Today’s deal helped decide the world junior championships 12 years ago. In the final set, the Israelis were making a charge to catch up the US team and in one room had played for a swing by stopping in four spades here.

But in our featured room declarer, Joel Wooldridge, thought his partner had the ace-king of hearts, while John Hurd believed the five heart bid showed the king not the queen.

After the sneaky lead of the diamond 10, the best line seemed to be to unblock the heart ace, then use minor-suit entries to take two heart ruffs. When the heart king fell, declarer could switch plans and draw trump. If the heart king did not fall in three rounds South would continue the crossruff, hoping all the minor-suit honors would stand up.

Wooldridge actually won the diamond lead, unblocked the club king, crossed to the heart ace, then played ace and another club. When he cashed the diamond queen and saw West produce the jack, he ruffed another heart and led the fourth club.

Once East discarded on this trick Wooldridge ruffed low, ruffed a heart and then ruffed a diamond with the spade nine. When West could not overruff, declarer had a high crossruff for the contract. The US team went on to win the match by a deceptively comfortable margin.

But notice that in this ending if East had ruffed the fourth club with the spade 10, declarer is stuck. He can overruff, but he never gets to score the spade six, since West can overruff him in both minors.

The first three deals of the World Junior Finals in Rio in 2003 turned out to be decisive in the match. The US teams scored heavily on them all, although if their opponents, Israel, had escaped avoidable error they might have been far in front themselves. Here is one of these deals.

In one room John Kranyak’s Grand Slam Force did not get the job done, and he settled for 12 tricks in the small slam. In the other room a complex auction, after North could open to show a two-suiter, saw Ranny Schneider reach the decent seven spades. Schneider won the diamond lead and drew two rounds of trump with the ace and king. Now he cashed the club ace, and after much thought ruffed two clubs in dummy. He was overruffed on the second round, for down one.

A slightly better percentage line is to cash the second top club from hand before ruffing a club. If no honor appears, you need to ruff a club in dummy and cross your fingers. If an honor appears from East, draw the last trump and take a ruffing finesse against the remaining honor. This line goes down whenever East has precisely queen-jack-third in clubs, or whenever East has brilliantly false-carded with an honor from an original holding of QJxx — in which case he deserves to beat you! But once East has three trumps to West’s one, he is more likely to have a doubleton honor, as in the diagram, than a very specific three-card holding.

Both Souths declared three spades here, on this deal from the 2003 world junior teams final between Israel and the US. At one table Joe Grue for the US ducked the heart lead and won the heart return, then finessed in trumps and West not unreasonably took the trick.

Declarer won the trump return and cashed the diamond ace before ruffing a heart (on which West could have pitched a diamond to arrange a ruff had he been 4-2-2-5). No harm done; when the diamond queen popped up, Grue collected 11 tricks.

In the second room, West, Joel Wooldridge, was allowed to hold the heart king. But here Wooldridge found the very effective shift to the club jack. That let the defense force declarer with three rounds of clubs.

South, Yossi Roll, ruffed and next led low to the trump queen. The appearance of the 10 should have alerted him to the possibility of a 4-1 trump break. He next unblocked the heart ace and crossed back to his hand with a diamond.

If trumps were 4-1 his only chance was to find the doubleton diamond queen in East, to let him cash two more diamonds. Then declarer could cross to the trump ace and ruff a heart in dummy. But declarer led a heart prematurely, and that let Wooldridge as West pitch a losing diamond. Declarer could score his ruff, but when the bad trump split came to light, dummy was out of trump. West could win his trump king and lead the fourth club, to establish a long trump for himself, for down one.

When the US met Thailand in the semi-finals of the 2003 Junior World Championships, they conducted a flawless defense against four spades here.

West’s double at his second turn was support, showing precisely three hearts. A raise would have guaranteed four trump.

West led the heart queen, which East overtook with the king to fire back a club to declarer’s ace. After cashing the spade ace and leading the spade jack to the queen, declarer ruffed a heart and exited in clubs. Though West put up the jack, East overtook again with the queen and continued with a heart, ruffed by declarer. South could not do better than cross to dummy again in spades and lead the diamond jack. East kept up the good work by covering with the queen, and declarer was one down, losing the diamond king to West’s ace, with the diamond l0 still to come. Well done.

For the US John Kranyak was given a chance by the defense, and took full advantage.

West led the heart queen and played another heart when left on lead. Declarer ruffed, played a spade to the queen, ruffed a heart, played a spade to the nine and ruffed another heart. Then he drew trump, cashed the club ace, and exited in clubs, won by East.

With hearts and clubs eliminated, East could do no better than return a small diamond, but declarer guessed correctly to play low from hand, and was home when West’s ace fell on empty air.

At the start of the world junior teams championships in 2003 Canada headed towards the top of the table at once. Most of the Canadian players were well known in the USA, but they had also produced a new star. Vincent Demuy is a French speaker who had not spent much time in the USA, but he is now a well-established expert. Here he is, at work on a deal from an early match against Denmark, who were also set to contend for major honors.

Both Canada and Denmark reached three no-trump by South, after facing a spade overcall from West, and both tables received a low spade lead, won in hand. For Denmark, Andreas Marquardsen won the spade lead in hand and crossed to dummy with a club to lead a diamond to the jack. Unlucky! West won and cashed a top spade to find the split, then tried the heart king, and now declarer could only make six tricks.

In the other room Demuy won his spade 10 at trick one and realized that he only needed four diamond tricks, but that entries to hand were going to be a problem, so he ducked the first diamond, leading a low card from hand. He knew that if the defense won this trick and returned a spade he would get an inferential count on both black suits before having to guess whether to play for diamonds to be 3-2 or 4-1. As the cards lay, when the diamond queen appeared he had 10 top tricks.

Since the world junior teams are taking place now in Croatia, this week’s deals focus on the junior event from 2003, won by USA. When USA took on the Norwegians, the match was close till the end. However an explosion of penalty doubles set the seal on an impressive American finish. Here, though Norway did well in one room, the board then blew up in their faces in the other room.

Both tables played four spades doubled. In the Closed Room the Norwegian West led a club, to the seven, eight and jack. Declarer established another club trick by returning a club to the queen and ace. East now laid down the heart ace, but that helped South set up the hearts, and escape for one down one.

In the other room West also led the club four, but this time East, John Kranyak, took the ace and decided to go for bigger game. He returned a deceptive spade nine to declarer’s ace, who now cashed two clubs discarding a heart.

When declarer decided to finesse in diamonds, the roof fell in. West won his king and played back the heart queen to the king and East’s ace. That player then switched back to a trump to dummy’s king. The best declarer could do now was to let the heart eight run to North’s nine, to emerge three down. USA had 800 and 12 IMPs.

Had declarer ruffed the second heart in hand and tried to ruff a diamond in dummy, East would have overruffed, and drawn trump, to collect 1100!

The play in four spades is not complicated here, but declarer needed to focus on the critical issue. When the deal took place at the table, in a team game, the deal was flat, with both declarers flubbing their lines.

In one room, after a diamond lead, South tried to cash two top diamonds and ruff a diamond low. East overruffed and returned a trump, leaving South with three red-suit losers.

In the other room South ruffed the third diamond high. East pitched the club king, and when declarer played the club ace, East ruffed in and played back a trump, and declarer was again left with no chance to make his game.

The key here is how to play a cross-ruff to eliminate as many chances as you can that the defenders might ruff in or overruff you. It is often vital to cash your side suits winners, in case a defender can discard and then be able to ruff away one of the winners.

So win the diamond ace and cash the club ace immediately, then take the second top diamond and ruff a diamond high. Ruff a club to hand, then trump your fourth diamond with the spade eight. East can overruff, but declarer takes three plain winners, six trumps in hand and one diamond ruff in dummy.

It may not be likely that one defender has a singleton club and only two diamonds, but if you can protect yourself against an unlikely event, why not do so rather than be dependent on the kindness of strangers?

One of the more curious experiences I have had in scoring up recently came on a hand from a team game from a Las Vegas regional tournament. I sat East, and defended four hearts, after having been tempted to take the sacrifice in four spades, which would probably have escaped for down one.

When my partner led the diamond queen I could infer that he had enough spade length to make that lead unattractive. Though I could not see a legitimate way to defeat the hand, I elected to duck the first trick. When declarer played on trump I won and cashed my club ace, then underled in diamonds to get my club ruff and defeat the game.

Since declarer could have made the hand by returning a diamond at trick two (a form of Scissors Coup to cut the defenders’ communications) I was quietly confident as we came back to score up. Our teammates announced “minus 50” and though I said nothing at the time, I was a little disappointed. I waited to ask what had happened until the meal-break. South said that the opponents had simply led spades to trick one, then ducked the first trump, won the next and continued leading spades at every turn. Declarer could not manage the triple task of drawing trump, setting up clubs, and establishing the diamond king, without running out of trump!

Sometimes the easiest defenses to find, in theory, are the hardest to discover at the table.

When you have no hope of making your contract by legitimate means, subterfuge just might see you home. On the following hand Denmark’s Thorvald Aagaard probably initially assumed with some justification that the deal belonged to his side. When he opened two clubs and West overcalled four hearts, it was passed back to Aagaard, who bid five diamonds.

Had the North and East hands been interchanged, this would have been a fine contract. As things were, five diamonds was an excellent sacrifice, there always being 11 tricks available in hearts for East-West.

So far so good, but there was better to come. West made his natural lead of a top heart, and when this held, continued with another, on which South discarded his club four!

Look at the problem now from West’s perspective. Had South originally held ace-queen third of spades and a doubleton club ace, a spade lead away from the king now would have handed declarer his contract. Since a third heart by West would present declarer with a ruff and discard, to allow a spade to be discarded from dummy, it seemed that the only option was to shift to a club.

Aagaard seized upon this gratefully. He drew trump in two rounds, cashed his second top club, then entered dummy twice in trumps, overtaking first the three and then the diamond six, first to ruff a club, setting up the suit, and second, to utilize the clubs for two spade discards. Five diamonds, bid and made.