In Shanghai at the Bermuda Bowl of 2007 I was very disappointed in the final position of the Irish team. They had come into the Round Robin as Silver Medalists in the European Championships, and were therefore among the favorites to advance to the Knock-Out phase. This did not happen, but they were nonetheless fighting right to the end – as witness this deal from their very final match.

John Carroll and Tommy Garvey play a light opening bid system whereby they frequently open 10-counts, as here. Carroll, West guessed well to lead the ace and another club. Garvey continued with a third round of clubs as Carroll pitched a heart.

Declarer ruffed and cashed two rounds of trumps then played the diamond king, which Carroll ducked, following with the 10. The contract can, of course, still be made easily by leading the diamond queen or playing a spade to the South hand and a diamond towards the queen. However, the sight of the diamond 10 was enough to convince South that his play didn’t matter – that is to say that West’s card had to be from the ace-10 or ace-jack-10. He continued with a small diamond, letting East win his diamond jack.

Now Garvey made no mistake, continuing with his remaining top club, on which West threw the diamond ace! Declarer had to ruff in the North hand, and at this point could not get off dummy to draw the last trump without promoting West’s spade 10 for the setting trick.

With his values concentrated in his long suits, and fine heart intermediates, South has a far more promising opening bid than most balanced 12-counts.

North can force to game with a two-over-one response, then raise hearts and try for slam. South will put the brakes on firmly, and unless North suffers a severe rush of blood to the head, South will finish in four hearts. Against this contract, West has a straightforward lead of a top spade. South ducks the first two spades in dummy, but when a third spade is played (a trump shift was essential) he must ruff. Declarer can now see that if the club ace is offside, and diamonds do not break, he may need to plan what he will do with his fourth diamond.

When declarer plays a club to the king, East wins (though ducking might make declarer’s task a little harder). East returns a club, and dummy wins. It is far more likely that trumps are breaking 3-2 than that diamonds are 3-3, or that the same hand has long diamonds and long clubs, so South changes tack. He ruffs a club in hand, crosses to dummy with a diamond, and ruffs another club. By this time, South has ruffed three times in his hand. This leaves him with only two trumps in hand compared to dummy’s three.

South can draw trump in three rounds, discarding his last diamond on dummy’s long trump, and come to 10 tricks in the form of one club, three ruffs, three trumps, and three diamonds: a perfect dummy reversal.

This hand comes from the 1968 Olympiad, and reveals that bidding has changed a lot since then. When East opened the bidding with one diamond South could overcall two diamonds. This was not a Michaels Cuebid, showing the majors; it simply showed a powerhouse. West sensibly jumped to five diamonds, putting South back in the hot seat. A double would only have produced a penalty of 300, and South wanted more, so he tried his luck at the five level with a call of five hearts.

At the table, when West led a diamond, South ruffed in hand and continued with the trump ace. When West showed out, declarer was booked for one down. Can you do better?

If you choose to take the very slight risk of there being a black-suit ruff, the safety play at trick two is to lead a heart intermediate from hand toward dummy’s 10. If the hearts divide 2-1, then the ace will bring down the remaining honor on the next round of trumps and declarer can finesse spades for the overtrick. If East proves to have all three trumps, then you can force an entry to dummy in spades by leading low towards the queen-jack to enable you to take a second-round trump finesse. In the highly unlikely event that West has all three missing trumps, you will still be able to access dummy via the heart 10, sooner or later, and will still succeed so long as the spade king is onside.

From last summer’s world junior championships came this elegant defense.

West, Oscar Nijssen of the Netherlands Youngsters team decided that since his partner seemed not to have very much, he would lead a low trump, against five hearts. This went to the six, five, and declarer’s seven. Declarer cashed his club ace and played another club to Nijssen’s king, while East signaled an odd number of clubs.

Clearly, declarer was threatening to draw trumps and run the clubs. But given the bad trump break, he would need a late dummy entry, which had to be the spade ace. To eliminate that entry, West boldly shifted to the spade king. South could not afford to duck, with the diamond ace still out. As it was, when South won the trick with dummy’s ace, he drew one round of trumps with dummy’s 10, and saw East discard a diamond.

Now declarer had to guess the diamonds, hoping to establish one winner there and ruff another in the dummy. When he tried a diamond to his king, Nijssen took the trick and led another trump. Declarer could try to pitch a diamond on the club queen, but West ruffed in and played a spade. East still had to collect the diamond queen, so the contract went two down.

Nijssen’s maneuver has a name. It follows an incident during the Spanish-American War at the turn of the last century, when the Americans scuttled the Merrimac to try to bottle up the Spanish fleet in their harbor. Hence the Merrimac Coup.

My favorite defense from last summer’s world junior championships in Salsomaggiore, Italy, occurred right at the end of the Youngsters final between Italy and the Netherlands.

Both tables bid in identical fashion to three spades, but in one room the Italian West led a top diamond from his sequence.

After seeing the dummy, he saw the need for a trump shift, but was already too late. Declarer could win in his hand and play another diamond. East overtook his partner’s jack to play a second trump, but declarer won in hand and could trump his losing diamond in dummy for his ninth trick and plus 140.

In the other room Leen Stougie as West found the incisive trump lead to trick one, working on the sound principle of leading trumps when you consider your side has the balance of high cards. Declarer, won in hand with the nine and led a diamond up. West made his second good play when he hopped up with the king to press on with trumps. Declarer won with his queen to play another diamond, but this time when West inserted the jack, it allowed East, Marc Stougie, to overtake with the queen to play a third trump. That disposed of the possibility of a diamond ruff in dummy.

Now declarer had to lose one heart, three diamonds and one club, to go one down.

That all added up to a 5 IMP gain for the Netherlands, but they lost the gold medal to Italy.

In this deal from the qualifying rounds of the world junior championships in Italy last summer, only one East-West pair hit the jackpot of six spades. Adam and Zach Grossack managed that feat, against which South led a trump. Best is to win the ace and lead a club to the 10, which leads to a painless 12 tricks unless South has a singleton club queen.

In the match between Poland and Norway, the Polish pair missed slam. However, the other room saw considerably more action, on the auction shown. Yes, maybe South could have maneuvered to the best red-suit fit via a call of four no-trump (planning to correct five clubs to five diamonds to show the red suits). Still, five hearts doubled did not look as if it was going to be enormously expensive.

At the table, West led ace and another spade. Now maybe Tor Eivind East should have shifted to clubs. As it was, he led a third spade, and declarer seized his chance to pitch a club from hand and ruff in dummy. There followed a heart to the queen, but what next?

The cautious line would be to start diamonds – if East ruffs in, it will be with trump tricks, won’t it? Maksymilian Chodacki threw caution to the winds and played a second trump himself.

Disaster! Grude drew two rounds of trumps and ran spades, letting declarer score his low heart, but no more tricks. That was down eight in a freely bid contract – a cool 2000 and 17 IMPs to Norway.

At the 2016 junior world championships held in Salsomaggiore, this deal occurred during the quarter-final match between the Sweden and Norway juniors.

Mikael and Ola Rimstedt, who are rapidly making their way to becoming one of the world’s top young pairs, bid this hand to three no-trump. The one diamond opener was natural and unbalanced, the two no-trump call showed extras with long diamonds, the three diamond call suggested a minimum hand with only four hearts.

Against three no-trump, Christian Bakke led a low spade; this went to the eight, jack and ace. Now declarer led a spade to the 10, and took a losing diamond finesse, East’s two being upside down count.

When Bakke won this, he decided declarer rated to be 3-6 in spades and diamonds. Obviously the defenders needed to run hearts now, and the question was whether to play partner either for ace-queen-third of hearts (when a low heart would let the defenders cash out easily); or queen-nine-third of hearts and the club ace — in which case again a low heart was necessary. But if declarer had a singleton honor, the heart king was necessary, since it catered for the stiff heart queen.

Bakke decided that with eight hearts and six clubs visible in the two hands, declarer rated to have a singleton heart more often than a doubleton, so he shifted to the heart king to defeat the game. This was worth a 10 IMP pick-up when three no-trump came home in the other room.

Today’s deal cropped up during the first session of the girls’ semifinals at the junior championships in Salsomaggiore last year.

Before I tell you what happened at our featured table, consider the play in five diamonds here. At every table where diamonds were trumps, the defenders led spades. East either tried to cash her top spades, or won the spade king to shift to a club.

After this start, it was easy for declarer to infer that, given East’s opening bid, West must hold the diamond king. This allowed declarer to drop the diamond king offside. In the semifinal between Australia and Indonesia, Renee Cooper followed this line in five diamonds, and could set up hearts to pitch the club loser, making 12 tricks.

At her counterpart’s table Kirstyn Fuller from Australia was East, but here the stakes were higher, since she was defending six diamonds. She deceptively won the opening lead with the spade ace and shifted to her club nine.

Now declarer assumed West had the spade king, so the diamond finesse rated to be working. She took the club ace, crossed to a heart, and finessed in trumps. When West won with her king, she could cash her club winner and give her partner a club ruff. That meant three down – but had Fuller not made the right play to trick one, the slam would surely have come home; so the false card generated a swing of 22 IMPs.

Australia went on to reach the final, where they lost to a strong Dutch team.

Today’s deal represents a slight variation of a hand that came up in the quarterfinals of the junior world championships. The Polish team who were spearheaded by Michal Klukowski and Justyna Zmuda won the junior title. (They have been playing regularly for the open and women’s teams respectively, for the last few years). This deal resulted in a big swing for their team.

To focus on the problem look just at the auction, together with the West and North cards. You lead a heart against six diamonds, won in dummy. Declarer now plays the diamond king, which goes to the nine and declarer’s six. Plan the defense. When you have decided, look at the full deal.

If you duck the first trump, what should declarer do? He has two sensible approaches: one is to take the diamond nine at face value and play to ruff out clubs – which would be necessary if both minors break badly. But if declarer does that, then if the cards lie as in the diagram East ruffs the second club, and defeats the slam. If you win the diamond ace, declarer cannot go wrong.

(For the record: in real life the diamond nine was singleton with East holding 4-7-1-1 shape. When the diamond nine appeared, West ducked, and declarer correctly went after clubs at trick three, successfully ruffing out the suit. Had he played a second trump himself, the defense would have played a third trump and forced declarer to guess clubs.)