Today’s deal features two of the people most involved with setting up Senior events as a separate category in international bridge. Goran Mattsson of Germany and the late Doctor Nissan Rand of Israel won the Brighton Summer Congress a few years ago, and this deal certainly helped them.

Rand, who was always an optimist, drove to slam facing three key-cards. Mattsson received the lead of the diamond jack, and inserted dummy’s queen. Now declarer drew two rounds of trump, then continued with a second diamond towards the ace-nine. West put up the 10, and dummy’s ace was played.

South next drew the last trump and cashed the club king and ace, then ran the spade nine to East’s jack. What would you do as East now?

Noting the ace-queen-10 of spades in dummy, East returned a club. Mattsson ruffed in hand and discarded the diamond nine from dummy. Next came the diamond eight, and when West withheld the king – covering would not have helped – declarer let it run. Then South’s last diamond was trumped in dummy, for Mattsson to claim his slam.

Curiously, had East returned a spade instead of a club, one of South’s diamonds would have gone away, but not both, and the slam would have failed. West’s count signals in spades and clubs should have given East the full picture here, but note that even if South started life with three spades and three diamonds, the spade play still sets the hand.

East puts South under immediate pressure when he opens three clubs. If the North and West hands were switched, a double from South would put his side into minus 500 or 800 territory. As it is, though, once South stretches to double three clubs, North will be interested in a grand slam, especially when the heart fit comes to light. Today, though, six hearts is quite high enough.

When West leads the club two at the first trick against six hearts, South will assume that clubs strongly rate to be 7-1. His thoughts should turn at once to the chance of an endplay on one defender or the other. Which possibility do you think is the most convincing?

Declarer does not have to commit himself immediately; the play in the black suits can wait. He begins by drawing trump, then cashes his three diamond winners. When East turns up with one trump and three or more diamonds, to go with his seven clubs, he cannot hold more than two spades. Is that bad news for the spade finesse? Yes and no.

Curiously, if the spade finesse is working, there is no need to take it. Play the spade king then ace, and if the queen has not put in an appearance, exit with the spade jack to put West on play. When he wins the trick, he must surrender a ruff and discard on either a spade or a diamond return, and your club loser goes away.

Incidentally, you might even follow the same line if East turned up with two diamonds and three spades.

In three no-trump South finesses diamonds at the first trick, losing to the king. When the diamond seven comes back to dummy’s ace, West follows with the eight, perhaps suggesting he began with four or five diamonds.

South unblocks spades and takes the heart finesse. Dummy’s heart jack holds, and South promptly runs the rest of the spades. Declarer needs West to hold one of the two club honors, and he should assume that West will either pitch a diamond winner, his heart guard, or bare his club honor on the last spade.

When West discards a club on the fifth round of spades, the question is if West has the bare heart king left, or if he has come down to one club, two hearts, and the last two diamonds. Since you are missing six clubs and seven hearts, West is more likely to have started with three hearts and two clubs, not the other way round.

It therefore looks best to lead a low club from dummy toward your jack. You hope West will win the trick with his remaining club honor and cash his two diamonds. Then, however, West must lead away from his heart king, allowing declarerto make the last two tricks for his contract.

West could have avoided this end-play by discarding the heart 10 instead of the club eight. But at this point you would probably infer that he had bared the heart king. You would cash the heart ace, dropping his king, with the heart queen now good for the ninth trick.

In today’s deal South’s jump to three spades is invitational, and North has reasonable values for his initial response, so should go on to game. It is not clear whether North should try for game at no-trump, but if he were to bid three no-trump South would pass, of course, with no shortage. Since a club lead by East would give the defenders five tricks off the top, North’s decision to bid the suit game can hardly be criticized.

In four spades South must win the first diamond in his own hand, leaving dummy’s king as a later entry for a heart trick. He next draws one round of trumps, but must then try his luck in hearts.

When dummy’s heart queen wins, South can get back to his hand using dummy’s remaining trump. He then draws the rest of the trump and leads his second heart. West will take the heart ace, and must switch to clubs in desperation. This shift will defeat the contract if East’s clubs are good enough, and West can see declarer has 10 tricks if he does not make this play. The switch may surrender the overtrick, but it is surely worth the risk of investing an overtrick to have a shot to defeat the hand.

Note that West must shift to a low club in case today’s precise layout exists. If West plays the club ace and another club, declarer would survive today. As it is, though, the low club switch lets the defenders cash out the clubs for down one.

As West, you lead the diamond queen against four spades, partner discouraging with the two. Declarer wins the ace, plays the spade ace-king, dropping your queen, and crosses to the spade jack, your partner following with the nine, six and 10.

Now the club queen is run round to your king as your partner plays the five, and declarer the seven. How do you plan the defense?

South has 18 points outside hearts (the club ace, plus the top diamonds and spades). He must therefore hold either the heart king or queen. Your partner’s small club suggests an original three-card holding (he should play the six from a four-card suit). Also, the fact that he did not play the spade 10 on the first round of trump suggests he has the heart queen not the king – given that his signal in trump should be suit preference not count.

So it cannot be right to switch to hearts, playing East to hold the king. If declarer has four clubs, then he surely either has a doubleton heart or doubleton diamond; to have any hope to beat the hand, you must place him with the latter.

So, exit passively with a club or diamond. Declarer will cash his minor-suit winners ending in dummy, and lead a heart from dummy, hoping the ace is right or that he can duck the trick to you. But provided your partner is awake, he will rise with the queen or 10 when a heart is led from dummy. The defenders will then score three heart tricks to defeat the game.

With three four-card suits, North begins by bidding the suit under the singleton. This leaves him in good position for his next bid.

As expected, South responds in North’s singleton. North can now introduce his spades conveniently, over which South has a problem. He almost has enough to invite game because of his source of tricks, but with a known misfit, a call of one no-trump looks the prudent way to go. When North invites game (also a restrained action) South has plenty in hand for his acceptance.

After a top club lead, South must be careful not to duck, for fear of a spade shift, when the defenders might set that suit up. He must win; but in which hand? The answer is to win in dummy to protect South’s entries to the hearts. But the shortage of entries to the South hand means that the routine play in hearts will not succeed. South can set up hearts but won’t be able to reach them.

Instead, South can solve his problem by overtaking the heart king with his ace. He next leads the heart jack to force out the queen. East refuses this trick, and declarer continues with the heart 10.

East must take the heart queen, and can lead the spade 10. South is now in complete control, and can eventually return to his hand with the club ace to cash the last two hearts. He takes four hearts, one spade, and two tricks in each minor.

After North’s opening bid, South’s thoughts will immediately turn toward slam. His plan will be to bid hearts then diamonds. But once his partner raises hearts, showing extras in the process, South can use Blackwood, perhaps expecting to be heading towards a grand slam.

However, somewhat to South’s surprise, North shows only one ace by his response of five diamonds. Once South discovers that an ace is missing he can do nothing but jump to six hearts. This is a call that should end the auction, since North has no reason to overrule his partner. If South were interested in a grand slam, he would go slower.

West’s best chance to defeat the slam on opening lead is his singleton – even though it is in dummy’s first bid suit. If South wins the trick, underestimating the danger, and leads a trump at once, East will take his heart ace and return a club for his partner to ruff.

But there is a way around the problem; the simplest way is for declarer to discard his club on dummy’s spade king. So South unblocks the spade ace, then cashes the diamond ace and ruffs a diamond in order to reach dummy. Declarer is then in position to play off the spade king, discarding the last club from the South hand.

South can now afford to draw trump. When East wins his ace and leads a second round of clubs, South can ruff high and draw the rest of the trump to make his slam.

In today’s bidding North produced a subtle conventional agreement after South limited his hand with a non-forcing two no-trump call. North bid the other minor as a conventional slam-try, after which South’s modest hand suddenly became extremely suitable for slam. In this sequence North could have signed off over two no-trump in three of the agreed minor, or bid a major to show shortness.

Against six clubs West led the spade nine, and the jack was covered by the queen and ace. That was good news for declarer, who now had to focus on the small concern of 4-0 trumps, and the question of how to hold the red-suit losers to one.

Eventually declarer gave up on worrying about 4-0 trump, since he wanted to preserve entries to his hand. He played off the king and queen of trump, then came to hand with the ace. Next he tried a low heart towards the queen. The idea was that if East won with the king there would still be time to try the diamond finesse.

However, it was West who produced the king and he returned a heart. Now, with no other entry to hand, South was reduced to overtaking the heart queen and finessing unsuccessfully in diamonds.

South was right to try the hearts before the diamonds but what he missed was that he must attack hearts at trick two. Then, if the heart king is onside, he can unblock the heart queen and come to hand with the trump ace to arrange his discard in the fullness of time.

In today’s deal your two no-trump rebid suggests a balanced 12-14 and North wisely opts for the major-suit game, seeing the aces as more useful in a suit. Game is certainly easier to make in spades than in no-trump. You appear to need a trump break, and some decent luck along the way. In fact, though, you need very little to work for you, so long as you time the hand well, though you have to be careful to avoid the threat of over-ruffs in clubs.

The defenders lead the heart jack, and you win it with the ace. Next comes a club to the king and West’s ace – good news from your perspective, since now the threat of a trump promotion against you is considerably reduced. West can do no better than return a heart, which you win with the king. Now comes the club queen, followed by the spade king and a spade to the ace.

With the defenders now holding the master trump, you take a club ruff, and can deal with the 4-2 club break in your stride. You cross to dummy with a heart ruff, trump another club, to establish the suit, and cross to dummy for the last time by leading a diamond to the ace.

You can now advance your 13th club, discarding a diamond from hand, with nine tricks in the bag. The defenders can either allow you to take this trick, or they can ruff in and allow you to score the remaining trump later.