From                 2nd January, 2008, Board 6

                                          Difficulty           * * *

                                          Dlr East             E-W Vul
 

♠ AK63 ♥ A84 ♦ K98 ♣ AJ3	North    West       Dummy             South	♠ 82 ♥ K53 ♦ A643 ♣ KT74
West    North   East     South                                        Pass    Pass                1♣       Pass    1♦        Pass                2NT    Pass    3NT    All Pass

North leads the Spade Four and South plays the Nine.

Counting 3 Club tricks, there are 9 certain winners.  What are the prospects of overtricks?  Diamonds could provide an extra trick if the suit is 3-3, and if the Clubs are guessed correctly and the suit behaves (3-3 or doubleton Queen) there could be an extra one there.  If all goes well, even 11 tricks might be possible.

What is the most likely route to 11 tricks?

SOLUTION

There’s no obvious indication to take the Club finesse one way or the other.  The Spades appear to be 4-3 and the rest of the distribution remains a mystery.  The entry situation makes it easier to finesse against the Q♣ in the North hand, so that’s what we will do, and let’s assume that this works.  So, we could cash the A♣, finesse the T♣ successfully, lose a Diamond, and win the Spade return.  That’s fine if both minors are 3-3, but this line does not allow any squeeze to develop when they don’t break so kindly.  A better line is to duck the Spade return, setting up a black suit squeeze against North.

	♠ QJ74 ♥ T6 ♦ QJ5 ♣ Q985
♠ AK63 ♥ A84 ♦ K98 ♣ AJ3	North    West       Dummy            South	♠ 82 ♥ K53 ♦ A643 ♣ KT74
	♠ T95 ♥ QJ972 ♦ T72 ♣ 62

Well, that’s only part of the story!  Suppose that the play starts as above:

            Opening Spade lead won

            Cash A♣

            Finesse the T♣

            Duck a Diamond

            Spade continuation, which Declarer ducks

Now, an uncooperative North might return the Q♣!  This destroys the communications and breaks up the squeeze.

What’s the solution?  It’s simple enough, just duck a Diamond at Trick Two, then duck the Spade return, and win the continuation.  Now you can cash the A♣ and finesse the Club (if it loses, South will be out of Spades), cash the Diamonds, then the K♥ and the A♥.  When the A♥ is played, North will be squeezed in the black suits.  11 tricks.

Keys to Success

-         Losing a Diamond before playing on Clubs

-         Ducking a Spade to correct the loser count for the squeeze

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