There is nothing I appreciate more than receiving a deal from friends and colleagues – especially one that shows the true experts falling from grace. And my readers should realize that if the top players can err, there is hope for everyone.

David Gurvich was watching a match in the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams match between Mahaffey and the Texan Aces last spring in Reno. At both tables, South declared four hearts on the lead of the diamond jack to dummy’s queen. East’s diamond five at trick one would be true count – but it is of course very hard to read.

Both declarers led ace and another heart, a line that would succeed unless hearts were 3-1 with no singleton honor to the right, and the club finesse was failing. But today was that unlucky day.

A far better approach is to lead a heart from dummy at trick two, covering East’s five. While there are some unlucky lies of the cards where this would fail, in practice West will win the heart 10, and return a diamond. When East follows suit, you can guarantee the contract by leading a heart to the ace.

When West discards, you simply ruff a diamond in dummy. It does East no good to over-ruff, because you have entries back to hand to pitch clubs on the two good diamonds. But if East does not over-ruff, play a third trump yourself. You can win the club return, and again discard both of dummy’s club losers on your good diamonds.

All the deals this week come from last year’s Spring Nationals tournament in Reno to mark the fact that this year’s event is currently taking place in Kansas City,

Today’s deal cropped up in the last set of an early Vanderbilt Knockout match. Three diamonds might not seem a healthy spot, but you are not displeased to see the heart queen hit the table. When you try a club to the queen to your surprise and pleasure, it holds the trick. Things are definitely looking up! What should you do after taking the heart ace to pitch a spade from dummy?

At the table, West covered declarer’s heart nine, to force declarer to ruff in dummy. South next exited with the spade queen. West won, led a heart for his partner to ruff and back came the diamond jack. Now the contract could no longer be made.

At trick four it was necessary to take the diamond finesse, and only now should you exit with the spade queen. The defenders do best to let West win and play a second trump, which you win, to duck a club.

When East wins, his best move is to play back a heart to the 10 and jack, ruffed in dummy. South cannot afford to ruff a club now, since West would be able to over-ruff and exit in spades. Instead, declarer leads another club, and discards a spade on it. East is endplayed, either to set up a club or a spade for declarer’s ninth trick.

Since the spring nationals are taking place this week in Kansas City, I shall be writing up some of the best hands from last year’s tournament in Reno.

In today’s deal, from the second qualifying session of the Kay Platinum Pairs, David Grainger demonstrated some neat declarer-play skills. He could overcall two hearts to show six hearts and a decent hand, after which North took a slightly pushy call to drive to game (a simple raise or cuebid raise might have been enough).

The defenders would have prevailed had they led and continued trumps, but West can hardly be criticized for kicking off with a top club. Grainger ruffed this, and read the clubs as being 6-2.

He decided that his best chance would be to find East with four cards in each major. So he ruffed the club, crossed to the spade king, then ruffed a second club and played the spade ace, spade queen and ruffed his fourth spade, over-ruffing West’s heart three with the nine.

Now Grainger ruffed a third club as East discarded a diamond (ruffing in with the jack or 10 would have let declarer pitch a diamond and take a trump finesse later). He next led a diamond to the ace and advanced a fourth club, to ensure he could take two more trump tricks, whatever East did.

That meant declarer could score four tricks in spades, the diamond ace, and five trumps in hand to come to 10 tricks.

In today’s deal South showed a strong hand plus a long minor when he jumped to three no-trump at his second turn. Playing Kokish relays, had he held a minimum balanced hand he would have rebid two no-trump. In this method, all other balanced game-forcing balanced hands start with an artificial two heart rebid at the second turn.

South had coped with the action perfectly but he relaxed prematurely after the club 10 lead traveled round to his king. He exited with the club queen, and West won and rather desperately shifted to a low spade to his partner’s ace for a spade back. West captured the queen with the king and now ingeniously exited with the diamond 10. Declarer could have run the diamonds but he saw this would squeeze dummy. Instead, he stripped off the diamonds and took his best shot in the hearts when he led up to the queen in dummy. East won this with the king, and returned a heart. Declarer put in the 10, losing to the jack, and that was down one.

The winning line for South is to cash three diamonds at once, then lead the club king. The defenders can take their club and spade winners as before, but West must then lead a heart for declarer. When South plays low from dummy, then even if East can put in the jack declarer can win and run all but one diamond to come down to two black winners in dummy and the bare heart queen. Then he exits in hearts, and take two of the last three tricks.

Not all nine counts are created equal. Facing a strong no-trump, North has a chunky five-card suit. He knows that his partnership is close to the game zone, and the long suit may well provide South with enough material for the nine-trick game to have play. So he should simply bid three no-trump instead of merely inviting it with a bid of two no-trump.

After a heart lead, not only does the heart finesse lose but the heart ace is knocked out of the dummy before South has had time to establish the clubs. Nonetheless it looks logical for South to go after the clubs, but look what happens when South leads out the club king and another club. West will duck both the first and the second club but will take the third club if South plays it. Similarly West will likewise refuse the king and diamond queen, but should take South’s low diamond at his first opportunity, to block the suit. Then he can clear the hearts, and South will end up making only two clubs and two diamonds. Coupled with two tricks in each major, that comes to just eight tricks for declarer.

By contrast, if South goes after diamonds early, he can make sure of reaching dummy for the third diamond trick, because he has a sure entry to the board in clubs. The defenders can take two hearts and two aces, but declarer can come to three diamonds and two tricks in each of the other suits, for nine tricks in total.

In today’s deal East was a relative novice, but one who had already indicated that he had a decent nose for the game. Against four hearts West had no reason to find the killing club lead. Instead he led the diamond two, and declarer played low from dummy. When East won his king, there followed a long pause. Eventually South asked East if he knew whose lead it was, but East was not to be goaded into coming to a premature decision. Eventually the club ace hit the deck, somewhat to West’s surprise. However, as the play advanced he realized that his partner had found the only defense to beat the contract.

To South’s credit, when he found that he had an inescapable loser in each major, he congratulated his RHO and asked how he had found the killing defense. As East explained, South was marked from the auction with at least 10 cards in the majors. That left room for just three minor suit cards.

When West led the diamond two, this could in theory have been from three or four cards to one honor but not to a holding including both the queen and jack. If the lead was from a three-card suit, then South would have been void in clubs, but could not have a diamond loser. Therefore even if the club ace was ruffed away, it could not matter.

However if South held a singleton club with either the doubleton diamond jack or queen, then declarer’s club loser could be disposed of on dummy’s diamond winner.

Goldilocks was well into spring-cleaning the bears’ cabin when she heard them return from their weekly foray to the bridge club. Today Papa Bear’s roaring could be heard as he came into the driveway. This was the board that upset him. His partner had declared three no-trump on a low spade lead.

“Can you believe the idiot put up the jack? He ducked the first and second spades

But West overtook, and cleared spades, with a sure diamond entry to shoot down the contract.”

Mama Bear felt she had done better. “I ducked the first spade in dummy, and when the 10 came up I played low from hand. I was hoping East had K-10 doubleton when the suit would be blocked. But as it was, West could overtake the queen when I ducked again, and now I was dead meat.”

Since Baby Bear was giving signs of being about to explode, Goldilocks decided to relieve the tension and ask him what had happened at his table.

“I played low from dummy and won with the ace,” he said. “This would block the suit whenever East has the doubleton king or queen of spades. I could then cross to the club king and play a diamond to the jack. Later I could use the heart ace entry for running the diamond eight. That would allow me to pick up any 4-1 diamond break.”

Since West might have overcalled with king-queen-fifth of spades and something in the red suits, this seemed best all round. And it worked.

In today’s deal, both tables in a team game reached three no-trump after West had preempted at unfavorable vulnerability. In one case South closed his eyes and jumped to three no-trump at his first turn, in the other case when North showed some values with a constructive call of three clubs, South converted to three no-trump. (Had North been weaker he could have used an extension of the Lebensohl convention by bidding two no-trump as a puppet to three clubs.)

The declarer who had followed the direct route in the auction won the first heart lead, unblocked clubs, then crossed to the diamond ace to try to run clubs. When that line failed, so did his contract.

In the other room South thoughtfully ducked the first two hearts as West led out the heart king, queen then jack, suggesting suit preference for spades. South pitched a spade from dummy on the third heart. Meanwhile, East did the best he could for his side by also discarding spades.

Declarer then advanced the club queen, followed by the club king. When West followed on the second round with the 10 declarer decided that since West had six hearts and East one, clubs were far more likely to be 4-2 initially than 3-3. Additionally the fall of the 10 was much more likely to be from a doubleton than J-10-7. So he overtook the club king with the ace and led out the nine, losing the trick to East, but setting up his ninth top winner in the process.

In today’s hand South’s hand is best described by an immediate jump to three no-trump, suggesting a balanced game-force with a balanced 13-15 points. When North moves on, he is suggesting a balanced 18-19 count. South would be prepared to offer clubs as a trump suit if he had four but not here, and his controls suggest moving directly to the no-trump slam.

The defenders make the natural, but helpful, heart lead. However, despite being gifted the solution to locating the heart queen, the contract is by no means cold. How should declarer play the hand to best advantage?

Good technique here is to win the opening lead in hand and lay down the club ace, just in case East has a singleton honor, then lead a club, planning to duck an honor from West or to cover a small card. By giving up your loser at once, it makes the rest of the hand much easier to play.

You can now win the heart return and cash off the third heart, then all the spades. You next test clubs and find out who began with the club length. In the process of delaying the diamond guess, you get a very full picture of the major suit distributions, since one defender or the other will show out in each suit.

Here, you will find West has five hearts, precisely two spades, and can be counted for four clubs. So cash the diamond ace and queen, and in the two-card ending, finesse against the jack with confidence.