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.

In today’s deal at his second turn, South can either reverse into hearts or simply jump to two no-trump. Either way, he will get to show his real extras, suitable for no-trump, by his third turn. Now North can jump to slam.

In six no-trump, on the opening lead of the spade eight, South needs to generate extra tricks from both diamonds or spades. It looks logical to play on diamonds first; if the finesse succeeds, South can then develop his 12th trick from spades.

So South wins the spade king, then club ace, and takes the diamond finesse. West wins his king and returns another spade through dummy’s tenace. Since the finesse looks a broken reed, South must put up the ace and play for a squeeze.

First he cashes the diamond ace, then runs his clubs, and at trick nine, West is obliged to save two diamonds, and must therefore reduce to two hearts. Dummy’s threat card in diamonds has served its purpose and must now be discarded, so that dummy can preserve the spade jack as a threat against East.

Declarer next crosses to dummy with the heart ace, and cashes the diamond jack, squeezing East. East cannot release a spade, since dummy’s jack would then become established. East therefore discards a heart, and South wins the last two tricks with the heart king and nine.

Did you see the defense to the slam? West must shift to a heart at trick four. This disrupts declarer’s communications for the squeeze.

If a partner you can normally trust does something seemingly strange in defense, it is worthwhile to pause and ask yourself why.

When West led the spade king against four hearts, East followed with the seven and declarer with the nine. Now West knew East’s seven was either a singleton or top of a doubleton – the start of an echo. After the spade ace held the second trick, the full spade position was clear.

At the next trick came the play that put East under the microscope, when West continued with the spade queen, apparently setting up dummy’s suit.

East could count on three tricks for the defense – the two already in the bag, plus the ace of trumps. It was possible, if unlikely, that West held the club ace – if South had held all the missing heart honors plus good diamonds, he would likely have bid in just the same way. But East felt that West would then have cashed the club ace at trick three, since the risk of declarer discarding his clubs on the spades would have been evident.

The only other plausible scenario was that West held jack-third or queen doubleton in trumps. If that were so, East would need to utilize his trump ace right now. If he did not, declarer would cross to dummy and lead a heart, and East’s ace would beat empty air. So East ruffed his partner’s spade queen with the trump ace – and now West had a second trump winner to defeat the game.

In today’s deal North-South were playing two over one as game forcing. But in competition North’s two-club call did not guarantee a second bid. Hence South had to jump to three hearts to set up a force. Now North’s diamond holding persuaded him to try four hearts rather than try for three no-trump. As you can see, reaching no-trump from South might have been the perfect outcome at teams, but at pairs the prospect for a 10th trick at hearts made his decision reasonable.

Put yourself in declarer’s position when West led the spade king against four hearts. See if you can find a better chance than simply finding the diamond ace onside. At the table South ducked the opening lead, and East followed with the nine, playing reverse signals, thus suggesting a three-card suit.

West now decided that declarer was unlikely to have the club queen or he might well not have ducked the first trick, so he accurately shifted to the club jack. South took dummy’s ace, cashed the heart ace, then made the critical play of leading the spade jack, ducking in dummy when West covered.

The best West could do was win and play a second club. Declarer won dummy’s king, threw his third club on the spade ace, and ruffed a club high.

Now he could lead draw trumps ending in dummy, then cash the long club to pitch a diamond. At this point, he had 10 tricks without relying on a favorable diamond position.

Last month I mentioned in passing that while attitude signals worked to give partner your opinion as to whether to continue with the suit led or whether to shift, there might still be occasions when you would encourage partner’s lead, even if you didn’t like the suit all that much.

The best reason for doing that is that you know you fear the consequences of partner’s shift, if you discourage his lead. Let us look at where we want to avoid partner making the “obvious” switch.

Playing a five-card major system, South opens one heart, West overcalls one spade, North bids two spades to show at least a limit raise in hearts and South bids four hearts.

When West leads a top spade, your systemic play would be the two, but do you really want partner to play a diamond, which is his most probable switch if you discourage spades? You are better off encouraging a spade continuation, (before the rats get at it) and allowing partner to collect his diamond winners if any in the fullness of time.

The point here is that even if partner were psychic enough to shift at trick two to a club not a diamond, declarer would then dispose of his second spade loser on the clubs and make his contract in a different way. From partner’s perspective, a diamond might be essential if declarer was about to build a discard on clubs and spades. His hand might be a 2=6=3-2 shape with the top hearts, diamond ace and club jack.

At a Fort Worth sectional, one of my readers, Dick McLamore was South. When he produced a strong jump shift to North’s one-heart opener(!) he heard North jump to five clubs, suggesting good clubs. So he took a pot at the grand slam, once he found a spade control opposite.

When West doubled, North masochistically passed, but McLamore decided that the double had to be based on a club void, the so-called Lightner double. This asks the hand on lead either to attack dummy’s first-bid suit, or to give his partner a ruff. Accordingly he escaped to seven no-trump.

This was logical reasoning, but wrong in every respect. Admittedly, the complete deal would have come as a complete surprise to just about everybody except North, who had had a bidding box accident at her first turn.

Against seven no-trump McLamore captured the spade king lead with the ace. If diamonds were 3-3, he could see there would be 13 tricks for the taking, but West showed out on the third round. Can you see how to advance the play?

Declarer simply ran the clubs, throwing a spade from hand on the fifth. He already knew from the bidding and play thus far that West had the spade queen and the hearts guarded, but even if East had held four hearts as well as West, the last club would have successfully squeezed both players.

In that scenario only a heart lead would have broken up the squeeze, and anyone who found that would have my admiration.

South’s two club opening bid and two no-trump rebid shows a balanced 22 to 24 points, letting North pass gratefully.

South ducks West’s spade lead in dummy, taking East’s king with his ace. He now has two spade tricks, two in hearts, and at best three in clubs. Where will his eighth come from?

South starts by leading the club jack, hoping that West will duck the trick even if he shouldn’t. When the jack holds, he continues with ace and another club and West wins his king.

West has a safe exit in the form of the heart jack. Declarer wins, and cashes off the 13th club, discarding a heart from the board. When West pitches the spade three, South must now get out from his hand, with a fairly good idea that West began with five spades and three clubs.

It looks natural to exit with king and another heart, but if he does, East will cash the 13th heart, and declarer’s hand will be squeezed.

Best may be to play West for the doubleton ace or king of diamonds (much more likely than that East has passed a hand with both top diamonds plus some major stuffing in third seat, nonvulnerable). So declarer exits with a low diamond from hand. When East wins cheaply, he does best to lead a second diamond to West’s bare king. But now, when West plays his heart 10, South ducks, wins the next heart, and plays queen and another spade. West must win and concede trick 13 to dummy’s 10.