Today's deal shows one of the world's best technicians at work on a grand slam. Geir Helgemo sat South, and when he heard about his partner's two aces, he immediately jumped to seven no-trump. This was for him the last board of an eventually unsuccessful attempt to qualify for the mixed pairs final at Ostend last summer.

West led the diamond 10 to dummy’s ace, and at this point, Helgemo could see 12 top tricks. The working spade finesse might bring in the 13th trick in a pedestrian way but, of course, the first thing Helgemo did was to have a look at possible squeezes. So he went on to cash the other two top diamonds, discarding two more spades and getting the interesting news that East could not follow to the third diamond.

Helgemo followed up by taking his six heart winners, reducing to a five-card ending where East kept three clubs and two spades while West had one diamond, one spade and three clubs.

On the last heart West has to discard a club, to keep his singleton spade honor, while East has to throw a spade to keep clubs guarded. So no matter which opponent has the spade king, declarer should make the hand by leading a spade to the ace. That line would fail only if West has stayed silent with 7-5 distribution.

Note that in seven hearts, an initial club lead destroys the entry position, as declarer cannot cash the three top diamonds safely.

Sometimes the best stories have a sting in the tail. England international Barry Myers reported this deal, in which he had simultaneously played the hero and the goat.

Myers had experimented at his third turn with two hearts, meaning it as a lead-directing’ club raise; but he found his partner could not take a joke. Against three hearts the defenders led a top spade and shifted to trumps. Myers won the queen in hand and knocked out the club ace. The defenders forced dummy with a second spade, and Myers led the club king, ruffed by West, giving declarer the blueprint to the whole deal. The next spade was ruffed in dummy, and now it was up to declarer to find the legitimate route to bring home six of the seven last tricks.

The winning line is to play ace, king and a third diamond, ruffing with the heart jack, as Myers did. Now you play ace and a second trump, endplaying East with his heart eight to lead clubs into dummy’s tenace. If East ruffs in on an earlier diamond, you can instead overruff and draw trump, then concede a spade.

Very nice — so where’s the catch? As Myers discovered later on, on the third round of spades West had led his jack (squashing his partner’s 10), rather than a low spade. Accordingly, Myers’ remaining spades were now high, and he could simply have ruffed a diamond to hand and drawn trump. His hand would then have been high, and he would have had an overtrick.

Aces are made to take kings, they say. Up to a point, but there are always exceptions, as this deal from last year's European Open Championships in Ostend demonstrates. In fact, all the deals this week come from that event, marking the fact that the European championships are starting now.

In the auction South’s one-club opening was Polish, showing either a minimum balanced hand or 18-20 high-card points, and the two-no-trump rebid showed a balanced hand with extra values — but not necessarily any real club length.

Against three no-trump, West (Sue Picus) started with the spade queen, taken by declarer’s ace. She played four rounds of diamonds, and when Alex Kolesnik got in with the diamond jack, he put the heart king on the table. Had declarer ducked, she would have remained in control. But when declarer won the heart ace, the only way for her to get to the good diamond in dummy was to play a heart. Now Kolesnik was poised with the club ace and good hearts to cash, so declarer ended up a trick short.

Had declarer ducked the first heart, she could have won the heart continuation in dummy, cashed her diamond, and led a club toward her king to score her ninth trick sooner or later.

Conceding nine tricks in three no-trump would have represented an average result for East-West, but defeating the game was a near top.

One of the world's greatest players never to win a world title was Jean Besse of Switzerland. Whether as a player, an analyst, or a commentator, Besse was a master of his profession.

Today’s deal was deemed interesting (by him); an indication of its difficulty and elegance. Besse was sitting in the South seat.

Declaring six spades, Besse won the club lead in dummy, led a spade to the ace, and a spade to the nine. The good news was that he had no trump loser, the bad that he could not ruff a heart in dummy without giving up on the trump finesse.

When the diamond king and queen revealed the bad news there, he led a club to the ace, on which West had to throw a heart. Next came the top hearts and a heart ruff in dummy. The diamond ace then reduced everyone down to three cards.

South and West each had two trumps and a diamond, West having the master diamond, while dummy had a spade, a diamond and a losing club.

Now, with the lead in dummy came the coup de grace; Besse led the club six, and discarded his diamond loser, as did West. East could now take his pick between a heart and club lead; either way, declarer would ruff in with the spade eight, and West’s sure spade trick was smothered. Whether he underruffed or overruffed, he could no longer score a trump trick.

When you feel confident that your side has a game on, but the opponents bid on to sacrifice in a suit that outranks yours, you have to resist the temptation to go chasing rainbows. If the best you can do is defeat their game, then make sure you go plus, rather than ruing what might have been.

In today’s deal West led the heart five against four spades doubled, and on winning with the ace, East returned a trump. He had failed to take into account the threat posed by dummy’s clubs. Even if South did not have the club queen, declarer would surely discard his losing diamonds on clubs if given the opportunity.

The only chance for the defense appears to be to establish two diamond winners before East’s club ace is knocked out. For that to work, West must hold the diamond jack. So, a low diamond at trick two may be desperate, but it looks to be the only chance, and when West turns up with the jack, the game fails.

The blame was not all East’s, though. West knew there was at most one heart trick coming for the defense. Since he had no re-entry, why not lead the heart king, taking a peek at dummy to gauge where next to attack? Had he done so, East would have followed with the heart queen, suit preference for the higher-ranked minor, and the deal would have been over.

When this four-spade deal came up at the Dyspeptics Club, all four players joined in a post-mortem that was (as usual) distinguished by considerably more heat than light.

After winning the heart opening lead, East had shifted to a low club at trick two. Declarer drew trumps and gave up a diamond, after which the defenders took one heart but then played a second club, allowing declarer to make his game.

North accused South of being an idiot. South told North that East should have found the fatal shift to a trump at trick two. Meanwhile, East was trying to explain to West why he could never have worked out that South would play this way when holding three losing hearts. West said East knew South well enough never to make such an assumption. Who was right? Can declarer make his game against best defense?

As to whether East could ever have worked out how to defend, the answer might have been easier for him if West were playing ‘third-and-lowest’ leads. Even then, the heart three might have been from 9-6-3-2 if South concealed the two. Still, West’s signal on the first club should have made it clear to East who had the club king.

But to sum up: Best defense after the heart lead is a trump shift. Declarer wins with the spade ace and ducks a diamond. Now, as long as diamonds are 3-2 and spades no worse than 4-2, declarer cannot be defeated.

Today's deal comes from Patrick Jourdain's "Problem Corner," published by Master Point Press, an excellent collection of problem hands. The author sets the challenge here: How should West play six diamonds on a spade lead?

One perfectly sensible approach is to draw trumps and rely on clubs breaking (protecting yourself against the unlikely eventuality of West’s having the length by starting clubs with a lead to dummy’s ace). If clubs do not break, you can fall back on the heart finesse — a line that gives you close to a 95 percent chance of success since West is relatively unlikely to have six spades and four clubs. Moreover, if he does, the heart finesse is almost sure to work. However, this line would fail against the lie of the cards today.

This is admittedly truly unlucky, but you can do better. Win the spade lead and make sure of the contract by drawing the trump, then eliminating the majors with a ruff in each hand. Now you can lead a low club from either hand, and when the next player plays low, put in the eight (or nine as the case may be). If on the first club a defender follows high, win that trick and duck the next club by leading to the spot-card in the other hand.

In either case, the defenders are helpless. Either the clubs will break, or whichever player wins the trick will be endplayed.

In today's deal what should East do if North jumps to three spades at his first turn to speak? As three spades will go down at least one trick, the winning action for the defenders is undoubtedly to double — but only if your partner passes it out. If partner interprets the double as takeout, as he probably should, this will lead to a decent 5-3 fit in clubs rather than a shaky 4-3 fit in a red suit. Four clubs should be defeated on correct defense, but any other four-level contract by East-West will fare considerably worse. Plus 100 for East-West on this deal was worth a healthy matchpoint score, while plus 50 would have earned them a score of just above average.

However, where Geir Helgemo and Nathalie Frey were defending three spades doubled (North having made the tactical error of raising to two spades initially, then competing to three spades over three diamonds), Frey as West led a trump. When declarer drew three rounds of trump, she pitched clubs. Declarer now led a club to the queen and king, and Helgemo accurately shifted to hearts. The defenders cashed out the hearts, then played two more rounds of clubs. This forced declarer to lead diamonds for himself and go down 300.

Had the defenders continued clubs before leading hearts, declarer would have ruffed the third round of clubs and exited in hearts. That would have forced the defenders eventually to lead diamonds, eliminating declarer’s loser in that suit.

In today's deal South rates to play four hearts, and West has a comfortable lead of the diamond jack. Over to you as declarer: How should you be thinking about the deal after the defenders continue diamonds, allowing you to win the second trick in your hand? And how would your strategy vary depending on whether you are playing teams (or rubber bridge) as opposed to pairs?

Let’s take the simplest of situations. At teams or rubber scoring, South knows he can afford to lose two trump tricks but not three. Looking for the best safety play is therefore indicated. If trumps divide 2-2 or 3-1, there will be no problem. Neither will all four hearts in East prove troublesome. But the possibility of all four trumps being held by West must not be ignored. Declarer’s first trump lead therefore must be the nine, eight or seven toward dummy’s ace, ducking if West follows with the six. These tactics hold West to two trump tricks and insure the success of the contract.

At matchpoints the situation is far more complex since if the whole field plays in four hearts, failing to make the overtrick will be extremely expensive. My best guess would be to win the second diamond and cross to the spade ace to lead a low heart from dummy. If East follows suit with anything but the king, you will cover his card, combining absolute safety with a decent gambling chance to make the overtrick.