In today’s deal a complex auction sees you flirting with a grand slam before settling for 12 tricks. You win the lead of the heart queen and test trumps; bad news!

It may seem you cannot now avoid losing both a trump and a diamond. But an alternative perspective may help: you actually have seven winners in the side suits. If you can manage to single in all five of your trumps in hand, that will add up to 12.

Start by cashing your three top trumps, then take your second heart winner, followed by the two top clubs. Next you play the king and ace of diamonds (of course if East can ruff any of these winners you will go down like a stone, but luck is with you so far). The time has come to start scoring your low trumps. So you ruff a club low, then cross your fingers and return to dummy with the diamond queen. When East follows suit, you are home.

The last two cards in your hand are the spade six and a heart loser. When you lead the fourth club from dummy, East can either ruff with his master trump, letting you discard your heart loser and score your trump at trick 13, or discard at trick 12 and let you ruff the club with your last trump. Contract made!

For this line to succeed, you need East to hold at least three diamonds, two hearts and two clubs, and to be unable to discard from a three-card diamond suit on the third club.

In today’s deal from a Cavendish pairs tournament 15 years ago, Bob Hamman did very well in the auction and Zia Mahmood did equally well in the play.

Hamman’s quantitative four no-trump gave Zia the chance to opt for slam in diamonds, and after a club lead, Zia put in the 10. Then he cashed the diamond ace, came to hand in clubs, and drew trump.

Now he knew West, Geir Helgemo, had the heart ace and the club jack, so East was a favorite to hold the spade king. (Zia could also see that if this were the case, six no-trump would go down). So Zia cashed the spade ace and ran the queen, to make 13 tricks.

On the same deal, George Jacobs found a very nice play here to defeat the slam, when given a chance by declarer. Norberto Bocchi reached six diamonds on an unopposed sequence and received a club lead from Jacobs.

Bocchi won it in hand and played a spade to the ace, ruffed a spade, then played a diamond to the ace, ruffed a spade with the diamond 10, and cashed the diamond king-queen.

At this point he led a club toward dummy, intending to insert the 10 to create an extra dummy entry to finish ruffing out the spades and then cash them. But Jacobs crossed him up by inserting the club jack to block the suit, and deny declarer the extra entry he required.

Now Bocchi needed the heart finesse — and when it failed, he was set one trick.

Part of the secret of bridge is drawing inferences from the bids that are made, as well as the ones that aren’t. In this deal from the Cavendish Invitation Pairs, playing with the late Sidney Lazard, Bart Bramley drew an interesting conclusion to bring home his delicate contract of four diamonds.

West led the spade king and continued with a low spade. Bramley put up the jack to see which honor East had, trying to develop a count on his opponents’ high cards. He ruffed the spade, then drew two rounds of trump ending in dummy, and tried a club to his king. When that held, he led a third diamond to dummy and played a second club.

Michael Cornell, sitting East, took his ace and exited safely with a third club. Bramley won in hand, and now was able to build up a picture of his opponents’ assets.

East’s cuebid raise had shown a maximum pass; this meant that he rated to hold both the club and heart aces and the spade queen. So Bart decided he was not a favorite also to hold the heart jack. Since his partnership were playing the weak no-trump, East might have opened the bidding with that card in addition to his known 10-count, whether or not he had the club jack.

So Bart tabled the heart 10, and now whether West covered this or not Bramley was able to make his contract. Had West put up his jack, declarer would eventually have been able to finesse successfully against the heart nine.

The Cavendish Pairs was held in Nevada for 15 years from the mid 1990’s onward, after the tournament moved from New York. It attracted players from all around the world, and boasted the largest cash prizes of any bridge tournament, with a prize pool well in excess of a million dollars.

This deal from 20 years ago shows Michel Abecassis taking advantage of a defensive slip to bring home a very tough game contract against Simon De Wijs and Ricco van Prooijen of the Netherlands.

After a club lead, Abecassis might have tried to run the lead round to his hand. The defenders would then have won and got in with the diamond ace to play a third club, and declarer would almost certainly have gone down now.

Instead, declarer rose with the club ace at trick one and drew three rounds of trumps with the aid of the finesse. Next he led a diamond to the king and ace, and back came a sneaky low heart.

Michel guessed well when he flew up with the king and exited with a low heart. East was forced to win the ace and cash the club king, then exit with the club jack. Abecassis ruffed this and ran all of his trumps, reducing to a position sometimes referred to as a pop-up or show-up squeeze.

On the last trump West had to keep his heart and thus came down to one diamond. But now Michel could play a diamond to the queen in the expectation that the jack would fall from East.

The Cavendish Teams threw up this problem for me, 20 years or so ago. I was South, partnered by my old friend Seymon Deutsch. Seymon may have done rather too much here, but he did at least leave me in a playable spot and provide me with a good story.

In three no-trump I received a club lead to dummy’s six and East’s eight. I won this in hand to advance the spade jack, which I was pleased to see covered by West. I won dummy’s ace, and returned a spade to the 10 and West’s king. The defense exited passively in spades.

It wasn’t clear what to do next, but I tried a club to the 10 and East’s jack, and East now shifted to hearts, letting me take West’s 10 with dummy’s king (yes it would have been better to win the ace and exit in hearts). This let me take the club ace, and now a fourth club compelled both defenders to pitch diamonds. Next I crossed to my hand on the last round of spades.

At this point West was able to come down to two hearts and the doubleton diamond king; but what could East do? If he also reduced to two hearts and two diamonds I would exit with a heart and would score two diamonds tricks in the end-game, one way or another. So East correctly bared his diamond jack. But that let me lead the diamond queen out of my hand to pin his jack, and collect the two diamond tricks I needed to make my contract.

All this week’s deals come from the Cavendish Invitation Tournament, an event that was played annually first in Las Vegas, then in Henderson, Nevada over a 15-year stretch at the start of this century.

In today’s deal Kit Woolsey came up with a variation on a theme to produce an elegant sure trick line in his contract of three no-trump. As South, you are favored with a heart lead, dummy’s jack holding the trick. What now?

You do not know the location of the heart queen, so finessing in clubs could lose to the queen, after which the defenders might lead a spade to an honor in East. Thereafter, a heart switch might leave you with four major-suit losers. Accordingly Woolsey crossed to the club ace at trick two and led the heart king from his hand, knowing that this would lose to the ace on his left.

If West now set up one more major-suit winner for him by playing on either major, declarer would now be able to overtake the diamond queen with the king and finesse in clubs. He would only take two diamond tricks, but would have five clubs, plus two tricks from the majors.

So West won his heart ace and found the best defense of shifting to diamonds; but Woolsey could simply win the ace in hand and drive out the heart queen. Then he would again have had the option, if necessary, of overtaking the diamond king as his entry to dummy for the club finesse and his ninth trick.

All the deals this week come from the Cavendish tournament, where a series of Invitation Pair games were played annually in Las Vegas from the mid-nineties through till just a couple of years ago. The event has now moved to Monaco.

Today’s deal shows that sometimes the most innocent of deals produce swings. The late Guido Ferraro played the normal game of four hearts on a top diamond lead. That looks comfortable enough does it not, just looking at the North-South cards? Eddie Wold led a top diamond, then shifted to the club king. Ferraro won and took the spade finesse (wouldn’t you?)

Now Wold won and led a second top diamond, forcing Ferraro to ruff in dummy – or so he thought. But at this point declarer was stuck in dummy. He could only lead hearts or clubs, so now one defender could get a ruff in one suit and eventually give his partner a ruff in the other. Down one — and it’s hard to see that declarer did anything wrong. The alternative line of cashing the spades from the top might fail if trumps are four-one, so what else could declarer have done?

The strange thing is that if declarer had not ruffed the second diamond, he would have been in position to overtake dummy’s remaining trump and make 10 tricks.

As the original reporter noted in passing, declarer had nine winning discards from dummy and only one losing option. To reject your 90 percent winning odds is never a good idea at Las Vegas.

At pairs overtricks and undertricks are your bread and butter, but at teams and rubber they tend to fall by the wayside.

In today’s deal from the Dyspeptics Club, South sensibly chose to rebid two spades rather than two no-trump, though had his red suits been switched he might have gone the other way.

Against four spades West cashed his hearts then led a third heart, ruffed by declarer in hand. Declarer continued with the spade ace and a spade to the king, East showing out. South next set about diamonds, but West ruffed the third round and accurately returned his last trump. Stuck in his hand, declarer had to lose a club trick, and with it, and the contract

When South looked around for sympathy he was faced with North’s grim visage. Wisely perhaps, South did not tempt fate by looking for sympathy. Can you see why North was upset?

Declarer was playing for an overtrick by his handling of the trumps. If East had held the spade length, he could have picked up the suit without loss. But South should have focused on making 10 tricks and the way to do that is to cash the ace and queen of spades. If they split 3-2, draw the last trump then play on diamonds for two club discards.

But when as here, South run into length on his left, he leaves the spade king in dummy and start running diamonds. West will ruff the third round, but declarer will have the spade king as an entry to the winning diamonds.