When the bidding suggests that suits will be breaking unkindly, that the key finesse will fail, and an endplay is not an option, it may be the intermediate cards that will come to the rescue.

Against four spades West kicked off with three rounds of clubs, South ruffing the third. Prospects looked poor since the diamond king was almost certainly wrong, and with West having announced at least 10 cards in the minors, the 2-2 trump break that declarer needed for his contract to succeed looked unlikely.

South continued with the spade ace, collecting the jack from West and the four from East and was now at the crossroads. If spades were indeed 2-2, then he could afford to lose a diamond, and either dummy’s last trump or the heart king would take care of his third diamond.

But instinct told him that the spade jack was bare, which meant that West was likely to hold a doubleton heart. If that doubleton included the jack or 10 — or both — dummy’s heart pips would provide two diamond discards.

So declarer played the heart ace, then the queen. When West produced the jack, declarer overtook the queen with the king and ran the nine. East covered, South ruffed, then returned to dummy with the spade king, West showing out. One diamond went away on the heart eight and another on the fifth heart, and declarer had 10 tricks.

Some ruffing-finesse deals offer you an extra-chance play in the same suit. When today's deal arose, declarer looked no further than the ruffing finesse without trying to combine his chances, and duly tumbled to defeat.

Would you have done better? Cover the East and West cards, and plan how you would play the spade slam when West leads the heart king.

The original declarer saw that a successful ruffing finesse in clubs would allow him to dispose of his heart loser. He won the heart lead, crossed to the spade ace, and cashed the club ace. He then returned to dummy with a trump and ran the club queen, throwing the heart loser from his hand. West won with the club king, and rather than trying to cash a heart — which would have been fatal to the defense — returned a diamond to his partner’s ace, to put the slam one down.

Declarer had missed his extra chance namely that West might hold a doubleton club king (which was a greater possibility than normal, with six hearts in his hand). After winning the heart lead, you should play a club to the ace. You return to dummy with the spade eight and ruff a club high, just in case West began with a doubleton club king. If the king does not appear, you cross to the spade 10 and take the ruffing finesse in clubs. (This is a far better chance than playing West for club K-x-x.)

Some of the most important techniques in bridge are those that assist you in establishing a suit. In today's deal, how would you play the spade slam when West leads the diamond 10? The key is to make full use of the available entries to dummy.

If spades break, you are home; what if they do not? West may have led from the diamond king but it is no more than a 50-50 chance. And rightly or wrongly, many players regard leading from a king as a sin comparable to coveting one’s neighbor’s ox. A rather better chance is that clubs will break 4-3 and that you can set up a second discard in the suit.

You rise with dummy’s diamond ace and lead low to your spade ace. You then unblock the club ace and return to dummy with the spade king, discovering that East holds a trump trick. All follow to the club king, on which you discard one of your diamond losers. You then ruff a club, and when you return to dummy with a top heart and lead a low club, there is nothing that East can do. If he ruffs the losing club with his master trump, you will discard your last diamond loser and claim the balance. No doubt East will prefer to discard on the fourth round of clubs. You ruff in hand, return to dummy with a heart, and lead the club jack. Whether or not East ruffs, you will throw your last diamond and make the slam.

In today's deal from the 2012 NEC tournament in Yokohama, five diamonds is a contract that looks hard to bring home with the club honors split.

At our featured table both the Indonesian and Japanese ladies played five diamonds on the defense of two rounds of spades. They ruffed and drew trump, then played three rounds of hearts early, ruffing in hand. When the Indonesian declarer next ran the club jack, the Japanese west failed to cover and declarer came home easily. The other declarer led a club to the 10, and now a club return killed any chances of a squeeze.

With the sight of all four hands, declarer does best to lead a club to the eight, 10 and queen after drawing trumps. East can later be caught in a simple heart-club squeeze.

So far so good — but what about East-West? Could they bring home four spades doubled if allowed to buy the hand? Three pairs did collect 10 tricks in spades – if you can get there from East, to avoid the heart ruff, the game is extremely hard to beat.

After a diamond lead, you ruff and draw trump, eliminating diamonds en route, then lead a heart to the 10. To defeat you, North must win cheaply and return a low heart. That is far from easy to do, especially if playing regular signals, since South cannot afford to play the heart nine on the first round of the suit, or North is truly endplayed on winning the heart queen!

Today's deal from last year's NEC trophy in Yokohama features the use (and abuse) of doubles. Let's look at the unsuccessful story first, where West opened one diamond and North doubled for takeout. East bid one heart, South joined in with two clubs, and West now doubled to show a three-card heart raise — the so-called support double.

Even if playing mandatory support doubles, this West hand surely fails to qualify since arguably it is neither an opening bid, nor does it have three-card support — but maybe I’m old-fashioned. Two hearts went down on repeated spade leads, when the fourth spade promoted a trump for South.

By contrast when Tony Nunn and Sartaj Hans were East-West, they constructed an auction, as shown here, to defend two clubs doubled. Put yourself in West’s shoes and pick a lead. Too easy, especially facing diamond shortage, right? No. Nunn led a small club, not his diamond sequence. Declarer won in hand and led a heart to the king, ducked by East, then played a diamond to West, who returned his second trump. A heart run around to the jack saw East play a third trump, won in dummy, and the ruffing finesse in hearts now set up the heart eight, but simultaneously ran declarer out of trump.

At this point declarer naturally misguessed spades by leading to the spade king, Hans could win his ace, unblock the diamond jack, then cross to his partner’s spade queen. Three more diamond winners meant a penalty of 800 out of nothing.

The NEC tournament from Yokohama, held this time last year, featured a Swiss tournament followed by a knockout for the eight surviving teams. The quarterfinal matches started with a defensive problem on the very first deal that might look easy — but at the table these things are never as simple as you might think.

In one room, where the auction had petered out in two no-trump, declarer won the spade lead and cashed his other high spade to unblock the suit, before playing a club toward dummy — perhaps making the position easier to defend than was necessary. East made the critical play for the defense when he ducked this trick, won the next club, and cleared the diamonds by playing ace, king and a third round. When declarer won the diamond queen and played a heart, West climbed up with the heart ace and cashed out the diamonds for down one.

Ducking the club might look like an instinctive play, but it was not one that was found at many other tables. For example, when defending three no-trump after a spade lead and a club play at trick two, East in the other room fell from grace by winning the first club and returning a low diamond. Declarer won in dummy and unblocked spades, crossed to the club jack, and cashed out dummy’s spades, then ran the clubs with the aid of the finesse and had nine tricks.

The final of the NEC tournament held in Yokohama this time last year was between Down Under from Australasia and the Bulgarian All Stars. Both teams are more aggressive bidders than most, and in the deal that followed the aggressive approach paid huge dividends, when coupled with some careful declarer play.

In one room for Down Under Tony Nunn as West overcalled one spade over one club and Sartaj Hans jumped to four spades, driving his opponents to the five-level.

In five hearts declarer needed clubs not to be unusually hostile so cashed the club ace and king early and was doubtless more hurt than surprised when East ruffed. Now there were two more tricks to lose, whatever declarer did.

But Martin Reid declared four hearts in the other room on an essentially uncontested auction, and paradoxically, the very bad break in clubs was good news, in a sense, for Bulgaria, since Reid now might have trouble making 10 tricks in hearts.

After an opening spade lead, declarer won in dummy and led a heart to hand and a diamond to the jack to cut the defenders’ communications. When East won and shifted to a club, Reid won his ace and carefully ducked a club. Now whether West took his club queen or East ruffed, declarer could now arrange to ruff clubs in dummy and hold his losers to one more trump trick.

That swing made the match safe for Down Under — the first win for an Antipodean team in this event for over a decade.

Today's deal from the 2012 NEC tournament in Yokohama shows how illogical bridge can sometimes be. Both tables reached three no-trump on the lead of the heart three. With five diamonds and two hearts in the bag, you need two more tricks. However, as soon as you lose the lead, you know a heart will come back, and you will not be able to lose the lead again without the defenders cashing out to beat you.

It looks normal to play on clubs, the long suit, and leading low toward the king-queen feels like the natural play. However, David Bakhshi won the heart, crossed to a high diamond, and instead correctly played a spade to the king. When that held, he led the club king to the ace, won the heart return, and claimed nine tricks. Even if East had won the club ace and played back a spade, declarer would have put in the 10 and the defense would surely have been able to cash at most three tricks there, since West was highly unlikely to have started with five good spades.

Of course it wouldn’t have helped East to fly up with the spade ace at trick three. And if the spade king had lost to the ace and a heart had been returned, declarer would still have come home if the spade jack was onside. Only the spade ace with West and the spade jack with East beats the hand. By contrast, playing on clubs is only a 50 percent chance.

All this week's deals come from last year's NEC tournament in Yokohama, Japan. Today's comes from the final between an Australian and a Bulgarian squad.

With the Australians taking a decent lead into the final set, we saw a moment of low farce. Nobody was hurt, but many of the eight players emerged with scrambled egg all over their faces.

Three no-trump by either North or South has the attraction of nine top tricks while six diamonds or six no-trump by North are perfectly playable contracts, even if neither is an odds-on spot. I wish I could say the same for either four diamonds, or six diamonds when played by South. A complex relay auction (in which South described his hand precisely) led the Australasians to the very dicey slam.

Having said that, if you reached six diamonds and received a top club lead — as happened at the table — you’d count yourself a little unlucky to go down. The point is that you need only 2-2 trumps or the hand with three diamonds to have at least three hearts – by my calculation about an 80 percent chance. That was what happened to the New Zealand declarer, but East could ruff the third heart and cash the spade ace. Down one.

To add insult to injury, from a Bulgarian perspective, when West led his spade queen against four diamonds on the auction shown, North having passed a forcing call to stop ‘safely’ low, the defenders took two spades, a ruff and a trump trick. Down one and no swing!