From                 2nd August, 2006, Board 18

                                          Difficulty           * * * *

                                          Dlr East            N-S Vul
 

East leads the Q♦.

East did well not to lead a Heart, that would been your 11^th trick, assuming that the Clubs break.  You can be pretty sure that East has the A♥, with any other holding he surely would have led a Heart.  If you are confident about this assumption, then you surely organize an end-play against East.  How do you go about scoring that 11^th trick?

SOLUTION

It seems natural enough to duck the first Diamond, but that would not be a good idea.  If we do that, then both our red-suit threats will be in front of Declarer, and the squeeze will fail (unless we can also squeeze East in Spades).  So, best play is win the opening lead with the Ace, and run 6 Clubs, keeping 3 Spade, 2 Hearts and a Diamond in our hand.

On the run of the Clubs, East follows three times, then pitches a Heart, a Spade and a Diamond.  It looks as if East started with 3-3-4-3 distribution, so he’s now down to 2 Spades, Ax of Hearts and JT of Diamonds.  All that remains is to cash K♦, exit a Diamond, and collect the K♥ at Trick 13, and a total of 11 tricks.

Suppose that East comes down, instead, to: ♠ J, ♥ Ax, ♦ JTx, in an attempt to avoid the Diamond throw-in.  Now, Spades provides the 11 trick … Declarer cashes Dummy’s K♠, and sneakily leads the 8♠ … now, if West makes the mistake of not covering, the 3^rd round of Spades squeezes East one more time, and 12 tricks are made!  Of course, West must cover the 8♠, to make sure that the 3^rd round of the suit is won in Dummy, thereby saving Partner from the squeeze.

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