Saturday, April 18, 2009

Almost...

This was a near-gem from last night's club game in Elmhurst--I was playing with Kenny Zuckerberg. I was third in hand--Kenny dealt and passed and RHO opened a 12-14 notrump which became the final contract. I led a low spade...this is what I saw:
-------Ax
-------Tx
-------8xxx
-------AQTxx
KTxxx
KTx
QJx
Kx
My lead ran to Kenny's jack and declarer's queen. Declarer led the jack of clubs, covered and won in dummy. Declarer continued with the queen of clubs and the ten, Kenny following. Declarer pitched a heart and i did the same. Kenny won the next club, declarer shedding a spade and me a diamond. Dummy won the spade continuation and declarer cashed her last club (her 6th trick), pitching another diamond from her hand as I blanked the king of hearts. She duly took the finesse into my king and I cashed out but in the 3 card ending declarer, pitching behind Kenny who came down to AT of diamonds, threw the ace of hearts from her hand and made the last trick with the king of diamonds. What if I hadn't blanked the king of hearts, throwing a diamond instead? Now, assuming declarer took the heart finesse, when I cashed out, we would have caught her in a legitimate squeeze--here is the 3 card ending--

-
J
AT
-
---- -
---- A
---- K9
---- -
x
T
Q
-
My hand is South in the diagram with dummy's cards immaterial. On the last spade, Kenny would have pitched his heart and declarer would have been bamboozled.

I took a couple of liberties with the spot cards to make the squeeze work (we were actually short a couple of tens to pull it off in real life)...but here is the hypothetical full deal:

------Ax
------87
------8653
------AQT53
KT742-------J95
KT3----------J654
QJ4-----------AT
K7------------9862
------Q86
------AQ95
------K972
------J4