Today's deal from last year's NEC trophy in Yokohama features the use (and abuse) of doubles. Let's look at the unsuccessful story first, where West opened one diamond and North doubled for takeout. East bid one heart, South joined in with two clubs, and West now doubled to show a three-card heart raise — the so-called support double.

Even if playing mandatory support doubles, this West hand surely fails to qualify since arguably it is neither an opening bid, nor does it have three-card support — but maybe I’m old-fashioned. Two hearts went down on repeated spade leads, when the fourth spade promoted a trump for South.

By contrast when Tony Nunn and Sartaj Hans were East-West, they constructed an auction, as shown here, to defend two clubs doubled. Put yourself in West’s shoes and pick a lead. Too easy, especially facing diamond shortage, right? No. Nunn led a small club, not his diamond sequence. Declarer won in hand and led a heart to the king, ducked by East, then played a diamond to West, who returned his second trump. A heart run around to the jack saw East play a third trump, won in dummy, and the ruffing finesse in hearts now set up the heart eight, but simultaneously ran declarer out of trump.

At this point declarer naturally misguessed spades by leading to the spade king, Hans could win his ace, unblock the diamond jack, then cross to his partner’s spade queen. Three more diamond winners meant a penalty of 800 out of nothing.

The NEC tournament from Yokohama, held this time last year, featured a Swiss tournament followed by a knockout for the eight surviving teams. The quarterfinal matches started with a defensive problem on the very first deal that might look easy — but at the table these things are never as simple as you might think.

In one room, where the auction had petered out in two no-trump, declarer won the spade lead and cashed his other high spade to unblock the suit, before playing a club toward dummy — perhaps making the position easier to defend than was necessary. East made the critical play for the defense when he ducked this trick, won the next club, and cleared the diamonds by playing ace, king and a third round. When declarer won the diamond queen and played a heart, West climbed up with the heart ace and cashed out the diamonds for down one.

Ducking the club might look like an instinctive play, but it was not one that was found at many other tables. For example, when defending three no-trump after a spade lead and a club play at trick two, East in the other room fell from grace by winning the first club and returning a low diamond. Declarer won in dummy and unblocked spades, crossed to the club jack, and cashed out dummy’s spades, then ran the clubs with the aid of the finesse and had nine tricks.

The final of the NEC tournament held in Yokohama this time last year was between Down Under from Australasia and the Bulgarian All Stars. Both teams are more aggressive bidders than most, and in the deal that followed the aggressive approach paid huge dividends, when coupled with some careful declarer play.

In one room for Down Under Tony Nunn as West overcalled one spade over one club and Sartaj Hans jumped to four spades, driving his opponents to the five-level.

In five hearts declarer needed clubs not to be unusually hostile so cashed the club ace and king early and was doubtless more hurt than surprised when East ruffed. Now there were two more tricks to lose, whatever declarer did.

But Martin Reid declared four hearts in the other room on an essentially uncontested auction, and paradoxically, the very bad break in clubs was good news, in a sense, for Bulgaria, since Reid now might have trouble making 10 tricks in hearts.

After an opening spade lead, declarer won in dummy and led a heart to hand and a diamond to the jack to cut the defenders’ communications. When East won and shifted to a club, Reid won his ace and carefully ducked a club. Now whether West took his club queen or East ruffed, declarer could now arrange to ruff clubs in dummy and hold his losers to one more trump trick.

That swing made the match safe for Down Under — the first win for an Antipodean team in this event for over a decade.

Today's deal from the 2012 NEC tournament in Yokohama shows how illogical bridge can sometimes be. Both tables reached three no-trump on the lead of the heart three. With five diamonds and two hearts in the bag, you need two more tricks. However, as soon as you lose the lead, you know a heart will come back, and you will not be able to lose the lead again without the defenders cashing out to beat you.

It looks normal to play on clubs, the long suit, and leading low toward the king-queen feels like the natural play. However, David Bakhshi won the heart, crossed to a high diamond, and instead correctly played a spade to the king. When that held, he led the club king to the ace, won the heart return, and claimed nine tricks. Even if East had won the club ace and played back a spade, declarer would have put in the 10 and the defense would surely have been able to cash at most three tricks there, since West was highly unlikely to have started with five good spades.

Of course it wouldn’t have helped East to fly up with the spade ace at trick three. And if the spade king had lost to the ace and a heart had been returned, declarer would still have come home if the spade jack was onside. Only the spade ace with West and the spade jack with East beats the hand. By contrast, playing on clubs is only a 50 percent chance.

All this week's deals come from last year's NEC tournament in Yokohama, Japan. Today's comes from the final between an Australian and a Bulgarian squad.

With the Australians taking a decent lead into the final set, we saw a moment of low farce. Nobody was hurt, but many of the eight players emerged with scrambled egg all over their faces.

Three no-trump by either North or South has the attraction of nine top tricks while six diamonds or six no-trump by North are perfectly playable contracts, even if neither is an odds-on spot. I wish I could say the same for either four diamonds, or six diamonds when played by South. A complex relay auction (in which South described his hand precisely) led the Australasians to the very dicey slam.

Having said that, if you reached six diamonds and received a top club lead — as happened at the table — you’d count yourself a little unlucky to go down. The point is that you need only 2-2 trumps or the hand with three diamonds to have at least three hearts – by my calculation about an 80 percent chance. That was what happened to the New Zealand declarer, but East could ruff the third heart and cash the spade ace. Down one.

To add insult to injury, from a Bulgarian perspective, when West led his spade queen against four diamonds on the auction shown, North having passed a forcing call to stop ‘safely’ low, the defenders took two spades, a ruff and a trump trick. Down one and no swing!

One thing about rubber bridge is that you frequently have to make up in the play for what you drop in the auction. In the following deal six clubs appears to be far better than six no-trump despite the bad trump split. South can ruff a diamond and leave himself with many chances, but some ambiguity about whether four clubs was Gerber or showing a club fit led to the 4-4 fit being missed. A forcing three-club call by North at her third turn would perhaps have been wiser.

Still, six no-trump offered some fascinating play. On the lead of the spade 10 South won in dummy and cashed four rounds of clubs, on which East parted with two diamonds, echoing in the suit, and a low heart. Since she would surely have pitched a spade from three small, South cashed out the spades via the finesse, and that persuaded West to discard a small heart and a small diamond.

Reasoning that West would surely have led a heart without the ace, she was likely to hold that card. So declarer, going for the grandstand finish (on the grounds that anyone can take a finesse!), cashed the diamond ace and king to strip West of her exit cards. Then, instead of taking a simple finesse for the heart jack, he led a heart to the queen. West won the ace, but in the two-card ending she was endplayed, forced to lead away from the heart jack around to South’s 10, and the contract came home.

In today's deal North made a jump raise in hearts at his second turn rather than show spade shortage — he would have needed something like an additional trump honor to make that call. South also took the discreet route when he made one cuebid, then jumped to five hearts to ask for a spade control. North had enough for a grand-slam try now, but South declined to cooperate. He knew his partner could not have as much as five good diamonds, the spade ace and the club king. If he did, he would have cuebid six clubs over the jump to five hearts. (North could only make a grand-slam try if he had the spade ace.)

When dummy came down, South thought that his side might be cold for a grand slam, but that was no reason not to be careful. He won the spade lead, immediately led a low heart from dummy, and ducked East’s six. That player shifted to a club, and declarer won the ace, ruffed a spade, crossed to hand with a trump, ruffed a second spade, came to the diamond jack and drew trumps, with four diamond winners to take care of the two club losers in hand.

As the cards lie, with trumps not breaking and the club finesse losing, the only line to make the hand is to duck the first trump. Try it for yourself and you will find that if you win the first trump trick, you can no longer make the hand.

If you just looked at the North-South cards in four hearts ,you would expect 10 tricks to be a cakewalk, especially as East's opening bid suggests the diamond ace rates to be onside.

However, the fly in the ointment was the opening lead of the diamond three. Imagine that as declarer you were faced with that situation. You would let East win the diamond ace, cover the return of the diamond queen, and West would ruff and exit with a spade.

With two diamond losers to get rid of, you would ruff a club, go back to the heart nine to ruff another club, and try to put some pressure on the opponents — but nothing would materialize.

Instead, declarer must duck the second trick. No harm will come to South in the unlikely event that diamonds were originally 3-2: he will simply have invested an overtrick as insurance. But if the cards lie as in the diagram, at trick three East will lead a third diamond, covered and ruffed. When West exits with a spade, you win in dummy and ruff a club. Then you play a heart to the nine, ruff a second club, and run the hearts, pitching dummy’s diamond, followed by low clubs. First you squeeze West out of a spade (as he has to guard clubs), then, when you throw dummy’s club queen, East must pitch spades to keep the diamond guard. So trick 13 will be won with dummy’s spade seven.

The field in a pairs game generally played four hearts here and the traveler showed a string of scores of plus 50 to East-West, and yet when West leads the diamond queen against your heart game, you should really find a way to make the contract.

The mistake most declarers made was to win the lead in dummy and play a spade to the 10. West won, led a low diamond to his partner, and a club shift scuttled declarer’s chances.

Let’s revisit the play. Since you are not keen for East to be able to obtain the lead cheaply to lead a club through your king, you should play low from dummy on the first trick. East is welcome to overtake with the diamond king. If he pays this high price to gain the lead, the defenders can take their clubs, but you will finesse the diamond 10 subsequently, setting up a discard for your spade loser.

If East plays low at trick one, you win the next diamond with dummy’s ace and play a spade to the 10. If West wins with the king or queen, you will unblock the spade ace and later take a ruffing spade finesse through East after drawing trumps to set up a discard for one of your club losers. So long as the spade honors are split, the defenders cannot prevent this line of play. And if both spade honors are on your right, you still have the club finesse available.