Today’s deal comes from the U.S. Nationals last fall and demonstrates that players from all over the world make these events the toughest of contests. Here, for example, we see Peter Gill of Australia trying to bring home a delicate contract of three no-trump from a team game.

Yes, North’s bidding looks a trifle forward, but we’ve all been in worse games. West leads the club five to the jack and ace, and when East returns the seven, he covers with the 10, allowing declarer to win the queen in dummy.

Clubs are clearly 5-3, so if the defenders obtain the lead in a side suit, they can cash their clubs and defeat you. After winning the second club, you must try to run the diamonds; the good news is that the suit breaks 2-2.

On the run of the diamonds, West pitches one heart and two spades, and East three spades. What should you do next?

At the table, Gill worked out that West had reduced down to three hearts and three clubs. If West had pitched a club, declarer would have set up a spade winner for his side. So declarer now exited with a low club. West could cash his clubs, but then had to lead a heart. The auction would have favored playing for split honors in the heart suit if West had shifted to the heart queen or heart jack. However, when West led a low heart, declarer was home without a guess. He ended with three hearts, five diamonds and one club trick.

At the fall nationals last November in Orlando, Florida, this deal presented itself in the Compact Knockout Teams. Compact Knockouts involve 12-board matches to reduce 16 teams to one in a single day.

In six clubs, you receive the lead of a low diamond. Plan the play to hold your club losers to one.

Did you come up with counting the 4-1 club breaks, West holding the singleton, and decide running the club 10 was best? That is true, although it would not be so if the club four and club six were interchanged. But it looks better to win the diamond ace, cash the club ace, then cross to the heart ace and plan to run the club 10. At the table, the club ace draws the seven from West and the five from East. When you cross to the heart ace and play the club 10, East covers and West shows out.

Don’t panic, but cross to the heart king and ruff a heart, and the suit breaks 3-3. Now you cash the spade ace and spade king (the fall of the queen makes life easy, but you did not need this to happen). Next you lead a winning heart in the five-card ending.

It won’t help East to ruff high or low. You pitch your spade, whether it is a winner or loser, ruff a spade to hand, and can return to dummy with a diamond to the king. At that point, you can lead either a heart or a spade. Whether East ruffs high or low, you can score one more trick and bring home the slam.

Today’s deal came from last fall’s Nail Life Master Open Pairs. At many tables, West opened one diamond, and his side got to two spades. If North had passed on his second turn, he would have conceded minus-110 and scored very poorly. When, as here, he doubled, he got his partner into the picture. His side now had the chance to play three clubs or defend against three spades, perhaps doubled. Either way, he should score well, since a spade contract takes no more than eight tricks.

But let’s look at how the play in three clubs should go on the lead of the diamond king. If declarer wins dummy’s ace and plays the club king, followed by a second club, East splits his honors. Declarer must win (or the defense takes the diamond ruff) and cash the hearts.

When North leads out the 13th heart, East discards a spade and declarer pitches a diamond. Now dummy must lead a diamond to the jack and king. The defense shifts to a low spade, letting East win his ace and cash the club queen, catching declarer in a very unusual bind. If declarer retains the club nine, then another trump locks him in dummy. But if he unblocks the club nine, two more rounds of spades promotes the club six to the setting trick. Isn’t that pretty?

Declarer can avoid the whole nasty mess by ducking at trick one. Once diamonds are established, declarer cannot be kept from cashing dummy’s diamonds after he pitches his own third diamond on the 13th heart.

In today’s deal, North does not have nearly enough to bid over a three-heart pre-empt to his right. He would likely not act even if he were in balancing seat. But when his partner shows spades, he can bid four hearts on his next turn to suggest a maximum pass with spade support. South is not interested, of course, so four spades becomes the final contract. Before you read through the play, you might speculate how you can hold your club losers to one.

After the lead of the heart king, declarer must win the ace and be faced with the possibility of four losers, even before he plays a trump and discovers the remarkably bad break. Paradoxically, though, he now has a real expectation that he can endplay West not once, but twice.

He must hope West began with specifically 3=7=2=1 shape. So he takes the diamond ace and king, then the club ace and spade ace. Now declarer must exit with the heart jack. (If he exited with a trump, West would win and exit with a low heart!)

West wins, cashes the spade queen, but then must play a heart. Declarer discards a club from dummy and a diamond from hand. A fourth round of hearts sees declarer throw a second club from dummy and ruff in hand. He takes the last three tricks on a crossruff, while losing two heart tricks. Who would have guessed that you could hold your club losers not just to one, but to zero?

South has a fine overcall of one spade at any vulnerability. He cannot afford to double first and bid spades later, for that would show a hand with greater highcard strength. If North cannot take independent action, game is very unlikely.

North is pre-empted out of the auction by West’s raise, but when South comes again, North has enough to bid game. While he could opt for no-trump, he can see that the defenders will be able to establish hearts easily, so spades looks safer.

The first few tricks are routine. South plays low from dummy (hoping to force an honor), but East defends strongly by putting in the nine. South ruffs the first heart, gets to dummy with a club and tries the trump finesse.

The finesse loses, and South is forced to ruff another heart. Now South must be careful not to run out of trumps. He must go after the diamonds, putting the trumps on hold. If he does so, by the time South has knocked out both top diamonds, dummy will be out of hearts. So when the defenders lead a fourth heart, dummy will ruff and South can save a trump. As it happens, the defenders will lead a club instead, and South can win and draw trumps.

If South had drawn trumps before attacking the diamonds, he would have left himself with only one trump. He would knock out one top diamond, and West would win. Then a heart return would allow East to defeat the contract by running the hearts when in with the diamond ace.

When this hand came up in a high standard event in the 1960s, what would nowadays be a reasonable call was then considered to be aggressive to the point of lunacy. But the value of total trumps was still not established. Sometimes, though, I wish those days would come back …

North-South were playing four-card majors, and it was North’s jump to four hearts after East’s double that was the subject of discussion. After two passes, West doubled again to end the auction.

West led the spade king, and when dummy’s trumps appeared, declarer thanked his partner for the dummy, then retracted his gratitude on seeing the rest of his hand. At trick two, West switched to a trump, and declarer, maybe still steaming over North’s lack of values, did not give the deal his full attention.

He won the trump in hand, cashed his top diamonds and ruffed a diamond, then ruffed a spade to hand. He could trump his last diamond high in order to ruff another spade, but now had to lead a club. East carefully overtook his partner’s nine to lead a second round of trumps, and South was left with a spade loser for down one.

If declarer had not lost focus, he might have won the trump in dummy at trick two. Now he would have time to trump three spades in hand (ruffing the third diamond high) for 10 tricks.

One final thought: Why didn’t West lead a trump originally? Then East could take a black suit lead and lead a second trump.

Today’s deal comes from one of my readers, Jeff Aker of Briarcliff Manor, New York. It cropped up in the Open U.S. Trials this spring.

The auction at the table was different from what is shown here. In real life, North had opened a precision diamond and had shown a three-card club raise with a singleton major, but the final contract was as indicated. Plan the play after a low spade lead from West goes to dummy’s ace.

The contract will be easy to make if clubs break 3-2. What is the best way to protect yourself against the 10 possible 4-1 breaks? (East can have one of any five singletons, or West can have one of any five singletons.)

If you finesse the club jack, then, as the cards lie, West will win and play back a spade, and you will go down. Leading the queen from dummy covers some of the bases, but not enough, and it will not succeed today.

The key to the play is that the hand is about more than the club suit. If you can score two club tricks without losing the lead, you can switch your attack to hearts and come to three heart tricks and two in each of the other suits. Realizing this, Aker played a club to his ace followed by a club to the queen, and could then shift his attention to hearts when clubs failed to behave.

This line takes care of all 4-1 clubs except the singleton four or five with West.

South at the Dyspeptics Club was somewhat disappointed to have roughly two aces less than his usual hand-strength, but he still managed to find a way to bid to game. The jump to three spades was invitational and justified only by the trump spots, and North had plenty in hand for his acceptance.

When West led his singleton club seven, declarer put up the king from dummy and dumped his 10 from hand to try to mislead East as to who had the singleton. However, East could see that a club ruff was the most likely way to beat the hand, so he returned the club four, suit preference. If West could ruff, East wanted him to lead diamonds next, the lower-ranking side suit.

West happily ruffed in and trustingly led back the diamond five. When East took the ace, his winning continuation was unclear. If West had the diamond king, East needed to return a diamond; if South had the diamond king and West had started with Q-x-x in trumps, a third club was necessary to promote the setting trick in trumps. With a blind guess, he returned a third club. Declarer guessed to ruff high and draw trumps from the top to make his game. Which defender was more to blame?

West should have known that he had no trump honor to promote. He needs to lead the diamond king at trick three, then a second diamond. If East knows South will follow to a third club, he can overtake the king and play on that suit. Otherwise, he will let the diamond king hold.

At the table, I may not be good at extending sympathy to my partner, but at least I avoid open criticism. Had I been North here, I doubt I would have been able to offer condolences convincingly.

That player took only a slightly optimistic approach when he drove to the grand slam, reasonably confident that either diamonds or spades would run for declarer.

When West led the club 10, declarer could see 12 certain winners and had three suits where a 13th might materialize. Before you look at how play developed, think about how you would approach it.

At trick two, South tested the spades. It was only when East followed to the third round that declarer realized that he did not have a good discard from hand. Since diamonds looked more promising than hearts (because of the chance the jack might fall in two rounds), he let a heart go from hand. When the bad news in spades was combined with the fact that it was West who had diamond length, declarer was out of chances.

What should South have done differently? The key is to play the heart ace-king, cash the remaining clubs (pitching a heart from dummy), then take the heart queen, discarding a spade.

At this point, you can claim when hearts break. But if they had not split, you can decide whether to make the normal play of running spades from the top, or to play diamonds first, depending on what has happened in the other two suits.