But now Senior could exit with the diamond king, and declarer had to lose another club trick eventually.

Today’s deal sees a point of general principles, together with the challenging issue of trying to use empathy at the table. As a defender, you need to put yourself in declarer’s position and try to work out what he would have done with certain hands.

The first issue arises in the auction. East should not open with a pre-empt of course, or come in over one no-trump. But balancing over two hearts, while not without risk, makes sense, either at pairs, or non-vulnerable at teams or rubber. More to the point, West must not re-compete to three spades here; his partner has already bid every single one of his values for him!

Against three hearts, you should lead the king in partner’s suit, not the ace, even if your agreement is to lead ace from ace-king in general. Regardless, West will probably continue with two more rounds of spades, and declarer will ruff and lead a low heart from hand.

West wins with the queen, exits with a club and … surely you didn’t fall for that as East, did you? When declarer leads a low heart from hand at trick four and West plays the queen, what should East imagine is going on? Surely if declarer had king-sixth or -seventh of hearts, he would cross to dummy in a minor to play trumps? The only reason for leading trumps from hand is that the whole deal looks very much like the diagram. East must overtake the trump, lead a fourth spade and score his side’s trumps separately for down one.

If you enjoy traveling to play bridge, consider the Gold Coast tournament in Brisbane. The event, held every February, has everything: beaches, sun, sand and restaurants, but primarily a week-long splendidly run tournament with a world-class field, as well as sections for intermediates, novices and seniors.

In a deal from the main pairs final, Griff Ware and Michael Ware — who are unrelated, but whose convention card had the players’ names as ‘AWare’ and ‘BWare’ — bid to six no-trump on a quantitative sequence after Michael, as declarer, had shown a balanced strong no-trump with four hearts.

West resisted the temptation to lead a club. While repeated heart leads might have worked out best, he led a spade and then cashed his spade ace to exit with a third spade.

Now declarer ran the remaining spades and the diamonds, and the last spade squeezed East, who knew that he had to retain four hearts, so was forced to relinquish a club. Reading the position perfectly, Ware pitched a heart from hand, then cashed the three top hearts. Finally, he decided that the combination of West’s earlier passive defense, coupled with the discard, had indicated that he held the club king. So he led the club queen to pin the jack, thereby establishing his extra club winner to emerge with a stone-cold top for his troubles.

As the bulletin from the tournament quipped, playing against one Ware is bad enough – playing against two of them must be doubly wearing.

Bobby Fischer’s now-famous chess dictum is that when you have seen a good move, you should look for a better one. Today’s deal exemplifies this. South opened one no-trump, North raised to game, ignoring his club suit, and West led the spade queen.

Declarer correctly observed that there would be a painless nine tricks if the club finesse succeeded, but if it failed, a switch to hearts by East might be highly uncomfortable.

Given that it was rubber bridge, it struck declarer that there was no need to take the club finesse. Playing the ace would gain if East held the singleton king, and even if West came to an undeserved trick with the king, the play of a spade, heart or diamond would give South his ninth trick.

Pleased with his analysis, declarer won the lead on the table and cashed the club ace, then continued with another club. East won and might have continued spades had West not guessed to discard the spade eight, prompting East to switch to the heart jack. When the finesse failed, the defenders cleared hearts and West discarded correctly, leaving declarer with only eight tricks when the diamond finesse failed.

The idea of playing the ace and another club was a good one, but South missed an even better play. Once both opponents follow to the club ace, a finesse of the diamond 10 absolutely guarantees the ninth trick. Whichever suit West chooses to return brings in an extra trick. Only then does declarer establish the clubs.