Iconoclasts will tell you rules are meant to be broken. Up to a point, perhaps. The reasons the rules exist is because they tend to have at least an underlying grain of sense. However, applying the rules without pausing for reflection is as dangerous as ignoring the rules altogether.

Let’s look at today’s deal, from a team game. What should West lead? In one room West settled for the low club lead, and declarer guessed extremely well to let it run, judging that West might well have been unhappy underleading a king here. East took his club king and shifted to spades, and the defenders took the ace and pressed on with that suit. Declarer pitched his spade loser on the clubs, and discarded his diamond loser on the club nine as West ruffed in. With the heart jack falling, declarer could claim the rest.

In the other room West was not put off by his awkward spade holding. South’s bidding suggested little outside a strong heart suit, so any missing spade honors were relatively likely to be in dummy, and spades was the most likely suit for East-West to have winners in, either to cash or to establish.

After the spade ace and another spade, declarer was locked in dummy. He elected to play a third spade, and West won and shifted to clubs, setting up his side’s fourth winner in plenty of time. Declarer finessed the queen, and East took his king and knew to shift to diamonds, to cash out for down one.

On this deal from the Mixed Teams at Sanya both Souths were faced with a choice of whether to go high or low at their first turn to speak. The fact that you have no sure defensive trick argues for preempting to the limit. Both Souths duly preempted to four diamonds and were raised to game. What should one lead from the West hand?

In one room West selected the club four. I’m not convinced about the technical merits of this approach — but it worked a treat. Declarer had no choice but to finesse, and East won with the king and returned the spade four, West’s major-suit aces producing a rapid one down.

In the second room, where Mike Cappelletti Jr. was declarer, West went for the heart ace. I admit it: this is what I would have done too. She then switched to an honest club nine, and declarer played her to be an upright citizen, and not to have the club king. He put up dummy’s ace and then treated the defenders to eight rounds of diamonds.

When the last of them hit the table, declarer had a club menace in hand and a threat card in each major. West had to keep two hearts and the spade ace, thus discarded her last club. With the communications cut between the two defenders, declarer could come down to two spades and one heart in dummy, and lead a spade toward the king for his 11th trick. That was a well-played +400 and 10 IMPs.

Benedicte Cronier and Sylvie Willard of France are generally ranked as one of the world’s top women pairs – and they are also charming partners and teammates.

In the most recent world championships where duplicated boards were in use Willard outplayed most of the declarers (male and female) in her seat.

She declared six clubs on a top diamond lead. She won in dummy and tried the club ace, believing her RHO’s play of the club queen. So she played the spade ace and ruffed a spade, crossed to the diamond king and ruffed another spade, (West missing her chance by following low at every turn). Then declarer tried two top hearts, and when East also fell from grace by failing to drop one of the heart jack or 10 under the king, Willard decided the suit was not breaking.

She ruffed her diamond winner to dummy, then judged perfectly to ruff a spade to hand and exit in hearts. This forced West to ruff and lead away from her trump trick. Plus 1370 meant Willard was the only declarer to make her slam in the McConnell Cup.

As indicated above, West could surely have made Willard’s life far harder by dropping the spade king on the third round of spades. Now declarer would surely have played for hearts to break, allowing West to ruff in while she could still exit with the fourth spade, defeating the slam.

Just for the record: at least two tables in the open event played partscore here with the NorthSouth cards, picking up a very undeserving swing.

In the round of 32 knock-out phase of the mixed teams at Sanya the easiest winners were Moss, who ended up winning by 100 IMPs — despite conceding an 1100 penalty on the very first deal, just to make it more interesting. This was the second deal.

Where Sylvia Moss and Michael Seamon were East-West, a quiet one heart opening by West saw their opponents collect plus 150 in three clubs. Moss’ teammate Kerri Sanborn found herself in four spades after her opponents as West bid much more aggressively. Curiously, though nobody defended four hearts doubled here, quite a few pairs were caught in three hearts when North guessed well to pass out South’s balancing take-out double.

So how should Sanborn have played four spades on repeated heart leads? It is best to ruff, cross to a top club in dummy and ruff another heart. East can do no better than pitch a diamond, so you unblock your trump honors from hand, cross to a second club in dummy, and draw a third round of trump, leaving East with the master spade and winning club. When you play a third club, East is on lead. If he cashes his master trump, you pitch diamonds from both hands, and claim the balance.

He does much better to shift to a diamond, but whether he leads a high one or low one, your diamond 10 is enough to ensure you three diamond tricks as the cards lie.

You end up scoring two ruffs and three trumps, and five tricks in the minors, one way or another.

The mixed teams event at the world championships in Sanya saw the Willenken team of the USA defeat Binkie, a combined Anglo/Australian squad. This deal turned out to be critical.

In one room the Willenken team had reached four spades by North and been treated to a friendly low club lead. Declarer had come home with 10 tricks by running the lead to his hand. He played on trumps, then, after a helpful heart switch by West, he had set up hearts for one loser, eventually taking the diamond finesse for his 10th winner.

In the other room Jane Dawson for Binkie declared the contract as South on the auction shown. West’s club opening lead did not cost a trick. Dawson won with the ace in hand and led to the diamond queen. When that held, she cashed the ace of diamonds, ruffed a diamond and cashed the club king, discarding a heart from dummy.

Declarer then ruffed a club, as West discarded a heart, and ruffed another diamond in hand before playing her fourth club. She ruffed in dummy as West discarded another heart.

In the five-card ending if declarer had now cashed the heart ace and exited with a heart, West would have been forced to ruff her partner’s winner and been trump-endplayed. But declarer misread the position by playing a low heart from dummy, and went down anyway.

Note, though, that West had missed her chance by not ruffing low on the previous club. Had she kept two hearts and three trumps in the ending, declarer would have been helpless.

Since the eastern Indian city of Chennai is currently hosting the Bermuda Bowl, we shall be considering deals from last October’s world championships in Sanya, China. Today’s exhibit from the Rosenblum semifinal between Monaco and Diamond nearly rescued the event for the latter.

In one room Helness and Helgemo for Monaco had stopped in three diamonds, for a comfortable 10 tricks, after Helness, North, had opened the bidding. Curiously, South had bid two no-trump in the face of West’s spade bid. Had North raised to three no-trump, we would have had a chance to see if West would have led the spade ace. Of course declarer would still have had to negotiate the diamonds after any other lead.

In the other room Brink and Drijver for the Diamond team pursued the sensible policy of ensuring that with an opening bid facing an opening bid, they would at least get to game.

West led the club queen against five diamonds. Declarer won in dummy and played a spade to the king and ace. West returned the spade queen, and declarer ruffed, cashed the club king, then ruffed a club with the diamond jack. He next ruffed a spade, ruffed a club with the diamond king, played a diamond to the 10, cashed the diamond ace, and exited with a diamond.

East had to win his diamond queen, and had no choice now but to lead into declarer’s heart tenace, and Drijver could not guess wrong. That was 11 tricks and a worthy gain of 7 IMPs for Diamond.

Today’s deal is from the women’s world championships in Sanya, China last October. It is from the match between the Moss team of the USA, against Singapore. Disa Eythorsdottir, originally from Iceland, but now living in Huntsville, Alabama, was declarer.

After her partner Lynn Deas had doubled twice, Disa assumed correctly that she had sufficient extra values for three no-trump to have decent play. So she leaped directly to the contract she thought she could make.

Disa won the lead of the heart five in hand with the queen, and led a diamond to the king, a club to the king and a diamond to the queen. With two diamond tricks in the bag she now required just four club tricks, so she thoughtfully led a low club from the board to make full use of her intermediates. Had East ducked, declarer would have reverted to diamonds, but East accurately rose with the club queen, and the 5-1 split meant one of South’s contemplated nine tricks had vanished.

East now reverted to hearts. Disa ducked, pitching a club from dummy, (necessary, since if she had discarded a diamond, West would have cashed the diamond ace and exited in spades). Disa won the next heart, discarding a diamond, and now led a spade to the 10.

When East won her spade king, she had to lead a club; so Disa cashed both clubs and forced West to let go both her hearts. Now a diamond exit endplayed West to lead spades at trick 12, and declarer finessed for her ninth trick.

One of my regular correspondents is Tim Bourke, winner with Justin Corfield of “The Art of Declarer Play”, bridge book of the year in 2014. Tim never ceases to impress me with his fertile imagination. Here West leads the spade queen against five clubs; plan the play.

While the diamond ace looks likely to be offside, a simple line would be to play on diamonds, hoping for the diamond queen to be with East; but you can do better. Declarer wins the spade lead in dummy, ruffs a heart, then takes the next six tricks by crossruffing the majors, ruffing the remaining hearts high in hand as West pitches a diamond on the last.

By this point, West, whose bidding has suggested close to invitational values, needs the diamond queen to justify his actions.

Accordingly, in the five-card ending declarer crosses to dummy in trumps and leads the last heart from dummy, throwing the diamond five as East wins his king. If West discards a diamond, East’s diamond ace takes trick 11 but the diamond king and club ace represent the last two tricks. If West ruffs his partner’s winner and leads a diamond, then playing low is obvious. This forces the ace, and declarer claims the rest.

If West had turned up with better hearts earlier, so that East appeared to have both top diamonds, then instead of ruffing out the hearts, declarer would need to switch tack by leading a diamond from dummy and playing to set up a diamond.