From                  2nd May, 2007, Board 27

                                          Theme               Throw-In Squeeze

                                          Difficulty           * * *

                                          Dlr South          None Vul              Hands Rotated

                                                                                                 for Convenience

West leads the Spade Three and Partner says “Good luck!”, as well she might after that 2NT overbid.

The prospects are bleak indeed.  Undeterred, you play the Ace, East following with the Six.

What is the Spade situation?  And what is your plan?

SOLUTION

West can hardly have made a short suit lead in preference to leading Partner’s suit, so surely he has 4 or 5 Spades.  Could East have started with T6 or J6 of Spades?  No, playing against a 4^th best lead, we can use the Rule of Eleven ... 11 minus 3 is 8 ... we can account for all of those 8 cards (4 in Dummy, 3 in hand, and one with East) ... so East has no cards left higher than the Three, and West has the missing Jack and Ten.

So, entries permitting (West might split his Spade honors) there are six winners in the major suits.  A Heart finesse could be one more trick, maybe with a 3-3 break to take us up to 8.  But, whatever happens, we’ll need at least one trick in the minors, perhaps more.  The best plan appears to be play on Clubs, hoping to build a trick and force another entry back to our hand.  We’d finesse the Club Ten and fortunately this fetches West’s Ace.

	♠ AKQ9 ♥ KJ43 ♦ 6 ♣ Q764
♠ JT532 ♥ QT87 ♦ J7 ♣ A8	North    West         East            South	♠ 6 ♥ 62 ♦ AQ9532 ♣ KT32
	♠ 874 ♥ A95 ♦ KT84 ♣ J95

In with the A♣, West will probably shift to the J♦, which is ducked to Declarer’s King.  Now, a Spade is led and West does his best by splitting his honors.  Dummy wins the trick, then it’s a Club to Declarer’s Jack and another Spade finesse, arriving at this position:

                                   Dummy        

                                   ♠ Q              

                                   ♥ KJ43         

                                   ♦            

                                   ♣ Q7             

         West                                          East       

         ♠ J5                                          ♠

         ♥ QT87                                    ♥ 62

         ♦ 7                                            ♦ AQ9

         ♣                                              ♣ KT

                                      Declarer

                                      ♠

                                      ♥ A95

                                      ♦ T84                                      

                                      ♣ 5

At this point the distribution will be known to Declarer, and the only issue in doubt is the location of the Q♥.  But that matters not, the hand is a cinch either way.  Declarer cashes the Q♠, giving East three unpleasant

choices:

   (a)  If she pitches a Club, a Club lead gets the 9^th trick in Clubs

   (b)  If she pitches a Heart, Declarer crosses to the A♥, and, if East has not produced the Q♥, takes the safe

         Heart finesse (East is known to be without Hearts at this point)

   (c) If he pitches a Diamond, the K♥ is cashed, then a Heart to the Ace, and a Diamond exit will end-play

         East in Clubs.

Keys to Success

- Using the Rule of Eleven to calculate that West had both the missing Spade honors.

- Playing on Clubs to build a trick and also to force an entry back to hand

- Counting the distribution and placing East with 1-2-6-4 shape

- Watching East's discards carefully, and end-playing him accordingly.

Postscript

At what point did Declarer have a reliable count on the hand?  We'd say after Trick Five.  Remember, the play went: Spade, Club, Diamond, Spade, Club.  East showed out on the second round of Spades, and after the second round of Clubs the two remaining enemy cards were the KT, both with East.  As for Diamonds, everything indicates that West started with two of them.  And, if we know three suits, then we also know the fourth.