From                   7th March, 2007, Board 20

                                          Themes              Elimination Play

                                                                     Squeeze Technique

                                          Difficulty            * * * *

                                          Dlr West            Both Vul               Hands Rotated

                                                                                                  for Convenience

West leads the K♥, and your optimistic Partner tables her Dummy.  “Thank you so much”, you say disgustedly/insincerely/sarcastically/politely (please select appropriate adverb).  You are going to need a successful Club finesse and some luck in the majors.  You win the A♥ (East playing the Three), take the winning Club finesse, and draw trumps in 3 rounds, West pitching a Diamond and a Spade.

What next?

SOLUTION

You don’t have a perfect count on the hand but you can at least hypothesize that West started with 4-5-3-1 distribution:

-         3 Diamonds based on the bidding

-         1 Club, that much we know

-         Probably 5 Hearts, at least if you assume that East was giving count on the opening lead.

If that is the case, and if you further assume (or hope) that West has the KQ♠ then you can make this hand via an elimination end-play.  All you have to do is to strip the West hand of everything but the Spades, as follows:

            K♥, won by Dummy’s Ace

            Three rounds of Clubs, ending in hand

            Heart to West’s Queen (East shows out, confirming that 4-5-3-1 West distribution)

            Win the Diamond return

            Cash J♥ (pitching a Spade)

            Ruff a Heart

            Ruff a Diamond

            Ruff a Heart

Now, in the 3-card ending, you lead the J♠, which West covers ... you duck and West is end-played.

Keys for Success

   - Deducing that West is 4-5-3-1 and that a Spade end-play against West is possible

   - Eliminating the Heart suit

   - End-playing West at Trick Eleven

Postscript

A pretty line of play, but it fails whenever East holds honor doubleton in Spades.  Here is a line of play which at least gives us a chance in that situation.  There's actually a better (but more complicated) line, which is to play for a major suit squeeze against West.  This works whenever the elimination works, and also in some circumstances where the elimination fails.  As before, win the Heart opening lead, play 3 rounds of trumps, then a Heart to West’s Queen, and the Diamond won on the board.  But now we lead a low Spade from the board, and one of the following will happen:

-         East hops up with an honor (highly unlikely if it’s the Queen, most likely if it is the King) and you’ll have a simple finesse against West’s other honor (it hardly seems possible that East would have both honors)

-         West plays low, our Jack is taken by West’s King or Queen … West exits safely with a Heart or a Diamond, and is later squeezed in Spades and Hearts

-         East play low, the Jack is taken by West’s King or Queen and this time he exits with a low Spade … good defense, now we must guess the Spade!  But worst case is that we play low from the board, lose to East’s honor, and end up on a par with the elimination line.

On the actual hand, as both honors are with West, the elimination play and squeeze both work.