You Hold…

Playing in the ABA, part 2.

by Tom on August 22nd, 2006

In the first part of this series, we were faced with the following declarer problem after West bid both majors:

	QJ9x
	x
	JT
	KT9xxx
	x
	QTx
	AKQ8xxx
	Ax

West cashes both major suit aces (AS, A from AK) and plays another heart.

It’s tempting to simply ruff the heart, ruff a spade, ruff a heart, ruff a spade and draw trumps. However, we are missing 9xxx of diamonds. If we take 2 diamond ruffs on the board and trumps are 4-0, we will establish a 3rd defensive trick. Given the bidding and the fact that West might shift to a trump if she had one, this seems more likely than usual. What else can we do?

It seems very likely that East has one of the major suit kings, most likely in hearts. If that is the case, we can set up a double squeeze around the club suit. (Technically, it’s a single squeeze played as a double. Only one opponent can guard clubs, we just don’t know who.)

So I embarked on this line of play: ruffed the heart, ruff a spade, diamond to the board, ruff a spade. This would have ruffed out the KS if East happened to have it. It didn’t appear, so I played all my trumps leading to this position:

	Q
	KT9
	Q
	x
	Ax

On the last diamond, West must keep the KS, so they cannot keep 3 clubs. The QS is discarded from the board, and it is East’s turn to be squeezed. If East has the KH, they also cannot keep both that and 3 clubs.

The opponents defended well on this board. East did in fact have the KH. West, who only had 2 clubs, discarded the JC early in the hand to show that she couldn’t guard the suit. In the ending above, East tried discarding the KH, hoping their partner had the QH. Today that didn’t happen, and I made my 5D.

Of course, today West had a diamond, being 5-5-1-2 in pattern. So the simple line of play would have worked after all. The opponents were sure to point this out to me after the hand was over.

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POSTED IN: Declarer Play, Intermediate