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.

In important events these days you can watch the experts on the internet, but you can also attend the tournament and watch them play live on close-circuit TV, with commentators watching the players’ every move.

Today’s deal was played under just such conditions 50 years ago by Montreal expert Sam Gold. He was able to outplay the analysts, who of course could see all four hands.

Gold had done well in the auction, since he reached a vulnerable game with decent chances rather than trying for a penalty double of two spades, a contract that is hard to defeat by more than one trick, even after a trump lead. But while Gold was planning his play in three no-trumps, the commentators said that finding the right line to bring home nine tricks would be beyond most people. But Sam proved them wrong.

After winning dummy’s spade ace, a low diamond went to East’s ace, more or less confirming him to have singletons in each red suit. East returned the spade jack to Gold’s queen, and Sam next ran the diamond 10 through West. When this held the trick, a diamond was led to the king, and the heart ace cashed, removing East’s lone heart.

Now Gold came back to his hand with a top club, and took his master diamond for his seventh trick. When he exited with a high spade, East could score his three remaining spades, but then had to lead into the club tenace in dummy and concede nine tricks.

While North-South would have made four hearts here, pre-emptive action by their opponents steered South to a contract where he needed a little help from the defense.

When West showed a long broken minor at his first turn, East took the advance sacrifice in five clubs. South was jockeyed by the vulnerability into trying for the diamond game rather than defending, and collecting 500.

West led the club eight, and South won East’s queen with his ace. Next he crossed to the spade king, and led the diamond queen to the king and ace. The 4-0 trump break was bad news. It looked as though, unless the heart finesse was right, there would surely be at least three losers in the form of two hearts and a trump.

But from the bidding it seemed very likely that the heart finesse was wrong, so South tried a different tactic. He cashed the spade queen, and crossed to dummy with the heart ace. Then he cashed the third top spade, discarding a heart, and ruffed dummy’s last club. Finally came a low heart from hand. West had made an expensive, if pardonable mistake earlier on, because he had followed to the first heart lead with his two.

As a consequence he was left on lead with his heart jack, and was obliged to concede a ruff and discard. One of declarer’s hearts from hand went away, as the club was ruffed in dummy, and the game was home.

When you bid them up you have to play them well. A pushy bidding sequence (North is really worth no more than an invitation to game) saw South arrive in four spades, against which West led the diamond jack.

Declarer rose with dummy’s ace then ran the spade jack, which held. East did well to break the rules by not covering, as the chances of West having the spade 10 was relatively low. A finesse of the trump queen was also successful, and declarer pulled East’s last trump before leading a club to dummy’s king. However, he now had no convenient way to exit dummy.

He tried a heart to the queen, but West took the king then played a diamond to East’s queen. East played the heart jack, ducked by declarer, then astutely returned a club for West to take with the ace – on any other return South’s club loser vanishes on the 13th heart.

Having won the diamond lead South should have played the spade jack, and have overtaken with the queen, then led a club towards dummy. If West ducks, the king wins, and another spade finesse puts South back in hand, ready to lead another club, after cashing the trump ace.

The best West can do is duck smoothly, but declarer has no real option but to go up with the queen, hoping that the ace is onside. Assuming he does so, he will mae his contract in comfort.

Sometimes a slam will be easy to play, while at other times things do not quite work out as planned. Here when West overcalls in diamonds, North stretches a little to show his diamond shortage, and South guesses to bid slam in competition.

When West leads the diamond king against your six hearts it appears you have an easy route to 12 tricks. You ruff the lead, and opt for simplicity, when you play the heart king and jack, expecting to take five trump tricks, six clubs and one spade in due course. But when you play the second top trump from dummy, East shows out. What now?

Clearly if you draw trumps the defenders will be ready to cash out the diamonds when they get in with the spade ace. If you play a spade toward your king, you will survive if East has the spade ace. But as the cards lie today, West will win and return a diamond, and the hand falls to pieces, since you can no longer draw trump.

The solution is easy when you see it, though. What you must do is to lead the spade queen from dummy at trick four. If it holds, draw trumps and run for home with one spade trick, five hearts, and six club winners. Meanwhile if the spade queen loses to the ace, and West plays another diamond, you ruff and can cross to your spade king to draw the last trumps.