Our last deal from the 2001 world championships contrasts two declarers in the same contract. First let’s see the unsuccessful declarer.

For Indonesia, Robert Tobing drove to slam on finding a limit raise opposite with one key card. After a club lead he ruffed his heart losers in dummy and relied on the diamond honors being onside, once the 3-1 trump split did not allow him an endplay. Down one.

However, in the match between Italy and USA-I, the commentators saw both Souths had made their slam, and hypothesized that there must have been a misdeal. How could the slam make?

Well, both Bob Hamman and Alfredo Versace reached slam after West had bid clubs. Both won the opening club lead to advance a diamond at trick two, reasoning West would surely split his honors if he held both the king and queen. When West followed low unconcernedly, (yes, it was necessary to play the king) both declarers changed tack and set out to find an endplay. They took the diamond ace, then cashed the hearts and ruffed a heart, ruffed a club, ruffed a heart, and ruffed a club. Then they drew precisely one trump, and exited with a diamond.

In the three-card ending West was on lead, with only clubs left to lead. On the forced ruff and discard, dummy could take the ruff and declarer the discard. A spectacular flat board, while both West players and the vugraph commentators reached quickly (but a little too late) for the veil of anonymity.

At the 2001 Bermuda Bowl in Paris the USA suffered maybe their most humiliating defeat against Italy ever. With 32 deals to go the match was almost tied, but then the roof fell in and they lost the last two sets of the match by over 100 IMPs, having been held virtually scoreless in both sets.

Here, for example, both tables reached four hearts, leaving the two Wests with about the same amount of information. Say you lead a top club – and infer from trick one that partner has one or two clubs; what would you do now?

For the USA, Jeff Meckstroth shifted to a diamond – which looks logical enough. Declarer won and ducked a club to Meckstroth, won the next trump in dummy, ruffed a club, crossed with a diamond ruff and ruffed a club, then drew the last trumps, and claimed 10 tricks. Had Meckstroth played back a spade at trick four, declarer could have cross-ruffed to 10 tricks.

By contrast, Alfredo Versace shifted to a spade at trick two, knocking out the late entry to dummy. This is the only defense to succeed here (a trump shift lets declarer overtake and play clubs from hand).

The American declarer could do nothing now. He chose to duck this trick — hoping to be allowed to play a crossruff or set up the clubs — but Lorenzo Lauria overtook the spade queen and gave his partner the ruff, for down one. Very nicely done after the club lead; of course most leads but a top club also succeed outright.

Experts often play the hands better with the sight of only 26 cards than the commentators, who can study all 52 cards. At the World Championships in Paris in 2001, in the match between USA-I and Italy, the Italians bid unopposed to four hearts, and escaped for minus 100. In the other room Norberto Bocchi reached five diamonds as South, and Eric Rodwell found the killing heart lead.

But of course a ‘killing’ lead is in the eye of the beholder. Bocchi had heard East overcall to show the majors, so when Jeff Meckstroth shifted to a spade at trick two, Bocchi took what looks like a practice finesse of the queen. When it held, he cashed the spade ace and ruffed a spade, then took the diamond ace and used the top clubs as entries to eliminate the hearts. In the four-card ending he could exit to East with the second diamond.

At this point three tricks had been played in each major and two in each minor, and East had only major-suit cards to lead. Declarer could pitch his club loser from hand and ruff in dummy, to take 11 tricks and gain 7 IMPs. Beautifully played – and note that if Bocchi does not take the spade finesse at trick two, he runs out of trumps and entries to make the winning play.

This line was duplicated by Sabine Auken in the Women’s series in five diamonds – she also had the same information that East had a good hand with both majors, but it was still a very fine play.

The German ladies won the women’s world championships in 2001 after a stunning come-from-behind victory against France. But this deal was from their quarter-final victory over USA.

In one room Jill Meyers declared three no-trump and Sabine Auken led a top diamond. Meyers ducked this, won the next diamond, and played the heart king out of her hand, hoping East had one of the top heart honors. A good try, but declarer still had to go down one.

Meanwhile in the other room Andrea Rauscheid declared four hearts. She won the diamond lead and played to ruff a diamond in dummy, then finessed the heart jack.

Irina Levitina won the queen and shifted to spades. Declarer won in hand and exited with a low heart, letting Levitina hop up with her ace, to play a second spade. Rauscheid took this and cut loose with a third spade. What was the defense to do? If East, Lynn Baker, won the trick, a ruff and discard would let Rauscheid pitch a club from hand, while a club lead would obviously be fatal.

So Levitina correctly ruffed her partner’s spade winner. But now, since a diamond would concede a ruff and discard, the best she could do was to lead a low club. Accurately defended, but Rauscheid had been given a minute extra chance in clubs, and she took it, by putting in the eight. That extra chance turned out to be relevant today, since Baker had to play the queen, and that was declarer’s 10th trick.

When Norway took on Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the Bermuda Bowl in 2001, the Indonesians tended to go for the more direct route, the Norwegians followed a more cerebral approach. But that was not always the case.

On this deal, the Indonesians had discovered their four-four heart fit, and played game there, a contract that went two down on the diamond ruff. By contrast, Erik Saelensminde located the heart suit opposite, but then deliberately bypassed the 4-4 heart fit.

Given that his partner’s ruffing value in spades was wasted at no-trump, he certainly emerged smelling of roses. To be fair, it is hard to see how to offer a choice of hearts or no-trump sensibly on this deal; still, I think declarer is due a lot of credit here.

Of course it is one thing to bid the game, another to make it. Three no-trump, on a club lead to the 10 and queen, was by no means cold. Saelensminde won in hand and knocked out the heart ace; now West shifted to a diamond.

That let East win and lead a spade through, but Saelensminde put up the ace and cashed all his club and heart winners, ending in dummy, then exited with the fourth club to force West to lead spades into the tenace. Nicely done!

On a club continuation at trick three, there would also have been a lot of play left in the board. But if declarer plays for diamonds 4-1 and ducks a diamond early, he can always succeed.

Zia Mahmood has the reputation of a player always looking for the spectacular coup, but he is also a fine technical player, who works hard to extract every possible piece of information before committing himself.

He found a very thoughtful play on this deal, from the Summer Nationals in Washington 15 years ago. It came up in the early stages of the Spingold Trophy, the primary knockout event of the championships.

He reached five clubs here in the face of strong competition in hearts, and West slipped fractionally by leading the heart king and ace (a play for which one can hardly blame him though a club shift beats the game, and a spade might well do so). Zia ruffed, and instead of simply relying on the double finesse in spades, he decided to strip out the diamond suit just in case something happened. Did it ever!

On the second diamond West produced the queen, then Zia ruffed the third diamond high as West discarded. East was now virtually marked with a 2-4-6-1 shape, and Zia decided that East’s preempt, coupled with West’s decision not to double the final contract meant that East was likely to have the club ace. So he worked out that that the right play was to lead to the spade queen, cash the spade ace and exit with a club. It worked: East had the doubleton spade jack together with a singleton club, and when he won his bare club ace, he was endplayed to concede the ruff and discard.

In today’s auction North produced a splinter raise to show the values for game with short diamonds, but not necessarily promising slam interest. When South cooperated with a four heart cuebid (perhaps an overbid if the call promised extras) North now felt he had enough to use Keycard Blackwood and drive to slam.

The final contract was far from hopeless after the lead of the diamond king; West followed up with a trump shift. Declarer won in hand with the spade 10, and might simply have settled on the heart finesse. However, following the general and sound principle that if the heart finesse was working at the start of the hand, it would probably be working at the end, South delayed the heart play as long as he could. He ruffed a diamond high, led a spade to the ace, and ruffed a second diamond high.

Next came a club to the king, and the spade queen. When West followed three times, declarer played the club ace and ruffed a club, taking his additional chance that the queen-jack might fall in three rounds.

This did not happen, but by now 11 of West’s cards were known. The best remaining chance was that West had begun with only three clubs, so that East now had sole guard of the suit. Accordingly, South played off the last trump, discarding the heart eight from dummy and squeezed East in the process.

This was an easy position to read: if the club 10 was not high, declarer would play the heart king and ace and the heart six would win trick 13.

The decision as to when to use Blackwood requires judgment, but the responses are relatively hard to mess up. By contrast, a cuebidding auction requires judgment from both sides of the table, so both players need to be in harmony.

Today’s deal shows cuebidding resulting in an almost hopeless contract. When South showed slam interest and short spades, North cooperated by showing his club control. Now South drove to slam, hoping that he would buy a subsidiary diamond honor in dummy.

Can you see what meager chance South was able to exploit to bring home his slam? Declarer won the spade queen with dummy’s ace and ruffed a spade, then crossed to the club king and ruffed another spade, bringing down the king. Now he cashed his clubs to discard dummy’s spade loser, and played the heart ace, bringing down West’s nine.

Had trumps turned out to be 2-2, declarer might next have played ace and another diamond, trying to endplay West. But the fall of the heart nine allowed declarer to cross to the heart eight and then to reconstruct West’s hand. Since that player had turned up with one trump, he was far more likely to have three diamonds than two, because he had not made a Michaels cuebid. So South led a low diamond from dummy, covering East’s card. That forced West to win one of his honors, after which he was endplayed to return a diamond round to South’s jack, or concede a ruff and discard for the 12th trick.