The world championships have just finished in Lille, so to mark that, this week's deals come from the last event, four years ago, in Beijing.

Our first deal features a double-game swing in the match between China and Hungary. Would you open one spade as East or make a one-spade overcall as West? When the Hungarians were East-West, both passed at their first opportunity. North responded one no-trump to the one-diamond opening, East cuebid two diamonds to show the majors, and Harangozo now jumped to four spades over South’s three-diamond call to end the auction. He was not taxed to come to 10 tricks since, after the one-no-trump response, he could not misguess the spade suit.

In the other room the auction was as shown. It takes a heart lead and a heart ruff (or a heart switch after the unlikely lead of the club ace) to defeat five diamonds. Even after West led a spade, however, Peter Trenka had to play well to land the doubled contract.

He ruffed the opening lead, pulled trump, then led a club to the king and ace. He ruffed the spade return, discarded a heart on the fourth round of clubs, and called for a low heart. With a count on the West hand, declarer knew his only chance was to find him with a singleton heart queen. There were no more entries to dummy, so it would not have helped to find East with both missing heart honors. Declarer therefore put up the heart king and was rewarded when the queen fell. He lost just two tricks for plus 750.

Today's deal was a fascinating clash between Zia Mahmood and Tony Forrester, with the latter coming out on top, as he did in the event as a whole. A big win in the last round gave the Gold Cup team a clear victory, allowing Andy Robson to equal Zia's record of seven wins.

When Forrester led the club-king lead against three no-trump, Zia won and fired back a club, which Forrester ducked. Quite reasonably, Zia took the diamond finesse now. Forrester won and faced an awkward problem. He cashed the club queen (on which dummy threw a heart) to avoid being thrown in with that card, then exited with the spade jack. This should have been fatal. Zia put on the queen, but failed to unblock the 10 from his hand.

Had he done so, he would have been able to get home in two ways. The first would have been by leading the heart king, and when West wins and returns the heart jack, declarer ducks and West is endplayed. Or Zia could have crossed to the spade ace, cashed all his minor-suit winners, and exited with his last spade. If that were the 10, West could duck it, but as it is, declarer would have been able to put West on lead and come to his ninth trick in the majors.

Zia did not know the diamonds were 5-1 at this time, but the spade-jack exit might have given him a clue to the layout.

At the 2011 Lederer, Artur Malinowski, declarer in today's deal, won the award for best-played hand. The play was simple, but his reasoning was excellent. After the normal start to the auction, Janet de Botton made a responsive double with the North hand, and East competed further to four hearts. When this came back to de Botton, she tried again with four no-trump. (In a similar position one North had tried an intellectual bid of four spades, but declarer was forced to go one off on the club lead, either sustaining a ruff or losing control.)

Against Malinowski’s contract of five clubs, Tony Priday led the heart king and switched to a spade, which cleared up any doubts in that suit. Declarer won East’s king with the ace, then played the club king and finessed the jack for plus 400. Why did he do this? There were two reasons: the first was that if East had been dealt a doubleton club, he would have been less inclined to go on to four hearts and, equally, West might have led or switched to a club with a doubleton rather than playing a dangerous spade. With queen-third of clubs he was never leading one.

The odds might favor playing the bidder for the missing high cards, but here the inferences pointed in the other direction: East appeared to have extra shape, and thus West was more likely to have long clubs.

At the 2011 Lederer there are awards for best-bid, -played and -defended hand. This one belongs in the category of "You should have seen the one that got away."

Andy Robson had an opportunity in this deal where, like many declarers, he found himself in six hearts.

On a minor-suit lead there are enough entries to establish and enjoy the diamonds. However, Justin Hackett found the most testing start, a spade, and Andy won and ducked a diamond. East won and returned a second spade, perforce won in the dummy. Robson won and cashed two rounds of hearts and could no longer recover from the unfriendly breaks in the red suits.

The correct line at trick four is to cash the heart and diamond aces (you have no chance on a 5-1 break) and ruff a diamond high. Now the diamonds are known to be breaking 4-2, and when you cross to the heart nine, you also know the trumps are 3-1.

This forces you to fall back on your last chance, namely that spades were 3-3, by ruffing a diamond high, crossing to another heart in dummy, and throwing a spade on the long diamond. Then you can ruff out the spade, and finally use your club ace to enjoy the 13th spade. So, the third chance, an unlikely one, would have worked.

In the end you finish up ruffing two diamonds and a spade in your hand, establishing a long card in both of dummy’s suits.

Today's deal from the 2011 Lederer requires no skill in the play, since I am confident every reader of my column would find a way to take 13 tricks. But bidding to the grand slam is another matter. Let's take a look at the sole pair who not only managed it, but found their way to seven no-trump

There is a bit of a myth that Zia Mahmood is a law unto himself in the auction, but he showed that he could bid constructively on this hand. However, it was David Gold’s judgment that made it all possible. The opening no-trump showed 15-17, but the aces and kings, coupled with the two four-card suits and the builders in the long-suits mean that this was an accurate assessment of the hand’s true worth.

When Zia transferred to spades, Gold re-evaluated his hand, breaking the transfer with a jump to three spades. He did have another sequence to show a suitable hand for spades with a maximum in high-cards, so he was limited by failing to do that.

After two cuebids, Zia bid Roman Keycard Blackwood for spades, finding the two missing aces, then asked for specific kings that had not been previously cued. East (who had already showed the diamond king) now showed the heart king, and Zia thought he could count six spades, three hearts, two diamonds and two clubs, and indeed was able to claim the grand slam when spades broke 2-1. This won the pair the award for the best-bid hand.

At last year's Lederer tournament, Nicola Smith and Sally Brock demonstrated the form that has won them three world titles as partners or teammates. And they needed all their experience to break the seemingly impregnable slam reached in today's deal by Norwegian Thomas Charlsen.

North’s two-club call was an artificial game-force, and two no-trump showed a three-card spade raise. This was followed by Key Card Blackwood to reach the good spade slam. Nicola led the heart six, consistent with her actual holding, but also consistent with an original holding of J-7-6, J-8-7-6 or J-8-7-6-2. Sally defended well by false-carding with the queen when dummy played low, and Charlsen took his normal line in spades of low to the ace, followed by the running of the jack, so that he could pick up Q-(9)-x-x with East.

When Smith won her spade queen, she continued with the heart seven, and Charlsen decided to believe the opponents rather than playing to establish diamonds with one ruff. When he put in the heart nine, it was all over, and an unbeatable slam had been defeated.

Some commentators on Bridge Base thought Nicola would not lead from the heart jack against a slam, but when you look, you will see that the defenders have all four queens, so they might well have been pushed to find a safe lead. They had to lead some suit after all, and J-x-x-(x) might well have been the least evil. This defense earned Nicola and Sally the award for the best-defended hand.

At last year's Lederer Invitational Teams, held in London, two Souths reached the pushy four hearts doubled. Each defending pair had a chance to defeat the game, but both fell at a late hurdle.

Against John Salisbury, West led the diamond king. Declarer won and exited with the club queen, won by East, who naturally enough led the diamond jack. Salisbury covered, and West had to discard to beat the contract. When he ruffed and exited with a club, Salisbury could ruff and run the heart queen, covered with the king and ace. Now South had just enough entries to establish the long club and play to ruff a diamond to dummy. Then he could cash the winning clubs to dispose of his losing spades for plus-590.

At another table, after the same first two tricks, East, David Burn, did extremely well by winning his club ace and shifting to the spade five instead of leading the diamond jack. Now declarer, Zia Mahmood, knew that the spade finesse was hopeless, so he put in the eight. West won with the nine, and now exited with a spade, fatally, giving declarer 10 tricks. A club would have been equally unsuccessful here — West gets endplayed, forced to lead a spade or allow the long club to be developed. However, West did have an escape, albeit one that is very hard to find at the table. He could have exited with a small heart, playing his partner for the trump nine, after which declarer has no way home.

Today's deal comes from the Premier League, a domestic competition in the UK that is used to select the international team. The heroine is the late Michelle Brunner, who died last year. Ironically, Brunner had been co-opted herself as a substitute to the Hackett team after the sudden and unexpected death of John Armstrong.

The auction to four spades was competitive, and a minor-suit lead would have set this contract, but West led his singleton heart — a reasonable choice. Careful play and accurate timing was needed to emerge with 10 tricks, and Michelle Brunner was well up to the task.

Correctly spurning the free finesse because of the entry problems to the South hand, she accurately rose with dummy’s heart ace, then drew trumps to remove the ruffing danger. Next came the finesse of the heart seven, followed by the heart king. It might look natural to discard a club loser from dummy. However, it was critical to pitch a diamond rather than a club from the board. Now came the heart jack, and Brunner ran this to East’s queen, pitching another diamond from dummy. This established the heart 10, to take care of the club loser in due course.

When East was in with the heart queen, he could cash two but not three diamond tricks. Five spades, four hearts, plus the club ace — the entry to the fourth heart — added up to declarer’s requisite 10 tricks. Very well played.

When deciding which opponent to play for length in a particular suit, you need to consider how you might recover from a wrong guess beyond simply playing the probabilities.

Against today’s three-no-trump contract, one West led ace and another spade, ducked by East. Declarer played a club to East, who continued with the king and a fourth spade. Declarer discarded two hearts from dummy and now had to guess diamonds for his contract. He started by playing the king (on which East carefully played the eight), and when he followed with the ace, he had to go one down.

In the other room, where the contract was doubled, the defense started with three rounds of spades (dummy discarding a heart). Declarer won and played a club, which East again won to clear the spades, dummy discarding a club. On the spades West had discarded two clubs.

Declarer could assume from the double that West held hearts guarded. So it was possible that he had his actual shape, though he might have fewer clubs and four diamonds.

However, declarer could see that if he played East for four diamonds, it wouldn’t matter if he was wrong. He cashed the heart ace, then played the diamond ace and a diamond to the queen. When West showed out, it was simple to pick up East’s jack. But suppose East had shown out. Declarer would simply have played his top hearts and exited with a heart. West now must return a diamond, giving declarer his trick back.