You'd expect today's contract of three no-trump to be reached at most tables. North's diamond suit offers enough prospects for development that he should raise the two-no-trump opening to game, relying on there to be a decent chance that declarer has some length in diamonds.

West has a choice of attractive opening leads, a major and a minor. West should opt without question for the solid sequence. You should only settle for a major in the case of a tie, not true here.

After East overtakes the club lead, South wins the first club (to avoid a heart switch) and imagines that he will be able to cash out the diamonds. The 4-1 break is a rude shock, but declarer will still be able to come to nine tricks so long as he can take four spade winners. Can you see any possible snag?

If South runs dummy’s spade jack, which spade will he play from hand? If he drops the 10, then East can cover the spade nine on the second round and build a trick for his eight. If South does not unblock his 10, then he must win the second spade in hand and can no longer remain in dummy to play spades.

The solution is painless, though. Simply run the spade nine on the first round of the suit, then lead the jack and underplay it with the 10, retaining the lead in North for the third spade play from dummy.

When this deal came up at the very end of a match between the two Italian teams in the Yeh Tournament of 2008, Italy Two had just enough of a lead over their counterparts to be able to survive today's disaster.

At one table East balanced with three hearts over South’s three diamonds. West tried three no-trump and East corrected to four clubs, raised to five. With trumps 2-1, five clubs played like a dream for plus 600.

This figured to be a nice pickup, since three diamonds doubled looked destined for down one. However, instead of leading a top spade, Valerio Giubilo went for the brass ring by leading his singleton heart, covered all around. Declarer, Agustin Madala, returned a heart, and West pitched a spade rather than a club. Declarer took the heart ace and led the heart 10, discarding his club when East, Alfredo Versace, covered. The spade jack was ducked all around, then came a spade to the ace.

Declarer now led a winning heart to pitch his last spade, and West ruffed in. South ruffed the next club and passed the diamond eight successfully, holding his trump losers to one and making plus 470.

In the ending, West had to fly with the diamond ace on the first round and play a second club to get his second trump trick since South is locked in dummy with the diamond king. Whether South leads a heart or spade from dummy, West re-promotes his diamond jack to the setting trick.

Antonio Sementa of Italy was the hero of today's deal. If you want to try it first as a single-dummy problem, then cover the East and West hands and play five diamonds on the friendly lead of West's singleton club.

Sementa won the club cheaply in dummy and rejected the idea of drawing only two rounds of trump before playing clubs. Had he done so, West would have ruffed in and would now have defeated the hand by cashing his side’s spade winner and eventually collecting a heart trick. Instead Sementa drew all the trumps, ending in dummy.

In a comparable position, a fine declarer had ruffed out the clubs and led a low spade from hand. East won, and could now have set the hand by playing back a spade. That would have allowed West to keep a spade winner at the end, since both North and South were out of trumps.

Sementa instead made the key play of leading a heart from dummy, relying on East (known to have four clubs and two diamonds, and presumably only five spades, since East-West had not bid) to have a doubleton heart honor.

When West took the heart king and played back a spade, East could lead a further spade, forcing dummy to trump and denuding North of side entries. But Sementa ruffed out the clubs, then played the heart ace, dropping the queen, and dummy was good.

Although this play might have led to extra undertricks, this was really the only legitimate chance for the contract.

There are almost as many different ways to assign conventional meanings to three-level responses to one no-trump as there are calculations of the World's Top Player. (Only kidding: everyone knows that he would be the world's top player if he could just find a competent partner.)

In today’s deal North-South was using three-level calls to show both minors, in different ranges, with specific shortages, and thus reached a delicate game. For the record, three diamonds would have been forcing with both minors, three hearts and three spades would have shown shortage in the other major, 5-4 in the minors.

On lead against three no-trump, Migry Campanile (West) led a natural but unfortunate spade against three no trump, and declarer’s trick count was now up to seven. South, Mark Bompis of France, then made the natural, if potentially unsuccessful, play of the diamond queen from hand, trying to establish his eight-card fit, and Campanile won the king. If she had routinely returned a heart or spade, as was the case at many tables, declarer would then have had no problems both establishing diamonds and returning to dummy to make use of them.

In fact, where the board was played between two world-class teams on Vugraph, one West played a spade, the other played back a diamond. But Campanile returned a club to disrupt the entries to dummy, and now declarer had no chance when neither minor behaved.

That was a well-deserved 13 IMPs to the Israeli team.

It has frequently been said that there are more ways to kill a cat than by drowning it in a saucer of cream. In today's deal, two Wests each found a different devious defense to pose a problem for declarer in three no-trump.

When Neville Eber held the West cards, his opening lead was a diamond against the no-trump game. Geoff Hampson put up dummy’s king, as Bosenberg followed with the eight, strongly suggesting four. Declarer now played a club to the king and Neville calmly dropped the queen under it. He knew declarer was 5-2 in spades and diamonds, and whether he had three or four clubs, he could be sure that the club queen was dead in the water.

The play worked better than he could have hoped. Declarer took the card at face value and elected to go after spades (in other words needing both the spade and heart finesse). He tried to cross to the heart jack and the roof fell in: down three.

But it is well known that there are more ways to kill a cat than by choking it with cream. For example, Migry Campanile was on lead after one no-trump was raised directly to three. She kicked off with a spade — none of this fourth-highest nonsense for her. Michael Barel returned the suit, and now Campanile shifted to a diamond. Declarer ran the spades now, and Campanile had to find two discards. She pitched a heart, then the club 10. Declarer now elected to cross to the heart ace and lead a club to the nine. Oops!

In today's deal from the Yeh Tournament held five years ago, both tables reached five clubs, Fredrik Nystrom from the South seat after West had doubled a diamond call, Alfredo Versace from an uninformative auction from the North seat. Versace received a heart lead and simply played ace and another spade. Then he played a trump to hand and the East won the ace and played another trump. Versace ruffed a spade in dummy, and discovered he had two spade losers now since he was out of trump and had nowhere to park them. Down one.

Nystrom, part of the Swedish team that is currently holder of the Olympiad title, received the lead of the heart jack. He won in hand, played the ace, and ruffed a spade. Next he took the heart king and ruffed a heart.

When East followed with the heart queen Nystrom drew the sensible inference that West’s presumed length in the red-suits would leave him with short spades. So Nystrom ruffed the next spade with the club king.

Had both opponents followed, he would have played on trumps to make 11 or 12 tricks. As it was, when the bad spade break came to light, declarer ruffed a diamond to dummy, then ruffed a spade with the club eight. His second chance came when West could not overruff. Now declarer simply lost the long spade and the club ace.

Today's contract of four hearts from the 2008 Yeh Tournament proved troublesome everywhere. Eric Kokish received a spade lead to the ace and a club shift. Kokish decided it was not yet Christmas. He rose with the ace and impressed his partner with the result. When trumps were 3-3, he had 620 and a 14-IMP gain when in the other room North-South overreached to five hearts and went down 300.

By contrast, when Eddy Manoppo played four hearts, he received a spade lead and spade continuation. He discarded a diamond, and Doron Yadlin won and played a third spade. With the lead in dummy, Eddy was not prepared to look this particular gift horse in the mouth. He finessed in clubs and finished up, if not wiser, at least better informed. That same successful defense was found by Prabhakar-Tendari against John Carroll.

Curiously, had the defenders shifted to diamonds at trick three, declarer would have put in the jack and ruffed away the ace, then played three rounds of trump. Now the defenders would legitimately have had to give dummy an entry, and South would have had no reason to be suspicious.

The happiest declarer at the end of the deal was undoubtedly Hiroki Yokoi. As South, he ended up in three no trump doubled after Geir Helgemo as East had opened one club. The defenders cleared spades, leaving declarer with only one possible winning club position, the singleton king offside. Today was his lucky day!

In today's deal from a recent knockout match, there were instructive points for both declarer and the defenders.

In both rooms West led his singleton heart against four spades. In one room declarer won and played the king and ace of spades. When East showed out, declarer started cashing hearts, but when West ruffed and exited with a trump, declarer had nine tricks and no more.

In the other room, when East’s 10 appeared on the first round of trump, South could foresee that both major suits were likely to break badly. So, at trick three, he played a diamond, ducking East’s nine. East gave his partner a heart ruff, but that only worked to declarer’s advantage. If West now played a trump, declarer had 10 tricks, so he did the best he could by playing a diamond, but declarer discarded from dummy and made the rest of the tricks.

East should have worked out to continue with a second diamond rather than switch to a heart. If he does, all declarer can do is ruff in dummy and play a heart, but West trumps and plays the diamond ace. Again, declarer has only nine tricks. So can you see where both declarers went wrong?

After the heart lead, declarer simply needs to play four rounds of trump, giving West his trump trick. What can West do? A diamond is fatal, so he must play a club, covered by the jack, king and ace. Declarer simply plays a second club to establish his 10th trick in that suit.