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.

I apologize in advance for this personal set of deals this week from last year's Senior Trials, but most of them show my teammates in a good light rather than me.

Here is one example. In this deal I played three no-trump after introducing my clubs as a passed hand. I received the lead of the heart five and decided to rise with the ace in case East won the heart king and shifted to a spade, which I thought could set up too many winners for the defenders.

I cashed the diamond ace at trick two to find exceedingly bad news. Hoping for the best, I ran the club queen, which held, then led out the diamond 10 to West’s queen. Back came a heart to West’s king, and the defenders cleared hearts, leaving me with just eight tricks. Although there was no legitimate play for nine tricks, this looked like a depressing result, but fortunately I had teammates to help me out.

In the other room South opened three clubs and North used Blackwood, driving to slam. East, Arnie Fisher, found a Lightner double for the diamond lead, and South (in need of a swing) redoubled. West, Fred Hamilton obediently led a diamond, and Fisher ruffed and returned a trump. Declarer went up with the ace and cleared the trumps, but still had to lose a trick in the majors for a penalty of 1000 and a gain for our team of 14 IMPs.

The U.S. Bridge Federation is running its trials this week to select the team for the 2012 Olympiad Tournament. To mark the occasion, I shall be running a few deals from last year's event, in which my team qualified for the Senior Bowl in Veldhoven.

In today’s deal my partner, Dan Morse (East), opened one spade and I raised to two spades over the one-no-trump overcall, and played there. Against two spades, the defenders accurately led a heart, but ducked their diamond ace. So Dan was able to get a heart loser away on the club ace and hold his losers to two trumps and one in each red-suit, for plus 140.

In the other room the auction went as shown, with Arnie Fisher competing over two spades with two no-trump, and Fred Hamilton moving on to game. The defenders led a spade to the ace and returned the suit. Hamilton knocked out the heart ace, won the third spade, and led the club king from hand. Once he had guessed clubs, the defenders had just one trick in each suit, and Hamilton had nine tricks.

Did you notice the defenders’ slip? At trick one East must put in the spade jack, then win the heart ace to return a low spade. Now West will win his club ace and play the third spade to East, who can cash out for down one. (And had East ducked the heart ace smoothly, might declarer have — fatally — switched his attention to clubs?)

Today's deal sees South in a delicate no-trump slam, having carefully avoided the pitfall of playing six hearts, where the defenders can crossruff the first five tricks. Against six no-trump West finds the passive heart lead and declarer has 10 top winners. He can establish a spade trick easily enough, but if he assumes West has all the high spades, he will need to create an endplay or a squeeze for the 12th trick.

Most simple squeezes involve trying to take the rest of the tricks, but where, as here, one trick has to be lost after pressure is applied, the position is often more difficult to see.

The first step in the process is easy enough. Declarer cashes four rounds of hearts, then sets out on the clubs. West can discard two spades on the hearts without discomfort. However, the four rounds of clubs do put West under pressure. He lets go two spades early, then a painful diamond, but in the six-card ending, he has three diamonds and three spades left. What should he do now? Since a spade is obviously fatal, West must hope his partner has the diamond jack, so let’s go a diamond.

Now declarer cashes the diamond ace and king, reducing West down to his three spades. Declarer then leads a spade to his king, which West must win and lead a spade away from his jack. Declarer runs the spade around to his hand and has the rest of the tricks.

Bridge is a strange game. Why on earth would it be easier to make four hearts in today's deal than four spades? If you do fall by accident into four hearts, you would ruff the club lead, cash the heart ace, then run the spades. That way you simply give up the three trump tricks to West. But in the real world, you will play four spades.

You ruff the top club lead, then take the spade ace and king. If trumps split, you will find it easy to make 11 tricks, but when trumps divide 3-1, it would be very easy, but fatal, to draw a third round of trumps.

If you do that, then play ace and another heart, West will win and tap you for a second time with another club, and again when he gets in with the third heart. You are now out of trumps and can never score your fifth heart.

Instead, you must play ace and another heart before playing a third trump. If hearts break, you can ruff the next club and draw the last trump before playing a third heart. But if hearts also break badly, you can ruff the second club, give up a heart, ruff a third club, and ruff the fourth heart in dummy.

East can overruff for the defenders’ third trick, but the contract still succeeds — since you have only winners left, together with one trump.

Today's deal saw North produce a slightly aggressive raise to three hearts after his partner's simple rebid of hearts. The fact that the opponents had not supported spades did suggest that his partner would have length there — which made the action rather less attractive than it might appear. At teams or rubber bridge when vulnerable, the action is not unreasonable, but at pairs it is important in positions of this sort to protect the plus score.

When West opted for a passive club lead rather than an aggressive diamond lead, it tipped declarer off to the idea of rejecting the finesse. So South went up with the club ace and decided to set up the spades in the process of ruffing out the suit.

At trick two he passed the spade nine around to West, who won cheaply and shifted to the trump seven. South won the king in dummy, crossed to hand with the diamond ace, and led out the spade king, covered by the ace and ruffed.

At this point declarer could ruff a club back to hand, draw all the trumps, and give up a spade to the queen. That left him with the master spade eight for his 10th trick. In all, he lost two spades and one diamond.

The defenders could have defeated the game with an initial trump lead. And had West led the diamond jack, declarer might well have misguessed the play by taking an early club finesse — which would not have been a success!

In six spades, after winning the club queen in dummy, you should cash the trump ace. If trumps are 5-0, you will need the hearts to be 3-2 on most layouts. As a result you will cash the heart ace and king and ruff a heart with the trump queen before returning to hand with a trump to play on hearts. All you will lose is a trump.

When both opponents follow to the first round of trump, it would be a mistake to draw a second round. If you do, you no longer have the entries to establish the hearts when both majors are 4-1.

So, cash the heart ace, then lead a low heart to the next trick. If instead you try to cash the heart king, East will ruff and the contract will fail. (When East returns a trump, you cannot then ruff two hearts and draw East’s last trump, so you will have to concede a heart trick to West.)

But when you correctly play a low heart at trick three, what can the defense do? You can win a minor-suit shift and return to hand with a trump to ruff a low heart with dummy’s queen. Then, since there will still be a trump remaining in dummy, you can draw the remaining trump ending in hand and follow by running the hearts. You will make four trumps, four hearts, a heart ruff and the three minor-suit winners.