At the Gold Coast last year the deal shown today came up. Three Souths out of four opened one no-trump and wrapped up at least nine tricks in three no-trump. John Holland, however, was playing a weak no-trump, so the auction went very differently.

Tislevoll led three rounds of clubs. Declarer won in hand and led a low trump to the queen, finding the bad news. Then came a diamond finesse, and when the diamond ace dropped the king, suddenly there was hope. Holland led a low spade to the king and ran the diamonds.

The winning defense for East is to ruff the first diamond with an intermediate trump. (Even a low trump will do, though it is a little harder work.) Declarer can do no better than discard a heart. Back comes a heart, won in dummy, and East ruffs the next diamond to leave declarer with a heart loser.

In fact East pitched a heart on the diamond jack, and also on the next diamond, as did Holland. When the third diamond was led, East ruffed with an intermediate trump, and Holland could see that discarding a heart would fail when East played a club, since he would have to win in hand. Meanwhile, overruffing with the spade ace would fail when he led a heart to dummy since East would score both his trumps.

So he underruffed. Whatever East did next, declarer could win the next trick in dummy and take the rest.

In today's deal from the Gold Coast tournament the 3-1 heart break suggests that no game can be made against best defense. But who puts up the best defense?

When Michelle Brunner was South, she played in four hearts on a top club lead. She could not afford to duck for fear of the diamond shift, so she won and played the spade king. West won, and now needed to play a trump at once; not unreasonably, he cashed the club queen before playing the trump 10, and Brunner now read the position perfectly.

She won the trump ace, played the spade queen, ruffed a spade, went to the diamond ace, and led another spade. If East discarded, she would pitch her club loser and play a second trump. When East ruffed in, she overruffed, ruffed a club to dummy, and gave up just the one trump trick.

At another table Pablo Lambardi declared game as North. East led a top diamond and was allowed to hold the trick. This is the sort of deal where partnerships playing count signals will (justly) find themselves at a loss. How can West let East know what to do, since he cannot really afford to overtake the diamond king?

As it was, when the diamond king held the trick, West showing an even number, East continued the suit. Now declarer simply won and drove out the spade ace to establish two discards for dummy’s club losers.

In today's deal, from the 2010 Gold Coast event in Australia, a straightforward auction would be the one shown here. With five hearts East would check back for a 4-4 spade fit by using checkback so his actual auction should show only four hearts.

In six no-trump on a passive diamond lead, declarer wins and must develop one extra trick from the majors. Best is to go after hearts first, to take advantage of the chances in both majors.

At one table Anton Blagov went after hearts by leading low from dummy, and when East played low without discomfort, judged that she could not have the king, so he inserted the nine successfully. However, the normal play is to lead a heart to the queen, losing to the king.

Best for West is to return a diamond now. Declarer cashes the heart ace himself (the Vienna Coup), then runs the clubs. In the four-card ending, declarer has the heart nine and three spades left, and dummy has its four spades. What can East keep? Answer: nothing works. What you mustn’t do as declarer is test spades early. If you run the spades before the hearts, you will disrupt your own communications.

Bulletin editor David Stern noted that his mother, Gerda, brought home the slam, but 80 or so declarers went down in six no-trump by playing spades prematurely. An alternative and unsuccessful approach here would have been to endplay East with a spade to lead hearts, but the recommended approach is a better percentage play.

All this week's deals come from last year's Gold Coast tournament in Australia. This year's event is taking place this week, and you can follow the later stages on bridgebase.com.

Today’s deal comes from the finals of the teams, where in one room the contract was three no-trump declared by North. East led the heart jack, West ducked, and declarer won and led a club to the ace, after which eight tricks were the limit. Had declarer played the spade ace and another spade at trick two, the defenders would have been somewhat awkwardly placed, but West can avoid an endplay by shifting to the club nine eventually.

In the other room Ishmael Del’Monte judged well to use Stayman rather than transferring to spades. West’s double was less well judged and both North and South made him pay.

West led a low trump against two clubs redoubled, and Del’Monte won cheaply in hand, led a heart to the king, passed the diamond queen, ducked all round, and now ducked a heart to West’s bare ace. Back came a low club to the ace, and Del’Monte led a spade upon which West correctly unblocked his king to let East win the spade queen at the next trick.

However, when East mistakenly exited with a heart, West had to ruff and could do no better than exit with the diamond ace and another diamond. That left Del’Monte in hand for the trump coup. Nine tricks was worth a cool 1160 — a number you don’t see every day.

Today's deal, from the teams qualifier at the Gold Coast in Australia last year, was provided by Michael Courtney. He thought that the right play, while obvious, might easily be missed at the table. Let's see whether you agree. To make matters a little harder for you, I won't tell you who has the tough play.

As West you decide not to lead a top club against two spades. Partner can hardly be ruffing, and even if he were, the trick may come back. Instead you lead a trump. This goes to the 10 and king, and declarer leads a diamond to the queen and ace. Back comes the club 10. You win, and …

At this moment you should pause to count. Your only practical chance to set the hand is to take three club tricks and one diamond, thus two tricks in the majors. Declarer cannot have six trumps or he would not risk the club ruff, so the full deal is surely very like the actual hand. You must shift to a heart to let partner win and go back to clubs so you can give him the ruff. If you take the ruff at once you never score the second heart trick.

Well done, Alex Czapnik for making the play. Was the play found often? Apparently not. The contract of two spades was declared about 100 times in all.

It was defeated 36 times and made eight or more tricks on 64 occasions.

When you end up in game, but when dummy comes down, wish you were in slam, it often happens that you get careless. Such was the case in this deal from the finals of the national pairs, played at the Gold Coast, where all this week's deals come from.

You might argue that all that was required was basic technique, and I would not disagree with you. But that proved surprisingly beyond many of the pairs here.

If North-South had an unopposed sequence here they might well have gotten to six hearts. On a black-suit lead you might be able to come to 12 tricks via six plain-suit winners, four trumps and two spade ruffs. But on a red-suit lead, you probably need the club finesse.

Let’s forget all that; you play four hearts on a diamond lead and count 10 top tricks. You win the diamond ace and cash the heart king … oops! What is the best way to recover? The answer is surprisingly simple: cross to the diamond king and run diamonds; when East ruffs in, you simply overruff and draw trump. That is 10 winners without relying on clubs at all.

So now are you ready to take the challenge: with the board played in four hearts 190 times, how many players went down? Would you believe one quarter of the declarers? I admit that from the North seat on a club lead you have more of a challenge, but still, this was probably not the field’s finest hour.

With no real fit, you do not have to bid combined 24-counts to game. However, as you look at all four hands today, four spades seems simple enough to bring home. You would be worried about losing a trick in each red suit and two trump tricks, but with the spades lying in such friendly fashion, you would expect the contract to make, as indeed it did at almost all of the tables where it was attempted — but not when Portugal faced Ireland's Adam Mesbur and Nick Fitzgibbon in the 2002 European Championships. The defense that the Irish pair found was both imaginative and effective.

North-South were playing a weak no-trump, which partly explains South’s aggressive initial action and North’s ability to rebid a forcing two no-trump. In response to his partner’s intervention, Adam Mesbur led the club five, which was taken in dummy with the ace. A low spade went to the king and ace, and this was followed by a finesse of the heart 10, which held. Next came a low diamond to the queen, also ducked without a flicker from Adam.

Declarer now confidently finessed again in hearts, and on winning with his now-bare king, Nick Fitzgibbon returned a diamond to Adam’s ace, who promptly played a heart, which his partner ruffed with the spade queen. That was the defense’s third trick, and with the spade 10-8 sitting over South’s nine, a further trump trick was guaranteed.

A month or two ago I gave you a story of a hand played by Roger Trezel where he fell into the right line almost by accident. To redress the balance, the following deal was played in Paris by Trezel with a very different theme.

Trezel had arrived in a great contract five clubs), but still had to make it. He suspected the spade ace was with East, given West’s diamond-king lead from a passed hand. It is hard enough to try to make this contract looking at all four hands, and of course declarer did not have that advantage.

Trezel ruffed the opening lead with a high trump and led the club six to dummy and ruffed another diamond high. He re-entered dummy by leading the club seven to the 10 and ruffed a third diamond high. This was followed by the heart ace-king and a heart ruff with dummy’s last trump. Then came a fourth diamond ruff, again with a high trump.

At this point Trezel had reduced his once proud trump holding to just the club two, accompanied by three little spades. Dummy had king-third of spades and a winning diamond, while East had A-Q-10 of spades along with a “high” trump: the five!

Trezel exited his hand with a trump, discarding a spade from the table. Poor East could no better than take his club five and his spade ace, but then had to concede the last two tricks to dummy’s spade king and winning diamond.

At the Dyspeptics Club, West's performance at the bridge table swings alarmingly between the shockingly inept,and the startlingly accurate, and East never knows what to expect. North consoles him from time to time by remarking comfortingly that at least he gets something other than second-rate from HIS partner whereas he, North, knows exactly what to expect, but that does not make it any less painful.

In today’s deal South’s spade game was threatened by a top heart lead. South could not afford to duck, so he took dummy’s ace and led a low diamond to his queen. To encourage West to take his ace, he nudged the trick toward him.

But West ducked, perhaps aware that he should resist the temptation to do what South wanted him to. West won the next diamond, cashed the heart queen, then continued with the jack. South ruffed high, but East discarded his last diamond and declarer was left with two club losers whatever he did next.

South asked his partner if it would have been better to ruff the third heart low, to which North responded by saying “Yes and no.” What did that Delphic utterance mean?

If South ruffs the third heart low, then to defeat the hand, East must pitch his last diamond and not overruff. But declarer can insure the contract against normal trump breaks by pitching a club from dummy, and not ruffing the third heart. Then he can draw trump ending in dummy and run the diamonds to pitch his clubs.