In today’s deal from the NEC Cup at Yokohama there is a choice of games between three no-trump and four spades. Four spades looks better, and is indeed makeable – but there are some subtle wrinkles in the play.

After a club lead, found at most tables, it seems declarer can succeed by leading a trump to the jack. In the match involving the Hackett team, the eventual winners, both tables played four spades on a club lead. Gunnar Hallberg won the club lead in hand, then unblocked clubs to lead a spade to the king. (In general terms this seems a sensible approach, since leading a spade to the jack and ace would not guarantee you were out of the woods, while if the spade king held declarer could almost claim 10 tricks.) Not today though, since after the spade king lost to the ace, a diamond shift would have set the game. However, West passively exited in trumps, and Hallberg had regained control, and made his game.

At the other table his teammate Brian Senior as West led a club to the jack and king, and back came a club to the ace. Now declarer guessed to lead a spade to the jack. When Senior ducked smoothly, declarer elected to lead out two more rounds of clubs, pitching diamonds from dummy. This was not absurd, but it let East ruff in with his bare spade queen. The defenders still had two trump tricks and a diamond to come, for down one.

Today’s deal sees a fine combined effort on defense against a three no-trump contract from the NEC tournament from Yokohama, one of the world’s strongest invitation teams events.

Fu Zhong as West started well by deceptively leading a fourth highest diamond from his four small cards. Declarer finessed, quite reasonably, and Jerry Li as East won and returned the textbook club 10 to pin dummy’s nine, covered by the jack and queen. Seeing the danger in the hearts, Fu played back a diamond to disrupt declarer’s communications.

Declarer took this, played the spade king, ducked, then the heart ace, and heart jack, ducked again, and a third heart. Li won his king, West pitching a diamond. At this point the defenders had taken a diamond, heart and club. Now Li played a spade to his partner’s ace for a third diamond play, the killing defense, since whichever hand South won this in, he was toast. Declarer could win in dummy and surrender a spade at the end, or win in hand and be left with a club loser.

The defense was basically forced from trick one onwards. Declarer could have succeeded at double dummy by rejecting the diamond finesse or by rising with the club ace at trick two. And because East had the club eight West could have continued playing on clubs earlier. However, his defense covered all the bases, since it would have prevailed against the actual lie of the cards, whether East had the club eight or not.

In this deal from last year’s NEC tournament in Yokohama Jason Hackett played three notrump as South, after East had opened two diamonds to show a weak hand with one major. One can hardly blame West for failing to lead a heart. While the logic of leading a diamond is obvious, West decided from the lack of a Stayman enquiry to try a major. He led a low spade and Hackett guessed extremely well at trick one to put up the jack (perhaps because the lead might have been from queen-third?).

Now came a low heart from dummy, East inserting the nine. Declarer won the ace, led a club to the king, and a club back to East’s queen. He took the diamond shift and led a third club, catching the defenders in a very unusual position.

If West played low, then he would be known to win the fourth club, since he still had the ace. So declarer would cash the heart king and throw West in with the third diamond. West would be able to cash his minor winners but would then have to lead a spade into the tenace at trick 12.

If West flew up with the club ace, then East would be sure to win the fourth club. Declarer could win the diamond return, cash his spade winner, remove East’s exit in diamonds and run the heart eight, letting East win and cash his master club but lead a heart into the tenace at trick 12. This line would work equally well if the defenders cash the fourth club at once.

In last year’s NEC Cup qualifying tournament more than half the field bid slam here and went down. The editors of the daily bulletin glossed over the play in six spades on a club lead, but Gopal Venkatesh persuaded them to revisit the deal. So how would you play the hand?

After a club lead won in the South hand, it looks natural to play spade ace, spade queen, then two more clubs, pitching the losing heart. Next lead the diamond ace, and a diamond. East does best to discard, then overruff dummy on the next diamond, and force declarer with a heart. You can ruff in the South hand, but now cannot both draw trump and get back to run the good diamonds. In fact, there’s no line of play that works after you cash both of South’s top spades at trick two and three. The idea of picking up West’s trumps when he holds jack-fourth is an illusion — unless diamonds split threetwo.

Can the hand be made if both pointed suits split four-one? Yes; after a non-heart lead, declarer must cash one high spade in the South hand and then lead a low trump to the king. Now come two more rounds of clubs, to pitch the losing heart, followed by ace and a second diamond. East cannot usefully ruff in, so he discards a heart.

So you win the diamond king and ruff a diamond, setting up the suit. If East over-ruffs, win his return and claim the rest. If he pitches, cross to the other high trump in hand and run diamonds. East can score only his trump trick.

This week’s deals all come from the NEC teams tournament held in Yokohama last year. When the Japanese team SARA met India in the last qualifying match, a place in the knockout phase was on the line, with the winner very likely to advance to the knock-out phase, while the loser would be eliminated.

Both East-West pairs did their best to get into their opponent’s auctions, but neither North-South pair tried to defend against a spade contract. In one room Tadashi Teramoto for SARA ended in a partscore in no-trump, losing just the four top tricks in aces and kings. With three no-trump very playable, would this be a small pick-up or a small loss for SARA?

In the other room Gopal Venkatesh for India reach three notrump. Takeshi Niekawa led a top spade and worked out from his partner’s signal to shift to a heart. Had declarer played for 3-3 hearts he would have won in dummy to preserve his entry to hand. Instead Venkatesh won his heart queen and led out his top clubs. East, Shugo Tanaka ducked twice, and now declarer could not afford to run hearts, since this would squeeze his hand in the process.

He therefore played a third club; Tanaka won and shifted back to spades, letting Niekawa win and get off lead in hearts, locking declarer in dummy to lead diamonds from the board, for down one. Nicely defended: this was the only table where three no-trump was defeated. Half the field bid and made game.

This week’s deals all come from last year’s NEC tournament in Yokohama.

This deal came up in the semifinals both declarers reached three no-trump here. Where David Bakhshi was declarer as North, he won East’s spade lead and played a diamond to the 10. West won his king to press on with spades, but declarer covered the nine and his spade intermediates now meant that he had nine top tricks, with a free heart finesse as his try for a 10th winner.

In the other room after a strong club and Stayman sequence, Andrey Gromov, South, ducked the club lead, won the next and led a diamond to the 10 and king. When he won the third club, he knew he needed to establish a spade trick, and he needed the ace to be offside, or the defenders would cash out the clubs.

A spade to the king scored, and now when he cashed a top heart and played two more rounds of diamonds he had squeezed East down to two spades and two hearts. He chose to finesse in hearts, letting East win and return a heart, leaving dummy with two losers for down one.

Had declarer led a spade to the jack, queen and ace in the four-card ending, he would have ensured the contract (unless East had failed to overcall a strong club when holding A J 10 6 2 of spades). East’s four last cards had to be the bare spade ace and three hearts, or two spades and two hearts. Either way, leading a spade would earn declarer the ninth trick from the subsequent forced heart play.

Given that the solution to today’s deal feels a touch artificial, you may not be entirely surprised to discover that it derives from a very old par contest problem. In those deals you rarely run into a favorable break or a winning finesse, so be warned that if your intended solution might fail, it probably will!

When West leads the diamond king, you can do better than taking the club finesse immediately, planning to ruff a club in dummy. That is a perfectly reasonable line; after losing the club finesse you would regain the lead and would draw two rounds of trump with the ace and king then hope to ruff out the clubs. But the lie of the cards is very hostile to that approach, and today you would go down like a stone.

Instead, the solution is to focus on dummy’s delicious spade spots. At trick two your shortage of entries to dummy means that you must cash the second diamond winner, unblocking your spade ace. Next lead out the spade queen and discard a club from hand. It will not do West any good to duck this (there are lies of the cards where if West had four spades it might help to duck the first two spades then win the third and lead a fourth to kill a discard, but not today). As it is, he wins the spade king at once but cannot stop you coming to 12 tricks via three spades, six hearts and three minor suit winners.

If you enjoy a touch of humor in your bridge deals, you may relish ‘Bridge Behind Bars’, a book from Master Point Press that sees experienced author Julian Pottage in harness with Nick Smith. The bridge is set in the fictional prison of Great Yarborough.

The hands are often instructive, and, unsurprisingly the ethically challenged players offer some amusing vignettes. But as you will see from the deal below, the bridge is far from perfect.

Here West led the club king against five diamonds doubled. Declarer ruffed the opening lead and led a diamond to dummy’s nine, ruffed a club, then played a diamond to dummy’s king before ruffing another club. He then drew the last trump and led out the spade ace followed by a spade to dummy’s 10. East now shifted to the heart ace and another heart, thus presenting declarer with his contract.

Can you see how both East and South might have done better? When East was in with the spade king, he could have saved the day by refusing to cash the heart ace and exiting with a low heart instead. He would then have had two heart tricks to come.

However, declarer could have prevented this. Knowing from the bidding that East holds at most two spades, he should have played low on the second round of the suit. East would win his king, but when he then exits with a low heart, declarer can win in hand with the 10 and finesse West’s spade jack, setting up the 10 for a heart discard.