In four spades declarer made the natural play of covering West's heart king with the ace, hoping against hope that East would follow, or at the very least that he would be ruffing with a natural trump trick. East trumped the trick and returned a spade — nice defense. Declarer played the club ace and ruffed a club, took the diamond ace, came to the diamond king and led a third club.

After much thought West pitched a heart, and declarer ruffed in dummy. But now he could not avoid losing a further heart, a club, and a trump promotion. Had West ruffed in on the third club and cashed his heart, declarer could not have been stopped from ruffing the fourth club in dummy and losing no more tricks.

For those of you interested in the art of squeeze-play, it is worth noting that declarer could have made his contract had he read the position perfectly. Imagine that you duck the first trick, then put up the heart ace when the defense leads a second heart. The best East can do is ruff and return a spade, and you draw two rounds of trump, then find the master play of ducking a club. You can now arrange to ruff a club in dummy and run your trumps. In the ending, East gets squeezed in the minors.

Even if East returns a diamond at trick three, declarer can win in dummy, set about the minor-suit crossruff, and come home with 10 tricks.

In today's auction North's three-club call was a second negative. It makes sense to use three clubs, not two no-trump, as the negative, because you don't want to get no-trump played the wrong way up. When North showed four-card heart support, South proceeded to the heart slam, nevertheless.

Put yourself in declarer’s position. You win the club-king lead with the ace and play a top trump, West following with the heart eight. How would you continue the play?

West’s high spot-card is a warning that the trumps may break 4-1. You should follow with dummy’s heart seven on the first round of trumps, clearing the way for a later finesse of your heart six. When you play a second high trump, West does indeed show out. You follow with dummy’s heart nine, unblocking once more.

It is time to develop the spade suit. You play the spade ace and king, and lead a third spade, West producing the queen of the suit. There is no point in ruffing in dummy, because East would overruff and return a club. Instead, you throw dummy’s remaining club.

You win the diamond switch with your ace and lead the club10, which you ruff with the heart 10. This ruffing unblock is your third such move in the trump suit. Now comes the reward for your foresight. You lead the heart three and finesse the heart six. It remains only to draw East’s last trump and claim the contract.

When the opponents pre-empt and you end up in an awkward contract, you’ve got to fight back somehow. Chuck Said (playing with Kathy Ford) found the solution to his problem in this deal from a 1993 pairs game by playing the cards practically double-dummy.

Playing matchpoints, West’s choice to pre-empt at the three-level on a six-card suit may seem wild, but the extra playing strength from the five-card minor makes the choice a reasonable one. Now Said opted for the heart game after his partner doubled three spades for takeout. And yes, a bid of three no-trump by North would probably have been a better alternative.

Declarer found himself in a precarious spot, but he made the most of what he was dealt. When West led the spade king, Said won the ace in dummy. He cashed the heart ace and queen, noting the fall of the nine from West. Said suspected trumps were 4-2, so he turned his attention to clubs, and his suspicion was confirmed when he cashed the club king and West pitched a spade. Said now played a club to the nine, cashed the club ace and ruffed a club with dummy’s heart two.

Next came a spade ruff, stripping East of that suit. Said cashed the heart king and threw East in with a club. The hapless defender had the long trump, so he could cash the trump jack but then was forced to play away from his diamond king into dummy’s A-Q. Said’s fine dummy play resulted in plus 450 and a matchpoint tie for a top.

The 1st World Mind Sports Games included three youth categories: Under 28, Under 26 and Under 21. The International Mind Sports Association was the brainchild of former World Bridge Federation President, Jose Damiani. The hope is that Mind Sports will form a separate Olympic category.

In the under-28 category Steven de Donder of Belgium had to deal with a tiresome trump break in his contract of four spades. West led a diamond to East’s ace. Back came a heart, taken in hand, and given a reasonable trump break, 11 tricks seem plain sailing. Even if one defender holds four spades to the jack, 10 tricks would still be there with the minimum of inconvenience.

But when de Donder cashed the spade ace, the 5-0 break meant that even game was in danger. However, he handled it like a veteran: he played a second diamond, won the heart return, then took the club king and ace, and cashed the diamond queen, discarding his heart nine from hand. On the diamond jack, which followed, East chose to ruff — and South overruffed. (It doesn’t help if East discards his last nontrump — a club — because then declarer pitches his last heart.) In the three-card ending, declarer has a high and low spade and the heart queen, dummy the spade 10-5 and a heart, and East has the spade J-9-8. De Donder exited with his heart, and East was forced to ruff, thus leaving himself endplayed in trumps.

It takes an initial heart lead to defeat four spades.

Sometimes an easy game suddenly develops unexpected problems. Here you pick up one of your best hands of the decade, but to compensate for that, your partner has one of his worst. His three-club bid showed 0-4 points, and his three-spade call at his third turn suggested no feature he wanted to emphasize.

Accordingly, you come to a stop in four spades. When West leads the club queen, you ruff, then cash the spade ace, getting news of the 4-0 break.

With three possible diamond losers you cannot afford to play ace and another diamond or a 4-0 break onside would doom you immediately. So you cross to the spade jack and finesse the diamond queen, the best safety play against a 4-1 diamond break. If the finesse holds, you’d draw trump and play on diamonds for 10 or 11 tricks.

When the finesse loses, you ruff the next club and play the diamond ace, crossing your fingers. When both opponents follow suit, you can play a third diamond. West wins and plays a third club, but now you discard the heart four. If the defenders lead a fourth round of clubs, then dummy’s spade six would still be in place to take care of the ruff, and the hearts would provide the entry back to hand to draw the rest of the trumps.

If West exits with a heart, you can simply draw trumps and claim the rest.

J. David King, who notched his 10,000th masterpoint in 1993 at the Fall National Tournament, brought home a very difficult contract against Alan and Ellen Siebert here. King's partner was Marguerite Holley.

Declaring five spades, King ruffed the second round of clubs and led the spade queen. With this type of layout, it is imperative to lead high from the hand with one honor to protect against the very situation that existed here, namely all four trumps with East. (West could not hold four spades after his unusual no-trump.) King continued with the spade10, covered by the jack and won with the king.

It is not too common to finesse in a suit where you have no natural loser, but King knew that he was going to have to find a way to dispose of all of his diamonds. The chances were that he was going to run into a 5-0 break. So he took a heart finesse, and next picked up trumps by leading to the eight and then cashing the ace.

Now came the diamond queen, covered by the king and won with the ace — and sure enough, West had all the diamonds. King cashed the heart ace, pitching a diamond, and ruffed a heart, drawing the last nondiamond card from West. Finally, he led a diamond toward dummy’s seven, and West was helpless. She won with the nine, but then had to lead away from the 10-6 into the J-8.

The U.S. Senior Trials were held last summer to select the two American teams to go to Veldhoven in October. Today we shall see Peter Weichsel at the helm, rescuing his team. This deal occurred in the last set of a match that went to overtime and that Peter's team dragged out of the fire. So this board was critical. In the other room Peter's teammates had defended against four spades. Hemant Lall had balanced with a three-spade bid over a three-heart pre-empt and had been raised to game. There was nothing to the play; declarer lost just two trump tricks and collected 650.

The auction from our featured room was as shown. When Weichsel bid three no-trump over three spades, his partner, Mark Lair, quite reasonably passed, and Bob Hamman on lead selected a low club, an incisive shot. Weichsel won in dummy, led a spade to the nine and queen, won the club return, then tested spades and found the bad news.

Declarer now cashed off four rounds of diamonds ending in dummy and was up to seven tricks. Since West had a fistful of black-suit winners and was known to have begun with a singleton heart, what distribution should declarer play for? A singleton heart honor would have been useless to him, so declarer played a low heart from dummy, and when Bart Bramley correctly played low, Weichsel put in the 10! That was his ninth trick, and it kept his side in the hunt.

The deals this week all come from the trials that allowed my team to qualify for the Senior Bowl in Veldhoven last fall. We fell behind in the early going, then recovered with the aid of deals like the following one.

At our table, the developments were unremarkable after West dealt and passed. With an awkward hand and marginal opening-bid values, I opened my long suit, clubs, and a contested auction saw us play five diamonds. My partner, Dan Morse, was at the helm, and since East had shown long spades, he tackled trumps by playing the diamond ace first, and now had no problem bringing home 11 tricks. That looked like a normal result, one that was likely to be duplicated at the other table if the contract was five of a minor.

However, the auction was as shown, with South declaring three no-trump. But look at how the cards lie for declarer: if West leads a heart, there are nine top winners; and on the lead of a low spade, declarer will come home in his game because of the spade blockage.

However, cometh the hour, cometh the man. Fred Hamilton on lead selected the spade king as his opening salvo! When Arnie Fisher encouraged with the 10, Hamilton played the spade jack to Fisher’s ace, and that let the defenders take the first six tricks.

When our team qualified for the Senior Bowl in Veldhoven last June, we needed to beat the very strong Lynch team in the finals. Our team went down 50 IMPs early on, then recovered to win by a landslide. This deal occurred in the set where we pulled back almost all of the deficit, and it demonstrates that when in doubt, one should bid one more. You never know what the consequences might be!

At our teammates’ table, Arnie Fisher (East) and Fred Hamilton bid to four hearts after East had made a weak jump overcall of two spades over one club. The defenders made no mistake: They cashed two spades and shifted to a diamond, setting up the defense’s fourth winner before the clubs could be established.

At my table my partner Dan Morse (East) made a simple overcall of one spade over a Precision one-diamond opening, and South made a negative double. I guessed to jump to four spades as a calculated overbid, in the hope that something good would happen — and it did!

No one had anything more to say, and the defenders tried to cash two heart tricks, letting Morse ruff, draw trumps, and establish the diamonds to get his two club losers away.

Yes, a club shift at trick two would have defeated the game, but can you blame South for misreading the position? A club switch might be right if partner discourages at trick one – but I must admit I too would probably have got this wrong.