At the 1999 World Junior championships, held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Italy dominated the qualifying round, with USAII and Denmark following closely behind. Norway and Israel were the only other contenders for the fourth qualifying place. The match between Israel and USAII appeared to have sunk the latter's chances, with Chris Willenken finding a nice play to pick up a game swing.

Both tables declared three no-trump after East had opened one club, but both Wests led a heart rather than a club. The Israeli declarer tried to maximize his chances in hearts. He ducked in dummy, won the lead cheaply in hand, then used the spade ace to cross to dummy to finesse diamonds. He could set up his long suit, but East could win his diamond king and establish the hearts, with plenty of ways to regain the lead. He still had a heart left to reach his partner, and set the hand one trick.

By contrast, at his table Chris Willenken focused correctly on the problem of entries to dummy; he was prepared to sacrifice the slim chance of an extra heart trick to increase his chances of getting to dummy twice and taking two diamond finesses. He put up the heart queen at the first trick, and when it held, he remained in dummy and thus had two entries to dummy to play on diamonds and take five tricks from the suit. That was enough for the contract.

With the world junior teams championship beginning this week in Istanbul, I shall be using deals from the 1999 event, held in Fort Lauderdale.

In the round-robin match between Denmark and Italy in the World Junior Teams, a textbook hand in suit-preference signaling came along. Unusually, it was the hand on lead making the suit-preference signal, rather than the hand following suit.

At the table Morten Madsen of Denmark as East had taken a calculated risk when he tried to push his opponents up a level with his call of two spades. The defense would have been able to take seven tricks against that contract, but when North doubled a second time just to show cards, South rather illogically decided against trying to take the penalty.

The opening lead of the spade queen held the trick. Now Kaspar Konow as West deliberately set up dummy’s spade 10 by leading a suit-preference jack at the second trick, knowing that his partner’s delayed support was very likely based on precisely a doubleton spade. Hence he had to prepare the way for a spade ruff. Madsen as East won his ace perforce and duly led a diamond (the higher of the minor suits) to ensure that he got his ruff. There was still the diamond queen coming to the defense for the setting trick.

Notice that if East had played a club after winning his spade ace, declarer gets in to draw trump at once, and the defendees lose their ruff.

This deal from the 1993 Epson Simultaneous Pairs was played at the top of the Post Office Tower in London with a host of dignitaries and assembled top players. It demonstrates the principle of not giving unnecessary information to declarer to allow him to count out your hand, an idea espoused by the great Jean Besse, who referred to the irrelevant small cards as neutrinos.

At the table North-South (who were playing weak no-trumps) reached six no-trump. On a heart lead declarer cashed the club ace and king, then ran the hearts as East discarded enthusiastically in diamonds. West — a former World Champion — threw three diamonds, and declarer played a spade to the queen and king.

West now returned a low club to the queen, East throwing a spade and South, a diamond. So far so bad from declarer’s perspective, but the diamond ace forced a spade from West. Now declarer knew that both defenders had only one spade left, as East was guarding diamonds and West clubs. He could thus play a spade to his ace in complete confidence.

Do you see the small defensive error? West knew she was going to have to discard a spade eventually, so she should have thrown one on the sixth heart. Then declarer does not get the complete count on the diamond suit and has to guess the spade suit in the ending. By showing a void in diamonds, West turned declarer’s hypothetical count on the deal into a sure thing.

High cards have their place, but often the fate of a contract hinges on the intermediates. Today's deal is just one such example.

The deal dates from a bygone era when South had no sophisticated maneuver available to him to consult with his partner on what game would be best. Had I held those cards, I would have tried three no-trump at my second turn to suggest this pattern, and let partner pass if he had produced a three-card raise or if he had an absolutely square hand like this. But then there would have been no story!

Today the contract of four spades was a deeply unattractive one, though the possession of the spade 10 might have given declarer some hopes of success. As it was, though, South needed to assume a highly favorable distribution in the side suits for repeated throw-ins.

He won the opening lead and extracted East’s trumps in two rounds. Then South crossed his fingers for the first time and threw East in with a heart for a minor-suit return.

East made the natural shift to a low diamond, letting South cash three tricks in that suit. West ruffed in and cashed his heart winner, but then had either to give a ruff-sluff or concede three tricks in clubs, whether he led high or low. Declarer knew the club honors were split since East would have exited in clubs at trick five if he had started with only small cards in the suit.

Today we have a defensive problem, and to put yourself properly in the shoes of the defender, cover up the West and South cards and consider as East how you would defend three no-trump after South's strong no-trump is raised to game and West leads a fourth-highest heart three. Dummy plays low, and it is over to you, Plan the whole defense.

Should you play the 10 or the king to the first trick? Consider what declarer would have done with the ace in his hand and the doubleton queen in dummy. He would surely have played dummy’s queen — so he does not have the ace.

Say you make the right play at trick one, the heart king. Declarer produces the heart nine. What next? Here, the right technical card to return is the heart five, leading low from a remaining holding of three cards. However, on this occasion the “right” lead is wrong.

At trick two you have to play back the heart 10, hoping that partner works out to take the second trick and cash out the suit. With that powerful a dummy he should be able to see that his only hope to beat the hand is the actual layout. Motto: rules are all well and good — but remember to break them once in a while!

It may well be better to be lucky than good, and on today's deal one could argue that the team that collected the IMPs had simply been in the right place at the right time to collect a helping hand from Dame Fortune.

The deal came up at a world championship four years ago, when England played the USA. The English pair had done well to reach the small slam, a contract that could only be troubled on the lead of the diamond king, when declarer would fall back on the heart finesse. After a spade lead declarer simply drew trump and played on hearts, secure in the knowledge that he could establish an extra trick from that suit.

At first glance it looks as if the English pair had done well to pre-empt the American auction, forcing them too high, but look at what happened.

Declarer, Sam Lev, won West’s spade lead with the ace and played off all his trumps. His last four cards in hand were his two diamonds and two hearts, while in dummy he had heart A-Q-8 and the diamond jack. West had retained his four hearts to the king, but what should East keep?

If he keeps three hearts and one diamond, as happened at the table, declarer makes the diamond eight as his 13th trick. If East had kept fewer than three hearts, declarer would simply have run the heart jack, making three heart tricks whether that card was covered or not.

As the play unfolded in today's deal, declarer was grateful for the knowledge that West held a six-card heart suit because of his pre-emptive opening bid.

Declaring six spades, South won the heart-king lead in dummy perforce, and it seemed to him that the small slam was cold; in fact 13 tricks would roll in if the diamond king sat with West.

But when declarer continued with a trump to his ace and West showed out, his first thoughts were, that with a natural trump loser, the diamond king needed to sit onside just for him to make his contract. Then further thought brought South to the conclusion that East might be endplayed, so long as he had fewer than four clubs.

Harking back to West’s opening bid, South appreciated that East would hold just three hearts. So he continued by ruffing a heart in dummy, then played the spade king, followed by a spade to his queen. South ruffed his last heart with dummy’s last trump, and now the stage was set.

He led a club to the ace, then a club to the king followed by the club jack. This left East in an unenviable position. If he ruffed, he would be endplayed in diamonds. Accordingly, East elected to discard a diamond, but now South played his last trump, discarding a diamond from dummy, and throwing East in. The forced diamond return saw the slam safely home, as South’s third diamond departed on the club queen.

After the weekend it often takes a just a little while for the brain to move into full gear. So here is an easy problem with which to start the week.

Your task is to plan the play in three no-trump on the lead of the heart seven.

This problem looks extremely straightforward: You play ace and another diamond, win the return, and run the diamonds. Even if you forget to unblock the diamond spots from dummy, you have plenty of re-entries to your hand in spades.

If you follow that approach, you will bring home your game four times out of five without realizing that you had been guilty of extremely careless play. The exception comes when diamonds split 3-0. If it is East who has the length, you will not avoid two losers unless you start the suit by leading low toward dummy. When the 3-0 break comes to light, you can subsequently cross to the club ace and finesse in diamonds to make your game.

Curiously, if it is West who has the length, you may also avoid a second loser. After all, West might be worried that his partner has the singleton ace — mightn’t he? If he ducks the first diamond, you will own him for the duration — or at least until you do something equally stupid against one of his contracts.

This is a classical safety play, and the good news is that you do not even have to invest a trick to protect yourself.