The final of the 1999 world junior championships saw Italy take an early lead against the US and hold on comfortably. Even the best US results got lost in the shuffle — as here, when Eric Greco found one of the best plays of the tournament, simply to hold his losses on the deal.

After the opening lead of the heart 10 against four spades, Greco rose with the king and ran the diamond 10. He won the heart return in dummy, and, after a lot of thought, passed the diamond nine.. The point of this play is that he was trying to set up the diamonds without letting East in. That approach would work well if hearts were 5-2, but very dangerous if hearts broke 4-3, since there might be a trump promotion on the 13th heart.

All was well, since Greco had read the cards correctly, and West had no heart to lead when he took the second diamond. West exited with a club, and declarer ruffed, cashed the top spades, then led the fourth diamond to pitch dummy’s heart loser and make his contract.

Alas for the US, four spades doubled was allowed to make in the Closed Room. The first three tricks started the same way, but declarer then came to hand with a top spade to lead the diamond ace. West forgot to unblock his other top diamond on this trick, so East could not get in to cash the hearts. Now the play reverted back to Greco’s line.

When Israel played Canada 15 years ago in the Round Robin of the World Junior teams in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, they played a set of virtually flawless bridge to eliminate Canada from the event. Consider the following board, where a potential Canada gain vanished.

In the other room, when Israel held the North-South cards, they had bid to one no-trump after mentioning all their long suits. This made in some comfort, of course. However, when Canada sat North-South on the auction shown, Darren Wolpert tried two no-trump as North, perhaps because his team needed a swing, Ben Zeidenberg raised to game. The diamond lead to the jack gave Zeidenberg the chance for an excellent play — and he took his best chance by ducking the jack. Back came a diamond, and West cashed his diamond winners — necessary, even though it set up a diamond trick for declarer — and this in turn allowed East to discard an encouraging club. Without that clue, it is not clear that West would have been able to decide between a club and a major suit at trick four. In the latter case, declarer would have collected nine tricks. However, West trusted his partner’s signal and shifted to a club. Now the defense had set up their fifth winner when East got on lead with the heart ace.

Well done, everyone — but one down and a small pickup to Israel instead of a big gain the other way.

The final of the World Junior Teams between the USA and Italy was a generally well-played match, though it ended in a comfortable win for the Italians. The following board turned out to be a victory for neither side, but it highlighted the difference between the "scientific" and the "practical" approach.

Both tables played three no-trump by South on a spade lead — not a great contract but no game is really any better. Tom Carmichael followed the best practical chance for his contract here by taking the spade, knocking out the club ace, and winning the spade return to run the clubs.

This reduced everybody down to seven cards, and would have squeezed a defender who held five spades, the heart king and three diamonds. But it did not work this time, since all West had to do was hold his spades, while East could let a spade go in comfort to retain the red-suit guards.

At the other table, Mario D’Avossa found the remarkable line of cashing both spades at the first two tricks before exiting with a club. This diabolical line works if the defense rectifies the count by cashing all their spades; now when declarer runs the clubs, East is squeezed in the red suits! But Willenken as West could see this coming. He did well to play the heart jack at trick four instead of cashing the spades. This defeated the hand, since East had a spade discard he could afford on the run of the clubs.

Counting is one of the most important exercises at bridge, but sometimes you have to combine the exercise with a fair amount of inference and conjecture. Inferences may be drawn from what the opponents have or have not bid.

The 1999 World Junior Teams were held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the semifinal match between Israel and Italy, a match won comfortably by the latter, the eventual tournament winners, both tables made four spades, but the Italian declarer, Antonio Mallardi, had the tougher task.

He had reached four spades after the Israeli East had the chance to double an artificial club call. On a club lead to the ace, East found the accurate switch to the diamond jack, threatening to set up a winner for the defenders in that suit. Declarer won the diamond in hand and drew two rounds of trump. Now it looks to be a blind guess as to how to play the hearts, but there were inferences from the fact that West had led a low club that he did not have two of the top three honors in that suit. Since East, a passed hand, apparently had six decent clubs to the ace and queen, plus the diamond jack, he had no room for the heart ace or he would have opened the bidding. So Mallardi led a heart to dummy’s king for his 10th trick.

In the other room East had pre-empted in first chair so the heart guess was considerably easier to work out.

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.