Bob Hamman’s frequently repeated saying that the best play lousy and the rest play worse may be supported by what might appear to be an absurd series of results here. But some deals are just too challenging for ordinary mortals.

This deal comes from Salt Lake City 15 years ago. Where I was watching, Nicholas Gartaganis for Canada opened three spades as East, and Jacek Pszczola overcalled three no-trump. His partner, Michal Kwiecien, raised to four no-trump, and that ended the auction for plus-460. Nicely bid — but not all the other pairs were so reticent. In fact, the potential for swings was huge, since in all four matches of the playoffs and finals, one table opened the East hand four spades, and South overcalled five diamonds and was raised to six diamonds by North. With two aces to cash, can you guess how many of the four pairs of defenders allowed the slam to make?

Naturally, all four Wests led a spade. While I suppose you could make some sort of case for the club ace, it is just too likely to cost your side the second trick in that suit. All four Easts won their ace and knew that the most likely way to beat the slam was to collect a slow club trick or to cash an ace. If an ace was out, then a heart return now would only let through the contract if declarer had a doubleton ace-queen or ace-jack, along with a singleton club. So all four Easts played back a heart — contract made!

Here South has a simple call of two clubs on his first turn, but no reason to do more than rebid two no-trump on his second. This is invitational, not forcing; a two-over-one in competition does not even guarantee a second call.

After West leads the spade six against three no-trump, South must bring in the clubs to make his game, no matter who has the club ace. Imagine declarer plays low from dummy at trick one and East puts in the nine. South can duck to try to kill the spades, but this line of play will fail if East has the club ace. The duck will be fatal since East will later get the lead with the club ace and will run the spades.

Conversely, if the cards lie as they do in the diagram and South wins the first spade, West will grab his club ace and play a second spade through to kill the contract. However, assuming West has led from a doubleton spade, then to make sure of the contract regardless of the location of the club ace, South needs to put up the spade queen from dummy at once.

East must win with the ace, or South will still have the spade king poised over East’s ace, and the spades will not pose a threat. But if East now leads another spade, South can let it ride around to dummy’s 10, so East must shift. In turn, that gives South time to develop the clubs while he still has the protection of his spade king.

Even the best rules have exceptions. Ducking an ace when dummy has a singleton may persuade declarer to misguess the position. But how often can declarer misguess when you as defender hold both the ace and queen? Read on.

When France met Monaco in the European Championship, Geir Helgemo and Tor Helness for Monaco faced Michel and Thomas Bessis. Both tables played five spades here on the lead of the club king. South correctly inferred that clubs were breaking 5-1, so took the first trick.

In one room, when declarer drew trumps ending in dummy and called for dummy’s diamond, East rose with the ace — and now the contract was home without a struggle. Declarer could pitch one loser on the diamond king, then run the diamond jack, pitching from dummy again. All he lost was two diamonds. He took two diamonds, one club and eight trumps.

For Monaco, Helgemo also led the club king, won by the ace. Declarer drew trumps, ending in dummy, then played the diamond nine. When East, Helness, played low smoothly, Bessis called for the king, and from here on in had to go one down. His play was based on the fact that he was sure from the bidding that East had the ace. But had he played low from his hand, his nine would have held. After ruffing a heart to hand, he could have led out high diamonds from hand and discarded club losers from dummy.

East cannot prevent declarer from eventually coming to two diamond tricks, one club, and eight trumps.

In today’s deal, which comes from the semifinal of a regional knockout, Gavin Wolpert brought home a delicate game. He played it very nicely, but the deal just goes to prove that, as Bob Hamman said: The best play lousy and the rest play worse. See if you can spot how the defenders missed their chances.

The contract of four hearts looks fine — except on a diamond lead — but that is what West led. Wolpert ducked the diamond jack, then won the diamond continuation as West followed with his small diamond. Wolpert now led a low club to dummy’s queen, which won the trick. Yes, West could have flown up with the ace, but that would have looked silly if South had held king-third of clubs.

When the spade finesse held, Wolpert crossed his fingers and cashed the heart ace-king followed by the spade ace, before exiting with a third diamond.

Much to his surprise and pleasure, his LHO was forced to win the trick and had no spade or heart to lead. He could cash his club ace, but then had to lead a club and concede a ruff-and-discard. Wolpert could ruff in hand, discarding the spade from dummy. He could next ruff a spade to dummy, to draw the last trump and claim his contract.

So have you spotted the significant error on defense? West should have unblocked his diamond king at trick two, so that he could let East win the third diamond and avoid the endplay.

Today’s deal comes from the U.S. Nationals 15 years ago. It is often the case that virtue goes unrewarded at the bridge table, as a poor bid or play goes unpunished, or worse, is rewarded by a highly favorable lie of the cards. Today was not one of those days, though, since Jon Wittes and Ross Grabel used their system to get to the right spot, then took advantage of their auction to bring in a huge swing.

There are all sorts of methods to show controls in response to a two-club opening. The one in use here allocates one call to show an ace and king in the same suit, and another for three kings or an ace and king in separate suits. (By the way, these responses are better than responding in steps to show HCP.)

Wittes found his partner with the club ace and heart king on his first turn, then managed to bid his suits to give his partner an intelligent choice as to which slam to play.

After a trump lead, Wittes drew two rounds of clubs and cashed the diamond ace-king. Eureka! He ran into the specific lie of the cards that would reward his carefulness, where the same hand had short diamonds and no more than two clubs.

When one of the defenders showed out of diamonds but had no trumps with which to ruff, that allowed Wittes to ruff his diamond loser in dummy, draw the last trump and claim 13 tricks. This was a gain of 16 IMPs against seven diamonds down one in the other room.

This deal might represent some kind of record. I frequently used deals played by the giants of the game, but it is relatively rare to receive a deal that was played 80 years ago.

Tony Priday of England died a few years ago, having dominated the international scene in England through the seventies and eighties, and having then become a much respected non-playing captain. When he learned bridge at school the pupils used Mahjongg tiles in place of cards, regarded at that time as ‘the devil’s playthings’.

In today’s deal splinters were 30 years away from being invented. When North opened one spade, Priday was able to jump to four diamonds, natural and pre-emptive, and was raised to five diamonds.

When West led the club king, East made a thoughtful but catastrophic play when he overtook with the ace, hoping that he could lead a heart through declarer. However, Priday could ruff with the diamond six, then lead the trump seven to the ace, to find the bad news.

Undaunted, Priday saw that he would still be able to make his game so long as he could keep East off lead till spades were established. So he advanced the club jack and discarded a spade from hand. Since West was unable to attack hearts successfully, Priday could ruff out the spades, using a high trump again, then knock out the master trump. Now he could cross to the diamond three and discard two hearts from hand on the spades.

When East overcalled three clubs over North’s artificial and forcing call, South opted to get his spades in at once. North was never going to stop short of slam now, and perhaps unwisely raised South to six spades rather than playing the more straightforward contract of six diamonds.

Against the slam West led the club king, and declarer had plenty of winners, but the losing clubs presented a significant problem. He gave himself a sporting chance when he ruffed the opening lead in dummy, coming back to hand with the diamond king to ruff another club. Then he cashed the trump ace and discarded his last club on the diamond ace.

However, he still needed to come back to hand to draw trump. When East followed to a third round of diamonds, declarer ruffed high while West carefully pitched his remaining club. This meant that when the spade queen went round to East’s king, a third round of clubs promoted the setting trick for West’s spade nine. Can you see how declarer might have done better?

After ruffing the opening lead with the spade five, lead the spade six from dummy. If a defender wins this with the king, you can ruff the next club with the spade ace. If your spade queen holds, take the spade ace, then the diamond ace, crashing your king and cash a second diamond to throw one club away. Next lead a third diamond, pitching your last club.

This line fails only to an unlucky lie of the cards in more than one suit.

In today’s deal South was not downhearted by his partner’s failure to respond to his opening bid, and still found a way to drive to game. The contract was not hopeless, but the real problem was to get to dummy and to maneuver to lose no tricks in the majors. South saw he could only get to dummy with the club nine but would then have to use this single entry to take two heart finesses and one spade finesse. Before you read on, can you see the precise sequence of plays necessary to achieve this?

Declarer wins the diamond ace, knocks out the club ace, loses a diamond, and wins the next trump in dummy. He must next lead the heart queen from dummy and unblock the jack from his own hand. This allows dummy to retain the lead for the next heart finesse. Finally, South can take the spade finesse.

Note that South would fail in his contract if he started by leading the heart nine or 10 from dummy as his initial play in that suit. East would play low and would save the heart king, for when declarer advanced dummy’s queen. This would force South to win the second heart in his own hand, and now there would be no entry to dummy for the spade finesse.

It would be equally unsuccessful to lead the heart queen and forget to throw the jack. Again, South would have to win the second heart in his own hand and kiss goodbye to dummy.

When the World Bridge Federation was pushing hard for bridge to be included in the Winter Olympics they organized a competition in Salt Lake City just before the Olympics started. In the finals of that event Poland trailed Canada by 17.5 IMPs as they entered the last set of 12 deals. They held Canada scoreless till the last board but still trailed by one and a half IMPs as the last board hit the table.

Both tables reached four spades by South after West had opened one heart and had rebid two diamonds.

The Polish West led a diamond against Keith Balcombe. He finessed, then took a safety play in spades by leading the ace and running the jack, to make 420. If the Polish declarer could come to 11 tricks, the commentators estimated he would lose the match (in the absence of score corrections and appeals) by precisely 1/2 an IMP.

However, when Fred Gitelman led the heart ace followed by another heart, Michal Kwiecien won in dummy, cashed the spade ace, and noted the fall of the eight. Then he followed up with the spade jack from dummy. Joe Silver naturally played low and Kwiecien paused for reflection for quite a while.

Eventually he let the spade jack run, and Gitelman won his queen, and led a low heart, promoting the spade 10 into a third trick for the defenders. That let Silver collect the club king for down one in due course. Canada had won their first ever Gold Medal in a teams event.