Today's deal comes from a recent U.S. Nationals, where IMP scoring was in place. What that means is that just like in a team game the swings on the big deals would determine whether you did well or badly, unlike the standard pair game, where every deal is equally important.

The deal came up in the first final session of the IMP Pairs. The author indicated that he was lucky enough to be the beneficiary of a gift here, but that names would not be used, to protect the guilty. Where would you like to play? The slam of six spades is not great, but it is quite playable. South’s decision not to open two clubs is questionable, but once he found a moderate hand and spade support opposite, nothing could keep him below the six-level. How should South play on a club lead?

The right answer is to win the club ace, cash the top spades, then play off the heart ace. Now you take your two high diamonds and ruff a diamond. If the suit splits, you are home. If East overruffs, you were never going to make it. However, if you ruff the third diamond and no queen appears, but East cannot overruff, you take your second chance. You run the heart queen to pitch a diamond. So long as the heart king is onside, you rate to be able to pitch your diamonds on the winning club and a heart in dummy.

The late Dr. Nissan Rand, a former double World Champion, was one of the most fervent advocates of senior bridge. Under his auspices world championships at senior level took on equal ranking with the open, women and junior events. Because these days I have also become a devotee of senior bridge, I owe him a great debt of gratitude!

In today’s deal Nissan’s sequence of making a forcing pass, then removing the double, was conventional to show a stronger hand than a direct call of five hearts. At his third turn North felt he held at least a king more than he had so far promised in the bidding, so he took a shot at the small slam.

West led the diamond ace, ruffed. Hardly pausing for breath, Rand cashed the heart ace, then led a low club to dummy’s king. This held, as was expected from the bidding. Now came the diamond king, Nissan discarding his club 10, and next a club to his queen. West won with the ace, whereupon Nissan claimed the slam, as West was endplayed.

A spade would be into South’s spade tenace, a diamond gives a ruff and discard for the losing spade to be discarded; and if a low club is returned, the nine is inserted. Either it wins, or clubs break 3-3, in which case dummy’s 13sth club takes care of South’s losing spade.

Though technically the slam can be made after any lead, this line required no guesswork for declarer.

Today's deal presents a problem for South at teams. When your partner doubles three clubs, should you settle for the safe plus by passing, or should you go for the big prize by trying three no-trump?

In an Australian event, Marlene Watts and Jamie Ebery were one of the few pairs to go plus (almost) legitimately here. Against three no-trump, West started off well enough by leading a heart; East won and shifted to clubs to the jack and queen. Back came a low heart now, East winning again and continuing clubs — fatally. He should have inferred from his partner’s play of a low heart at trick three that West had four hearts, and have continued the suit.

Ebery put up the king, losing to the ace, and pitched a spade from dummy. Then he won his heart ace and carefully cashed the spade king and the diamond king. He then led a diamond to the ace, discovering the 5-1 break and getting a perfect count of the hand.

Now he ran the clubs, coming down to the spade ace and two small diamonds in dummy, with two small spades and the diamond queen in hand. East, who had to discard from his doubleton spade queen and the diamond J-10, elected to pitch a spade.

Since East was known to have two diamonds left, declarer crossed to the spade ace and came back to the diamond queen to score his long spade at trick 13 — a perfect crisscross squeeze.

When a top-ranked player slips up in a simple deal, it is always interesting to speculate why. At the table West led a low club to the two, the 10 (a helpful card from East to suggest to West that the defenders did not have a club trick) and the ace. South then played a spade to dummy's ace and a spade to the 10 and jack. Now West followed the basic principle of cashing the master trump to draw two of his opponents' trumps. Then he shifted to a diamond; too late! Declarer guessed the diamonds and had 10 tricks. Had West played a diamond first (logical, since he needs his partner to hold a red ace to have any chance to set the hand), he is a tempo ahead after East's heart switch.

Note that on an initial heart lead, declarer does best to take the queen, cross to a club, and lead a diamond up, building his discard before playing trump — but he had better guess well.

At another table Jan Jansma as South reached four spades after North had passed initially. He benefited from a fourth-highest diamond-two lead to the jack and ace, and a club shift. He won in hand and decided that East had long diamonds but had not bid, so could not hold much outside. He therefore advanced the spade queen at trick three! This was covered all around, and now he had only one spade loser once the nine appeared on the second round: 11 tricks, and a top board.

This excellent card-play problem arose during the second round of the Vanderbilt Knockout Teams from Louisville last spring. It's a two-parter: Consider it first in six clubs by North and then the actual problem of six clubs by South.

In six clubs by North on a trump lead, you draw trump, pitching a spade from hand. Now perhaps the best thing to do is strip off four rounds of hearts, then run the diamond jack to endplay East, unless he began with five hearts. Almost as good at trick four is to run the diamond jack to East’s queen. Even if East could exit with a heart and avoid setting up the suit for you, you can cash the ace and ruff a diamond in dummy. If the remaining high diamond does not appear, you fall back on the spade finesse.

At the table, in six clubs by South, you get the lead of the diamond four; you duck, and East wins the king. Back comes a trump, and you draw three rounds, then cash the three top hearts. If the heart J-9 fall, it’s all over. When East shows out on the third heart, you pitch the diamond 10 on the third heart and play the diamond ace, West following with the two, East with the eight. When you lead the diamond nine from dummy, East follows with the six. Who has the queen? Surely East. If West has led the diamond four from Q-4-2, he deserves to beat you!

Today's deal from the spring nationals at Louisville last year comes from the semifinals of the Vanderbilt Trophy. One of the four pairs played six hearts here and could not bring it home. The other three pairs all reached six spades, and one declarer was fortunate enough after a totally artificial auction to receive a heart lead, which he ducked to East's king. No matter what came back, declarer could arrange to draw trump and run the hearts.

But at the other two tables, on very similar auctions to the one shown, West led a low club. Since the lead could equally well have been from length or shortage, both declarers went up with the ace and ruffed a red-suit to hand to play trump from the top, hoping for a 4-3 spade split. They both went down a trick when spades did not break.

From a psychological and mathematical perspective, I believe both players misplayed the hand. The chance that West held a singleton club is no better than 15 percent, and, especially on this auction, you would surely expect a club lead, no matter what West had in the suit. The best play is to duck the ace and try to win the club in hand. If you do so, draw trump in five rounds, discarding the club ace from dummy, and knock out the club king for a painless 12 tricks. If the club king is to your right, you will still survive, so long as there is no immediate club ruff.

All this week's deals come from last year's spring nationals at Louisville, to mark the fact that this week the 2011 Nationals are being held in Memphis.

In this deal from the second semifinal session of the Norman Kay Platinum Pairs, the field played four spades with the North-South cards — a perfectly reasonable spot, doomed on the lead of the diamond queen by East.

Josh Parker and Bruce Rogoff play a strong club system. Parker’s one-spade showed a balanced positive response, so Rogoff bid what he thought his partner could make. Now the contract was played objectively the “wrong way” up. But while East had an easy diamond lead, West had a very unattractive diamond holding to lead from.

On the lead of the club jack, Parker put up dummy’s queen. East took the club ace and correctly continued with a club to remove the entry to the South hand. Parker won, went to the heart ace to unblock the suit, and now had to try to build an entry to his hand. To put maximum pressure on the defenders, he led the spade nine from dummy. East cracked under the pressure and put up the spade queen. So now Parker was able to get to hand with the spade 10 to pitch two of dummy’s diamonds on the top hearts, then lead up to the diamond king for plus 420.

If East had ducked the first spade lead smoothly, declarer might well have gone wrong.

Sometimes a defense may seem so obvious that it might almost be insulting to point it out. But when an opponent misses it at the table, maybe others will learn from his mistake (plus enjoy a touch of schadenfreude).

Check out this deal from the first qualifying session of the Norman Kay Platinum Pairs in last year’s spring nationals at Louisville, the source of all this week’s deals.

East-West had missed out on five spades when East made the simple raise to four spades — quite reasonable, but had he tried four diamonds, his partner would surely have got it right. In auctions of this sort, when you have hearts and the opponents have spades, describing your hand to help partner judge the five-level should be mandatory. In this case, East could not foresee the denouement when he bid four spades, but he might nonetheless have taken the risk of helping the opponents in the defense to insure his side competed appropriately.

That said, at least it behooved the defense to beat five hearts and lessen the damage. West led the diamond king against five hearts and continued the suit. Now the contract made, when a spade loser vanished on the clubs!

I blame both defenders, but especially East. West might have worked out that a spade switch at trick two could be necessary, but East surely should have overtaken the diamond king to cash the spade king. West will signal count and East will take the second spade trick before the rats get at it.

The partnership between two of the world's greats, Zia Mahmood and Bob Hamman, will be coming to an end later this year, after a seven-year run in which they won a Bermuda Bowl and several national titles. Both players are capable of extremely inventive card-play, and though they may not have gelled perfectly as a pair in the bidding, they will leave behind a treasure trove of deals for the journalists.

Take the following deal from the 2011 Spingold, when they came from behind to defeat the O’Rourke team. Check out the full hand, and tell me which side you would fancy if you knew one table had played in five spades and the other in six spades.

Here’s the full story: In the other room, where Hamman’s teammates sat North-South, Eddie Wold (West) opened one heart and Roger Bates (East) raised to two hearts when South doubled. Now North-South reached five spades in competition, but were never close to the slam.

In the other room the auction was as shown. Hamman led the heart ace against six spades … and Zia dropped the king! Now when Hamman continued with a second heart, can you blame declarer for ruffing high, expecting hearts to be 8-1 and hoping trumps were not 3-0? This was the only way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but I might have done the same thing myself. And all credit to Zia for finding the false-card that tipped the scales in his favor.