All the deals this week comes from last year's NEC tournament in Yokohama. In three clubs Willie Whittaker received repeated spade leads, and ruffed, then unblocked the diamond king and led a heart to the queen and ace. Back came a heart, after which declarer can succeed by cashing his winners, taking a trump finesse, then ruffing two diamonds in dummy to score the ace-queen of clubs and four red-suit winners, plus three ruffs. Instead Whittaker played to ruff a diamond before cashing the second heart trick and that let West get a heart away. Better defense for West would have been to lead the third top spade when in with the heart ace, which promotes an additional trump winner and ensures the defeat of the contract.

In the other room the contract of three diamonds looked more playable; but again, if the defenders play three top spades early on, it may let East discard a heart loser.

In fact, though, after a top spade lead West shifted to trumps. Declarer voluntarily ruffed a spade to hand, and that let West subsequently play a third spade without setting up dummy’s jack. Declarer subsequently misjudged the play to go down two.

By contrast, when Ashley Bach for team Lorentz played three diamonds, he ruffed the spade at trick two and led the heart queen to the ace. He won the trump return, crossed to the heart jack and played three rounds of trumps. East could take two trump tricks but then had to lead a heart or club, allowing declarer to test both suits, and come home with nine tricks.

All the deals this week come from the NEC tournament held last year in Japan. The tournament is one of the strongest of the invitation teams event in the world, but also includes a large number of local Japanese teams.

In today’s deal, which was duplicated and played all round the room, it was common to play three no-trump from the North seat and to make it on a heart lead. With the diamond king-queen onside, declarer could eventually establish an extra trick in each minor.

By contrast, in Shanghai Financial versus China Shanghai both Wests (who had opened one spade playing a strong club system) led a top diamond against three no-trumps. Both Souths won the diamond lead, but there the paths diverged. The trusting declarer went after clubs, and the defenders cleared diamonds, letting East cash out when he got in with his surprise heart queen.

By contrast, the suspicious declarer, Liu Ning, found a very neat alternative after winning the diamond ace. He cashed one top spade and led the heart 10. East won and played back a diamond. West won his king, on which declarer unblocked dummy’s jack, then cleared diamonds, but declarer won the third diamond in hand and ran the spade 10. Now he cashed North’s top spades, then crossed to the heart jack, took the long spade, and ran the hearts for nine tricks.

The defense could still have prevailed in unlikely fashion had West simply covered South’s diamond at trick three. That deprives declarer of a critical entry to his hand.

In today's deal, from a knock-out at a regional tournament, the defenders at one table had no idea of the missed opportunity until it came to the scoring up. What happened at the table where the successful declarer was situated was that a strong club opening led South to declare three no-trump after showing his hearts. The defenders led the diamond queen, ducked round to the king, whereupon declarer claimed his nine tricks and moved on.

In the other room North-South had also done well to avoid playing the hopeless four heart contract. On the action shown, where South had promised a good 17-19 and a balanced hand, West led the diamond queen and East paused for refection before playing to trick one.

With West having no more than a six-count, three of the points being in diamonds, the defenders could surely take no more than four tricks if they ducked the first trick, or won it and pressed on with diamonds.

East could see declarer’s quick tricks looming, so desperate measures were surely called for – and that meant finding his partner with the spade king. To cover all the bases East won the diamond ace and shifted to a subtle spade queen. When the eight appeared from South West woke up to the significance of his blocking spade nine. He worked out to signal with it on the first spade, whereupon a low spade to the king saw West play a third spade, and the defenders could now take the first five tricks.

In today's deal the route to 12 tricks required some very careful manipulation of the trump spots to manage the entry position to best effect.

Against six hearts, reached after a somewhat optimistic final call by South, West led the spade king to South’s ace. Declarer realized he would need to try to establish dummy’s diamonds to get close to his slam. So he cashed the diamond ace then led a careful heart eight to dummy’s jack, gaining a bonus when the nine dropped, as now there was a firm third entry to dummy even if trumps failed to break 2-2. Next came the diamond queen. The idea was, that so long as the missing diamond honors were split between the defenders, or East held both the king and jack, South would be able to jettison his black suit losers. When East played low, South’s losing spade departed. West won and returned a spade, more in hope than expectation.

Declarer ruffed the spade return with a top trump, then returned to dummy by overtaking the trump seven with the 10. Now South called for the diamond 10, on which he discarded a club. The diamond nine, covered with the jack, was once again ruffed high. Finally, the heart four was overtaken with the six and the diamond eight provided a parking spot for South’s second club loser.

And for all you double-dummy analysts, a trump lead would beat the slam; maybe West might have considered it?

It may seem unlikely that a series of world titles could have been decided by a single hand, and even more so if that hand came from a game of rubber bridge. However that is the way it was told by Carl-Alberto Perroux, the Italian non-playing captain of the all-conquering Blue Team from the fifties and sixties.

He was sitting North when this hand was played in a high stakes rubber. The bidding may look a little antiquated, but on the lead of the spade three declarer, the then relatively unknown Camillo Pabis-Ticci set about the play in confident style. He won the ace, drew a round of trump, then cross-ruffed the minor-suits. After taking two club ruffs in hand and two diamond ruffs in dummy he had reached a six-card ending with the lead in North. Dummy consisted of four losing spades, a trump and the club king, while he had two spades and four trump in hand.

At this point Pabis-Ticci led the club king and discarded a spade from hand, forcing West to win and concede a ruff and discard, so both spades went away from the South hand.

Not the most difficult play in the world perhaps, but Perroux was very impressed with the way that his partner had played the hand. When Avarelli was temporarily unavailable to play with the Blue Team, Perroux (who had complete control of the team selection) brought in Pabis-Ticci, for the start of a glittering International career over the next two decades.

The South hand has enough slam potential for it to be right to open two clubs, and after the temporizing response of two diamonds, North can bid two no-trumps to show scattered values, (using three clubs as a second negative) then raise three spades to four. He might consider cuebidding four clubs with the ace instead of the king, or better trumps.

After the club queen is led to the ace, declarer cashes the spade ace to find the bad news. Next he plays a low spade from hand. East takes the spade jack with his queen and tempts declarer by shifting to the heart two. If declarer finesses, a heart return will sink him, leaving him with two diamond losers at the end. But South has a sure trick play if he is careful. He rises with the heart ace, rather than finessing, then draws trump (throwing clubs from the table) and exits with the heart jack.

If this holds, he has 10 tricks. If it loses, the defenders must give him a 10th trick one way or another. A heart or club is clearly fatal, and leads to his making an overtrick. Equally, though, if they touch diamonds, declarer makes his 10th in that suit, since he can hold his losers to just one trick there.

This play would almost certainly be right even if South did not have the heart jack – East would have exited with a trump rather than lead away from the heart king, would he not?

In today's deal West led the heart six against three no-trump. After winning with the king, East returned the jack, and declarer worked out that if the lead was a genuine fourth highest, there was no prospect of blocking the suit. So he did well to let the jack win, and was delighted when East switched to a spade. But South was so pleased at having guessed right that he took his eye off the ball, in what appeared to have become an easy contact. He tried the minor suits in succession by cashing them out from the top, and, ended with only eight tricks when both suits refused to behave.

How should South have continued after winning the switch at trick three with a top spade? He should start by cashing the club ace and queen (the suit in which he has no flexibility) making sure to leave himself an entry to dummy, and discovering the bad break. The critical play comes next, which is to cash the second top spade before trying the diamonds. By so doing, he will find out that West had started with six hearts, four clubs and at least two spades, and therefore, at most, one diamond.

Now, after crossing to the diamond king, he leads the diamond 10, with the intention of running it if it is not covered. If East does cover, South has retained the club king in dummy as an entry to repeat the finesse against the diamond nine.

The North hand provides a problem over a one club opening bid. If you play inverted minor raises, then the hand is far too strong for a three-club bid, and a one no-trump call seems misdirected and an underbid. So maybe it is best simply to raise to two clubs, pretending you have a limit raise. South can jump to three no-trumps, to end the auction.

West will lead the spade four against three no-trump and now the spotlight switches to East. If East plays the ace followed by the queen, declarer will hold up the spade king until the third round of the suit. Then, after taking the losing club finesse, he can make 10 tricks painlessly.

Instead, East must play the spade queen smoothly at trick one. Declarer is really forced to take this with the king, since otherwise he runs the risk that West holds five spades to the ace-jack and the club finesse is working, or that spades are 4-4 with the club finesse losing. In either scenario, ducking the spade queen would look incredibly foolish. In practice, though, when the club finesse fails the defenders can run their four spade tricks today.

Note: the key to this play is that East can see that he has the critical entry in clubs, and that his partner will not be confused by the play to the first trick. If East were looking at a weaker hand without a side entry, he should win the spade ace and return the queen.