For many years the three major US tournaments, the Vanderbilt, Spingold, and Reisinger were used as qualifying events for the US trials, so the fields effectively consisted only of American players. When the trials opened up to everyone, about 20 years ago, foreign players started to come in greater numbers to the US national tournaments.

As the events got stronger (they are basically the equivalent of world championships now) foreign winners started to emerge. But it took until 2008 for a Polish team to win the Vanderbilt, and their performance was even more impressive when you consider that they played throughout as a team of four.

But, of course, when you play every board, you will not get everything right. Krzysztof Martens showed me this deal to indicate how tiredness can get the better of everybody. Four hearts is not a great spot — especially on a spade lead. Martens took his spade ace and played on diamonds by taking the finesse. East ruffed the third round, so Martens overruffed and played a club to the king, which held the trick. Then a heart towards the king left the defenders no chance.

The defenders could and should have prevailed by winning the club ace and under-leading in spades to allow the lead of the fourth diamond, ruffed with the heart ace. That promotes the heart queen to the setting trick. And declarer could and should have countered that by discarding his spade on the third diamond.

While the world junior championships were being played in Bali in 1995, a tournament to celebrate Indonesia’s 50th anniversary was being run simultaneously. Today’s problem meant the difference between qualifying for the finals or going home, so it turned out to be an expensive slip for South.

South handled his very powerful hand sensibly enough in the auction, but North might have passed three spades, reasoning that the club king was not likely to be pulling its full weight. Indeed, the final contract looks next to impossible, even after the lead of the diamond ace.

However, at trick two, after a lot of thought, West switched to the club ace, then played the heart nine, to East’s queen and declarer’s ace. What next? The line chosen at the table by declarer was to draw four rounds of trump and try the heart 10, but East ducked that and declarer had no chance now. He had to lose one further trick in each red suit.

Can you spot the winning line? It is not so bizarre; West’s auction and opening lead suggest he has seven clubs and the bare diamond ace. You need to win the first heart and play West to be 4-1-1-7. You can test the theory by playing three top trump, and then throwing West in by leading your low trump, to force him to play a club for you. Now you have an entry to dummy to take the diamond finesse, and eventually a second parking place for your losing hearts.

When this deal came up at a club duplicate the field was divided between those recording nine tricks in three no-trump, and those who fared somewhat less well.

The auction almost always took this form, and West was blessed with an easy lead of the heart jack. The unsuccessful declarers led a diamond to one of dummy’s honors. East won the trick and returned a heart, and got in with the club king to play a third heart. Now West had a sure entry in the form of the club ace, plus two hearts to cash.

By contrast, the successful declarers won the opening lead and played the diamond queen from their hand. Some Easts took the trick to return a heart, but declarer could win, then duck a diamond, and come to five tricks in the majors and four diamonds.

The more cautious defenders ducked the diamond queen. Now declarer could change tack, realizing the futility of trying to set up more than one further trick in diamonds. He played on clubs, and East won the first club and played back a heart. But declarer, with one diamond trick in the bag, simply drove out the club ace, and had his five major-suit tricks, three clubs, and one diamond winner, for nine tricks.

You could argue that the defenders who led a low diamond from hand at trick two were unlucky, since against anything but the 4-0 diamond break their play would not cost. I say fortune favors the prepared mind.

The death of my good friend Ernesto d’Orsi three months ago came as a terrible shock. Ernesto had been president of the World Bridge Federation directly before my term in the job. I valued him as an adviser and a friend, and when my late wife, Debbie became seriously ill in the early 1990’s, he traveled to our home, with many hours of music, and presented her with a selection of songs he had put together from the current Broadway shows. He also performed as an unpaid disk jockey in Sao Paulo on Saturday mornings at a popular local radio station playing exclusively, Broadway Show musicals.

On this deal from the round of 32 match between the Campos and Cayne teams in the Vanderbilt, West started with the club queen, taken by d’Orsi with the king. At trick two, he played the diamond jack, then the diamond queen, overtaken by the king as East ducked twice to prevent declarer running the diamonds.

Given a second chance, d’Orsi ran the heart jack, then led the heart 10, covered by East. After cashing his third heart winner, d’Orsi exited with a club, and West ran the suit. Dummy discarded a diamond and a heart, East two spades, and d’Orsi a diamond, a spade then a heart.

At trick 10 West could do no better than exit with a low spade, and d’Orsi put up the jack and claimed the rest when it held. Had West exited with the spade queen, d’Orsi’s nine would have won trick 13.

There are plenty of reasons to delay the drawing of trump, such as playing a crossruff, but a bad trump break may also necessitate an indirect route to the goal. In that case, a trump coup, such as in today’s exhibit, may achieve the desired result.

Against four hearts East took the lead club 10 with the king, cashed the ace, and exited with the club five. After discarding the diamond two from hand and winning the trick with dummy’s club jack, declarer played the heart ace then led a heart to the 10.

So far so normal; but when West discarded a spade, South had only nine sure tricks with the best chance of achieving a 10th trick coming from a trump coup. For this to work, an opponent would have to be on lead when declarer’s trump length had been reduced to that held by East.

So, South played a spade to the ace and ruffed a spade. Had he now played a diamond to the ace and then led a third spade, East would have discarded a diamond and would then have been able to ruff away the diamond king. But declarer first played the diamond king, then a diamond to the ace, before playing another spade. Now East could only discard a club and declarer ruffed. Since South now held the heart K-J and the diamond jack, he could exit with the latter, and could not be prevented from taking the last two tricks.

As declarer, you should delay committing yourself until you can find out as much information as possible. Here, after East opened with a weak two spade bid, South passed initially, then jumped to three no-trump at his next turn. When North invited slam, South felt he had a maximum for his first two calls, and jumped to slam.

Against six no-trump West led the club jack, won in dummy. Once the spade ace was dislodged South could count 11 tricks and knew he had to look to the minors to furnish the 12th. However, there was no reason to hurry, so at trick two declarer played dummy’s spade king. When East won and returned a spade, South cashed all his major suit winners, West discarding a heart and a club on the spades, and East a spade on the third heart.

Declarer now knew East had six spades, two hearts and a club. South continued with the club queen, and when East showed out, his shape was revealed as 6-2-4-1.

Whereas the bidding and early play might have suggested that West was the likelier candidate to have diamond length, South had now the evidence to come to the opposite conclusion. Since East had twice as many diamonds as West, it was twice as likely that East had the jack. So declarer led a diamond to dummy for a successful finesse of the diamond 10; then the diamond queen followed by a club to the king saw the diamond king represent the 12th trick.

Jeff Meckstroth has been one of the world’s great players for 35 years. And here is one of his early and favorite declarer play hands.

Against one no-trump Billy Rosen led the diamond two and Meckstroth made the first of many good decisions, to run this to his 10 as Milt Rosenberg played small. Then declarer followed up with the diamond three and when West split his honors Meckstroth did well again, ducking to force East to win his bare ace.

Rosenberg returned a low club, and Meckstroth won the king and led the spade jack from his hand to West’s king. He ducked the next club, won the third round of the suit, and ducked another spade to East, who cashed the master club as both West and South threw hearts and dummy pitched a diamond.

Back came a heart to South’s ace, and declarer crossed to dummy with a spade; on this trick Rosen was squeezed. He had to discard a heart or declarer could cash two diamonds, so he was forced to reduce to the bare heart queen, and now declarer led a heart from table.

East could duck – in which case West would win and surrender the last two tricks to dummy — or he could take his king, and concede the last two tricks to South with the heart six and spade ace.

The purists would probably refer to this as some sort of a Vise or a Winkle or a Stepping-stone. Most of us would just call it magic!

The central idea on the deal below is one that has been around for a while, but I think it deserves another airing.

Imagine you play three no-trump, on the predictable lead of the heart 10 to dummy’s king. It is hard to see much prospect of making your game if you cannot get the diamonds going, so you lead a diamond to your king, which holds. So far so good – but what next?

I suspect the majority of declarers would cross to a club in dummy and play a second diamond. If East gets it right he will hop up with his ace and clear the hearts. Now declarer has no entry to dummy’s fourth diamond and only has eight tricks. Whenever he gives up the lead, defenders will cash three hearts to put the contract down one.

Instead declarer must rely on the hearts being 5-4 (as they are heavy favorite to be) and should cross to dummy with a heart at trick three to lead a second diamond. The point is that he has to keep the club king as the entry to cash the long diamond, after East has played the diamond ace on the second round of diamonds, and temporarily blocked that suit for declarer.

The difference is that the defenders can cash three hearts, but now the diamonds play for three tricks; the point being that the club king can no longer be dislodged from dummy as the eventual entry to enjoy the long diamond.