Meet the Perry-coup

pairs competition
September 26, 2002

	A 10 9 K x x A x x x J 10 x
Lead: 8	K x Q x x K J x x K Q 9 x

Suppose you end up as declarer in a 3NT contract on the cards shown above. East has shown at least a 5-card spade suit. The 8 goes to the nine, jack and your ace. Next you play a club to the jack, which is taken by east with his ace. At the next trick east returns a club which leads to the ten in dummy. You continue by playing a diamond to the jack, which holds, and cash the diamond king thereby felling easts queen.

You are now upto 10 tricks (2 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds and 3 clubs). Is there any way to conjure up another trick?

That is easy, you may say, as east remains with the spade queen, I will just play him for the heart ace and squeeze him in spades and hearts. It's just one of many tricks in my arsenal, and its neither rare nor difficult to execute. Here I'll show you...

You cross to the diamond ace and continue with a heart to the queen. If it holds you cash all your diamond and club tricks and east will be squeezed in the majors. This will be the end position just before you cash the last club.

	A 10 K x - -
immaterial		Q x A x - -
	x x x - K

When you cash the club king, north can spare a heart, but east will have to give up a trick.

Yes, that's all very nice. However, on a deal my grandmother would probably collect 10 tricks you have just found the only way to restrict yourself to 9 tricks for an absolute bottom, because the full deal looks like this:

	A 10 9 K x x A x x x J 10 x
8 7 x A J 10 x x x x x x x		Q J x x x x x x Q x A x x
	K x Q x x K J x x K Q 9 x

Instead of throwing in east, it is west who collects the last three tricks!

The moral of the story is this: Consider ducking a trick if this leaves the declarer the option to play for a throwin squeeze.

To be honest, this has not yet happened to me in real life. As far as I know, noone in the world of bridge has ever described this type of play. If you have seen it before, please let me know. For the time being I will put this trick away as the "Perry Coup", waiting for the opportunity to baffle the local experts...