Today's deal from the match between Sweden and Italy in the Yeh Bros. Cup shows both sides using unconventional bidding methods. Antonio Sementa's double of the spade-showing one-heart call showed hearts and a minor. Had he simply held hearts, he would have bid two hearts. His partner Giorgio Duboin now drove to game, doubling for takeout at his next turn to speak, and then, when confident that he was facing short spades, forced his partner to pick a minor at the five-level.

Sementa received a spade lead against five diamonds, and took an uncharacteristically long time to play to trick two, seeing the problems with late entries to his own hand. Eventually, he led a trump to dummy to run the heart queen. West, Fredrik Nystrom, won and also took his time before playing ace and another diamond.

Declarer won this in hand, passed the club jack, covered all around, finessed in hearts, then set up the hearts by ruffing with dummy’s last trump. Now he ruffed a spade back to hand, cashed his long heart, and finally took the second club finesse for his 11th trick. Even the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forbear to cheer.

Yes, the cards did not lie unfavorably, but it was up to Sementa to take advantage of the position. In the other room South played four hearts on repeated spade leads, and the defenders could set up a force to defeat that contract.

At the Yeh Bros. tournament last May, this was the first board of the second half of the knockout match between The Netherlands and Australia Youth. The Australian juniors are one of the strongest young teams in the world, and although they lost to the then world champions, they were not disgraced.

For the Dutch, Ricco van Prooijen, West, led the spade six against Liam Milne’s three-no-trump contract, the seven winning in dummy. Next, Milne led a club to the queen and king (yes, setting up spade or heart tricks might have been a perfectly reasonable alternative) and now van Prooijen switched to the heart king. What, you may ask, was he thinking? Well, you will have to wait and see.

In retrospect it might have been better to duck this trick, but Milne made the natural play when he took the trick with his ace and led a spade. Van Prooijen took his ace and switched to the club 10, Louk Verhees overtaking with the jack. Milne ducked, so Verhees continued with the club nine to dummy’s ace, pinning declarer’s eight, and setting up his seven. Now the foresight of the heart king shift revealed itself. Verhees had a club winner ready to cash, and, because of van Prooijen’s earlier play, had the heart queen as an entry to cash it. Maybe this is why Milne should have ducked the heart king and taken the finesse for the queen later, but that is a lot easier to see with a view of all 52 cards.

Today's deal from last year's Yeh Bros. Cup tournament in Yokohama features Bauke Muller of the Netherlands, who was given the equivalent of a knighthood last year. He is the only Dutch player to have played on both their world-title winning teams, in 1993 and 2012.

Here he declared six spades on the lead of the club four, East-West playing third from even and low from an odd number. He drew trump, ending in hand, then took a diamond finesse. When the defenders won and continued clubs, West followed with the club two — confirming an original four-card suit. Now declarer ruffed out the hearts and trumped a club. In the three-card ending, Muller knew East had begun with three spades, two hearts, and four clubs, so he could successfully finesse against the diamond 10. But had West concealed the club two, the count might have been far harder to confirm.

Paul Hackett of England also played slam here, from the North seat, on a trump lead. He won in hand and went to the club ace to take a losing diamond finesse. Back came a trump (yes, a club would be better) so Hackett won and played three rounds of hearts, ruffing in dummy. Then he played the last trump, followed by the diamond jack and a diamond to the ace. Now he cashed the last trump, and both defenders were squeezed. With East guarding diamonds and West guarding hearts, neither could keep a second club. So declarer scored the club eight for his 12th trick.

Today's deal comes from the round-robin of the Yeh Bros. teams championships, which was held in Yokohama this time last year.

Included in the field were the then current Bermuda Bowl world champions from the Netherlands, who went on to win the event in fine style, defeating the top Italian team in the finals. Here are the Dutch at work.

With both tables in the same contract of three spades, Shakespeare had it right when he said “The play’s the thing.” The defense started the same way in both rooms, with a club lead from West to East, who took his three top clubs. In the Closed Room the Japanese West discarded a discouraging heart, and East got off play with a trump. Declarer Simon de Wijs won in hand with the king, drew a second round of trump with the queen, then played on hearts and claimed nine tricks for plus140 since he had a spade entry to allow him to discard a diamond loser on dummy’s heart winner.

In the Open Room Ricco van Prooijen also led the club jack and continued the suit, Louk Verhees also cashing a third round of clubs. But van Prooijen, who could see the possibility of discards coming, thoughtfully ruffed his partner’s winner and led the diamond jack, ducked to the ace. Now declarer led the heart 10 from hand and passed it to East’s ace, but Verhees saw his five defensive winners. After taking his heart ace, he cashed the diamond king for down one, and 5 IMPs.

All the deals this week come from one of the world's most enjoyable tournaments. It is the Yeh Bros. invitational teams and pairs, run by Chen Yeh, a fine player who was on the first Asian team to win a gold medal at bridge in a world championship.

The format is unique: Mister Yeh sponsors top teams from around the world to play, but everyone is welcome to pay. The event has high entry fees and extremely generous prizes, and the only condition of contest is that Mister Yeh’s team is exempt to the knockout (last 16) stage of the teams and the final of the pairs. That way he gets to play against the strongest players in the world.

In today’s deal Bob Scott and John Wignall defended four hearts in this deal from last year’s pairs qualifier. Scott led a top diamond, as Wignall discouraged. Now Scott observed that, with only 16 HCP missing, it would be too much to ask partner to have a natural trick from high cards here. A club shift, while attractive on the surface, could achieve nothing. So what was the least he could find partner with to beat the game?

Scott found the answer when he led three rounds of diamonds, then hopped up with the heart ace at his first turn and played the fourth diamond for Wignall to ruff in with the precious heart 10, promoting the heart nine to the setting trick.

Imagine you reach the small slam in spades and receive the lead of the trump 10. To bring home 12 tricks, you will need to set up hearts, but the entries to dummy are scarce. After you win the spade ace and unblock the heart king; what next? It might look natural to ruff a diamond to dummy and ruff a heart to hand. But if hearts do not break, you are out of trump and doomed to go down.

The best plan now is somewhat counterintuitive. Since you must rely on trumps to be 3-2 and hearts no worse than 4-2, you should next play the club queen out of your hand.

If West wins the king and plays a trump — as good as anything — you win in dummy with the spade jack, ruff a heart low in hand, cross to dummy with the club jack, and ruff a heart with the spade king. Then you can cash the diamond ace and ruff a diamond to draw the last trump, with dummy high.

If West ducks the club queen, you change tack altogether. You go to dummy with a trump, then ruff a heart with the spade king. Now you can cross to dummy and draw the last trump by leading the spade four to the jack. Next you play the heart ace and another heart. You concede one heart trick, but the last trump in dummy is the entry back to all the good hearts.

Over the last decade the standards in senior bridge have begun to rival the open game, and the world championships are contested at the very highest level. The American and German senior teams have met in the late stages of two recent world championships; each side has won one match narrowly. When a 64-board match is won by only 7 IMPs, several deals could have reversed the result. But this board from the final session settled the issue.

At both tables, West led a low diamond against five clubs. In the Open Room, John Schermer put in dummy’s 10, then played a spade to his king. West won with the ace and gave his partner a diamond ruff. East now shifted to the spade queen, but declarer ruffed it in dummy and ran the club queen successfully to make his contract.

In the Closed Room, declarer also won with dummy’s diamond 10, but then called for the club queen. When Steve Landen played low smoothly, South became worried that West would win from a singleton or doubleton club king and give his partner a diamond ruff. Then cashing the spade ace would result in one down. So South quite reasonably went up with the club ace and continued with the 10. However, East won with his king, led a spade to the king and ace, and received a diamond ruff for down one.

Plus 600 in one room and plus 100 in the other gave U.S.A. seniors 12 IMPs and the match.

Today's deal from a recent junior championships saw a good lead and smart declarer play rewarded with a nice pickup.

At both tables South’s two-spade opening showed a weak hand with spades and a minor. In one room where East had doubled four spades, West expected his partner to have values in all the three outside suits. So he led the diamond ace, and was rewarded when this led to an immediate diamond ruff and a quick one off.

At the other table, where East-West had passed throughout, West led a heart. Could declarer take advantage? After winning the heart ace, South ruffed a heart, drew trump (East pitching a heart), and ruffed another heart, the king appearing from East. He then led a club to the jack, king and ace. East returned a club, and declarer won, ruffed his last club, and paused to take stock.

West appeared to have started with five hearts. In addition, West was known to have the club 10 left (since he had played the jack on the first round and the 10 had not appeared yet). It followed that if either player was short in diamonds it was more likely to be West than East.

Accordingly, declarer led the diamond queen from dummy. East won his king and deceptively returned the diamond nine, but South rose with the jack, hoping that even if it lost to the king, West might be endplayed. His second chance came to pass; West won the diamond ace, but then had to give a ruff-sluff and the game came home.

The differences in approach between teams or rubber bridge and the pairs game is a subject that exercises my readers' curiosity. I am often asked whether there are deals that exemplify the difference in approach between one form of scoring and the other. Today's deal might clarify that point, because while the approach at pairs would not be straightforward here, the best play at teams is easy to identify.

Declaring four spades, you receive the lead of the diamond queen. With only four possible losers, you might decide at pairs to win the opening lead and draw trump, then to run the heart jack, or to lead a heart to the eight. You are playing for an overtrick, but with all the club and heart honors lying badly for you, the defenders are likely to prevail by winning the heart and reverting to diamonds. When East wins and plays a club through, you finesse, and lose both that trick and a further heart.

At teams or rubber bridge you would banish thoughts of an overtrick. Instead you win the diamond lead, draw trump, and exit with a diamond. When East wins to shift to a club, you take your ace and exit with a club. This forces the defenders to open up hearts for you. They can lead hearts through you once but not twice (and if East had shifted to a heart, not a club, at trick four, you would have set up a heart for a club discard).