In snooker the most valuable balls are the black and pink, analogous in bridge to the ace and king, while the minor colors, starting with the yellow, are the little fish.

In this deal from the Open Teams in Poznan, Mark Horton compared the play to a snooker game, pointing out that declarer missed a chance to use his less significant assets and make his game.

Where he was watching, West led his singleton diamond against five clubs, and declarer lost a spade and two diamonds. But a closer inspection reveals that declarer had a winning line if he had made use of all the resources at his disposal.

The winning line is to take the lead with dummy’s diamond ace and begin eliminating the hearts by cashing the heart ace and ruffing a heart. A trump to dummy enables South to ruff another heart, and he now plays a spade from his hand. West must take the ace and can do no better than return a spade, declarer winning with dummy’s king and pitching a diamond from his own hand. Declarer next draws the outstanding trump, then plays the spade eight. When East cannot beat it, South simply discards a diamond, forcing West to win. What can that player do next? All he has left is spades and hearts. Whichever he leads, declarer ruffs in dummy and discards a diamond loser from hand.

This was the line followed by Jean-Christophe Quantin to bring home plus 550 in five clubs doubled.

This week's deals all come from the European Championships last year. Since these were held in Poznan, Poland, there was a very strong Polish representation.

Lukasz Brede and Wojciech Strzemecki for Team Connector produced an elegant result during the qualifying rounds of the Teams.

Strzemecki, West, led the heart jack against three no-trump. Brede overtook in the hopes that West would play him for a six-card suit for his pre-empt and would win the trick. Cautiously West played low, knowing that East might have cheated on his suit length. Now Brede, seeing his own lack of entries, thoughtfully shifted to a spade. Declarer won in hand and advanced the club jack, ducked, then the club king, covered by West’s ace for a second spade back, taking out declarer’s entry to dummy.

West won the third club and now exited with his last heart, which reduced declarer to just his five diamonds and a losing heart. He could do no better than lead a diamond to dummy, hoping the queen was with West. Brede took this trick and cashed out the hearts for three down – and a 5 IMP gain, since three no-trump went one down in the other room.

Just for the record, declarer should have played a diamond to dummy’s jack after the club jack held the trick. Had he done so, he would have collected four diamonds, three spades and one trick in each of the other suits, to make his game.

From the final of the mixed teams at the European open championships last summer comes today's deal. It occurred in a match between French and Dutch teams.

In one room, playing a system far removed from the standard strong no-trump and five-card majors, the French East opened a very weak no-trump. One no-trump doubled would not have been much fun, but North ended up in two hearts. Against that contract Benedicte Cronier (East) cashed two high clubs and gave Pierre Zimmermann a ruff. He exited with a low diamond, which ran to dummy’s queen. The heart jack went to Cronier’s king, and she played a fourth round of clubs, allowing Zimmermann to ruff. Declarer, Anton Maas, overruffed, later conceding a diamond for plus 110.

Catherine D’Ovidio and Philippe Cronier got to game at the other table, on the auction shown. Against that contract Ton Bakkeren started with a low spade, taken in dummy with the ace. D’Ovidio innocently played a low club from dummy, and Carla Arnolds erred by playing low. Had she won the king and continued with a spade, the timing would have been right to defeat the contract. When she played low, D’Ovidio won and played the heart jack, ducked by Arnolds. Another heart went to the queen and king. D’Ovidio took the spade switch in hand and led a diamond. West ducked, and the diamond king held. D’Ovidio had four hearts, three spades and a trick in each minor for plus 400 and a 7-IMP gain.

The European Championships, which take place every year, just wrapped up last week in Dublin. The championships run on an alternate-year cycle, and the events that have just finished decided who will get to represent Europe in next year's world championships. However, last year's events were open to everyone, and players from all over the world participated.

England’s Gunnar Hallberg is a Swedish expatriate who has won two world titles since moving 20 years or so ago. He participated in the senior events with a Swedish partner of his from a few decades ago, Hans Gothe, and was full of praise for the defense his partner had encountered in today’s deal.

Against Gothe’s contract of three no-trump Wlodzimierz Ilnicki led the club three, and his partner Stefan Cabaj smoothly inserted the jack.

When Gothe took the trick, the contract could no longer be made. Declarer had six diamonds, one club and one heart, but when South crossed to the diamond 10 to lead a spade toward his king, Cabaj went up with the ace and ran the club suit.

In the other room three no-trump made nine tricks on a spade lead. But note that if East wins the club ace at the first trick and continues with the jack, declarer can duck and needs simply to guess the spades to make his game.

Of course, in a perfect world South would have ducked the club jack at the first trick –far easier with all four hands on view!

Today we get three variations on a five-diamond contract from the Scandinavian championships.

Against Runi Mouritzen and, in the other room, Artur Malinowski, both Wests cashed the club ace and continued the suit. South ruffed, ran the heart jack to East, and got a trump return — best defense. Both declarers ran their seven trumps, and now the defense could choose who would guard clubs. Against Mouritzen both defenders did, forcing West to keep the heart 10 guarded (or declarer could overtake the heart queen). So West pitched all his spades, letting Mouritzen overtake the heart jack and finesse in spades successfully.

Against Malinowski West kept the bare spade queen and the doubleton heart 10, and declarer came down to one spade, one club and the heart ace in dummy. He led a heart to the ace and East was squeezed in the black suits.

Well done, both declarers; but Frederic Wrang had an even tougher task, since he received a low trump lead, won in dummy. Next came a spade to the jack and queen. West now cashed the club ace and continued with a low club (a heart shift would have been fatal).

Wrang ruffed the club return and ran all his trumps, coming down to the spade ace and two heart honors in hand and the 10-9 of spades and the bare heart ace in dummy. East had to bare one of his kings, and Wrang could cash the ace of that suit and cross to the other hand to take tricks 12 and 13: a true criss-cross squeeze.

When North chose a negative double after West's overcall, you had far too much playing strength to rebid at the two-level. Your leap to four hearts may have been an overbid – it was certainly all North needed to commit to a small slam. West leads the club king, taken by dummy's ace. How do you plan to make 12 tricks?

You should try to set up and enjoy your spade suit, as it needs little more than breaking no worse than 4-2. However, in some layouts a little care is required.

In today’s layout, if your first move in trumps is to play dummy’s ace, you will go down! Instead, you should tackle spades immediately by playing the ace and king then ruffing a spade high once West follows with a third spade. Next, return to hand with a trump to the 10 (discovering the 4-0 break) and ruff a second spade high. Then you will play the trump five and cover East’s card as cheaply as possible. You can now draw East’s remaining trumps and claim the contract losing just one club trick.

This plan would also succeed if spades were 3-3. After ruffing one spade, you could draw trumps and claim 12 tricks via four spades, a spade ruff, five trumps, a diamond and a club.

As you can see, you need both the ace and king of trumps for ruffing purposes. If you waste one of those at trick two, there would be no way to recover.

Today's deal comes from the women's event in last year's Scandinavian bridge championships. Against three no-trump Cecilia Rimstedt led her heart queen, ignoring her partner's suit and focusing on her own — a very good decision today. When her partner had the king and unblocked it under declarer's ace, the suit was already set up for the defenders. Trine Dahl tried to steal the club trick she needed at trick two by running the club 10. But Rimstedt won the jack and quickly took her tricks for down one.

That was 10 IMPs to Sweden when the Swedish pair at the other table scored 10 tricks after a spade lead.

Of course declarer should duck the first heart, but let’s come back to the deal and compare the line followed by Pekka Viitasalo of Finland. Against him the heart queen was led, and he ducked the trick. East unblocked the king to win the trick and continue the attack on hearts. Pekka won the second heart with the ace, played a diamond to the ace, and led a low club toward dummy, intending to finesse if West followed low. When West inserted the jack, he called for the ace from dummy, then cashed his diamonds and the spade ace. Now he exited with a small heart to West, who could cash his two heart winners but then had to lead into declarer’s club tenace and concede the ninth trick.

At matchpoints, once a major-suit fit has been found, it is hardly ever right to change directions and head toward a minor suit or no-trump. But at the slam level, however, it may pay to abandon a 5-3 major fit in favor of a 4-4 minor, and no-trump could be selected, either for matchpoint reasons or because it may survive a weakness in the major.

Both these factors influenced one of my readers, Barton Bloom, in bidding seven no-trump in today’s deal. He was not using Keycard Blackwood, a convention that allows you to locate the subsidiary trump honors. He had visualized better spades in the dummy and saw little advantage in playing spades rather than no-trump.

Unfortunately, the hole in the spade suit meant that any grand slam was virtually hopeless. But Bloom did not give up. He began by winning the opening lead of the diamond-king with the ace and cashing four heart winners.

Even though South had begun with only 10 tricks, with an 11th trick to come from a club finesse, he was able to exert huge pressure on West. When he led the last heart, he could turn 11 tricks into 13. At the table West threw a club, and now the club finesse brought home the grand slam. A spade discard would have been equally fatal, and throwing the diamond queen would have been only a temporary salvation. The diamond 10 would have put West through the wringer again.

The North hand is somewhat difficult to judge when South has shown a very strong hand with hearts. The second-round diamond control does not look valuable, so maybe signing off at every turn is a reasonable approach.

As South, you of course do not know about the wasted high cards opposite. When you bid slam, you’d better make it if you don’t want to hear complaints about your overbidding, and underplaying the hand. What should be your thoughts when you receive the lead of the club 10?

The idea here should be to avoid taking the spade finesse if at all possible. On the given layout your plan should be to endplay West when he has no winning exit card.

After winning the first trick with the club ace, you cross to dummy with the trump nine and ruff the diamond five high. Next you cash the club king and ruff the club four, eliminating that suit. You proceed to ruff dummy’s diamond seven high, which allows you to return to dummy by leading the trump six to dummy’s eight. Now comes the key play — you will lead the diamond king and discard the spade five from hand.

After West wins this trick with the ace, he has no good return. A spade exit will run to your ace-queen while a fourth round of diamonds will see you ruff in dummy and discard the spade queen from hand. Either way, you make 12 tricks.