Today's deal comes from the Cavendish Teams of a decade or so ago, and it features the use of suit preference on defense.

It is bad enough to stay low and miss a cold game, but when your opponents beat you in the safe partscore you have reached, it hurts even more. After Peter Weichsel’s natural but limited opening of two clubs, Paul Chemla did not have enough to overcall in diamonds, and when Christian Mari reopened with two hearts rather than a double, Chemla decided not to explore for three no-trump, but to take the safe positive … not so fast!

Weichsel led the club ace, an incisive shot, then carefully played the club seven for Alan Sontag to ruff. Sontag now found the fine move of underleading the diamond ace (Peter’s middle club clearly indicated that he had no preference between the pointed suits; hence he was likely to have the king of both suits). Weichsel won his king, then gave Sontag a ruff with a high club. At this point, Sontag led the spade two to ensure one down, setting up the defense’s spade trick before declarer could establish the diamonds for discards.

At the other table West’s opening bid of one club let North overcall one diamond and South could show hearts, then raise his partner’s call of one no-trump to game. Declarer found the club jack and had no problem in making nine tricks.

This week's deals all come from the Cavendish tournament and feature points of technical interest in the play.

This deal might look like a simple defensive problem against three no-trump — just the five tricks hinge on the play to trick two! For example, at one table Zia Mahmood reached three no-trump against the Sanborns, having bid spades twice. Steve Sanborn led the diamond king (showing three of the top four honors in the suit, and requesting an unblock or a count signal). Kerri Sanborn showed an odd number of diamonds, helping her partner know that declarer had the guarded diamond queen left.

Still, West did not know whether to shift to spades or hearts to put his partner on lead for the diamond through. After much thought he shifted to hearts and declarer claimed his 10 tricks.

By contrast, Larry Cohen was on lead after a slightly different auction in which South had opened one spade and had rebid two no-trump. Although he had the option of leading the diamond king for an unblock, he decided that South was bound to have the guarded diamond queen. Therefore he led the diamond ace (which asked for attitude and was not an unblock request).

Now David Berkowitz’s diamond eight was suit preference for a spade — a great hand for his methods. Cohen shifted to a spade, East went back to diamonds, and the defenders cashed out the spades for down four.

The auction for the 1999 Cavendish Pairs generated comfortably over a million dollars, so everyone knew that good play would be rewarded in more ways than one. And today's deal was just such an example.

At one table where Neil Chambers and John Schirmer were South and North respectively, they managed to silence their opponents here; when East opened one club Chambers overcalled one diamond, and Schirmer simply jumped to three no-trump, making nine tricks in comfort. But reaching the 4-4 heart fit was not easy when East-West could bid and raise clubs — and of course, the five-club sacrifice is relatively cheap.

However, on our featured auction Fred Gitelman finished in five diamonds and when West led a helpful heart, Gitelman won in hand, crossed to dummy with a trump to ruff a club, then drew a second trump.

Next he cashed the heart ace to get the bad news, and now he found the neat maneuver of leading the club king to pitch a low spade. East won his ace (ducking does not beat the hand as declarer would subsequently set up a spade) and could not safely give a ruff-sluff.

In fact, East chose to play the spade ace and lead another spade, hoping that his partner had the jack, and now Gitelman had a home for his heart loser. But there was a resource available; after winning the club ace: East had to underlead his spade ace-queen to beat the hand. Would you have thought of it?

The Cavendish Pairs has traditionally been run as a five-session event in which every pair plays each of the other pairs. But the 1999 Cavendish featured the experiment of dividing the pool into a final event and consolation event after the first two days, followed by a one-day final. Three pairs were fighting it out for the big prize with a couple of rounds to go, and one of those three was Billy Cohen and Ron Smith. However, with a couple of rounds to go, Smith and Cohen dropped out of contention — and this board cost them blood.

Kerri and Steve Sanborn play a hyperaggressive style of pre-empting, hence Steve’s choice of opening. Cohen might have contented himself with a call of three spades, but when he jumped to four spades, that persuaded his partner to look for slam. The two cue-bids did not drive the partnership completely overboard, but it did get them to a dangerous spot.

The success of the contract would hinge on the opening lead, and there is scarcely a more attractive lead than a singleton in partner’s suit, but Kerri had been listening to the auction, and — more importantly — she knew her spade trick would not run away. She unerringly led a heart, and the defense cashed their two heart tricks and had an inevitable trump winner to come to defeat the contract and hand their opponents a crushing blow.

In today's deal from the Cavendish teams of 1999 North-South look destined to reach three no-trump whether East pre-empts or not. The attractive alternative would be if they can stop off to double their opponents should they go overboard in diamonds. Having said that, though, when the defense to three no-trump starts with West setting up the diamonds, nine tricks seem a long way off. Nonetheless, in the match between the teams captained by Wayne Chu and Gerald Sosler, both tables reached the no-trump game and did remarkably well.

When Craig Gower as South was declarer, Kay Schulle led a top diamond. Gower took the second diamond, then led the heart queen, covered by the king and ace, and next played off the top spades to try to exert a little pressure on West. When Schulle pitched two diamonds, declarer worked out why.

Gower determined that West had to be preserving a heart guard, so he cashed the 10 of hearts, then took the heart finesse. Next he played off the last heart winner and threw West in with a diamond. She could cash her diamond winners, but would eventually have to lead clubs, setting up the queen for declarer and conceding the ninth trick.

Remarkably, this nice play simply minimized Gower’s losses on the deal, since in the other room David Berkowitz had made exactly the same play in three no-trump doubled, landing nine tricks.

All this week's deals come from recent Cavendish tournaments. Going into the final match of the 1999 Cavendish Teams, there were three squads with realistic chances of taking the title. Lou Ann O'Rourke was in the lead, but that team lost heavily to Peter Boyd, the team in third place that switched places with them. This meant that the Chip Martel team, in second spot, could take the title if they could win their encounter with Gabriel Chagas (playing with Zia) by more than 10 IMPs. They were 1 IMP down with just today's deal to score up.

In the auction shown, Chagas as East passed his partner’s five-spade bid, and Howard Weinstein as South sacrificed in six hearts, doubled by Zia. This figured to be a reasonable enough result for North-South. Better still, after a top diamond lead, Zia erred by shifting to the spade king, thus collecting only 500.

When Chagas’ teammates bid as far as six hearts with the North-South cards, Chip Martel as East tried six spades and North sacrificed in seven hearts. After the lead of the two top diamonds, Martel pitched a discouraging spade, so Stansby played a third diamond, collecting an overruff and the club ace for 1100, and 12 IMPs to his side. That meant Martel’s team won the event by the smallest possible margin.

Incidentally, at another table, when Fred Gitelman as East defended six hearts doubled on this deal, he thoughtfully threw the spade ace away at trick two to ensure that his partner played a third diamond!

North has an awkward bid after the one-spade overcall, but two diamonds seems as good a bid as any. When South raises to three diamonds (a splinter jump to three spades would also be a sensible option), North is still on the spot, with a constructive but not forcing call of three hearts looking like the least of evils. An alternative would be to probe with three spades, after which reaching four hearts with confidence might be harder.

At pairs four hearts looks the best spot, while at teams five diamonds might have extra chances. But after two rounds of spades South has to tread very carefully, since the risk of getting forced is a real one.

With five heart and three club tricks, South needs only two diamond tricks to make his game. To guard against a 4-2 trump break with the diamond king offside, declarer should discard a diamond (or a club) on the second spade lead. When West leads a third round of spades, South trumps, draws four rounds of hearts (using a club as a re-entry to hand), then finesses the diamond into East. Since that player has no more spades, he must lead back a club or a diamond. If East began with the diamond king and four spades, the contract could never be made against a 4-2 trump split. But as the cards lie, discarding on the second spade is critical to retaining control of the hand.

The women's match between Europe and the United States at the IOC Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, a decade ago, saw a win for the European team — a squad from four different countries, by a substantial 68 IMPs.

Sabine Auken, who is a German player living in Denmark, has been one of the world’s best women players for several years. Sitting South, she showed her skill on the diagramed deal from that match. Using a strong club, she and her partner climbed to a slightly optimistic three-no-trump contract.

While a club lead would have defeated the game, West had no reason to know that, and after the normal diamond lead, South had plenty of chances. She captured East’s diamond queen with the ace and finessed the spade jack, losing to the queen.

Although South might not have enjoyed a club shift, East returned the diamond 10, and only when this was permitted to win, did she shift to the club king.

Auken held up the ace for one round, then took another spade finesse. When it held, she continued spades, and West won the king and led a third diamond. Dummy’s king won, and when the winning spade was led from dummy in the three-card ending, East had to throw a heart to keep her master club. Now Auken could play off the ace and king of hearts, certain that the remaining hearts were 2-2.