Nice 8-Trick Squeeze Ending

pairs competition
Bergen
Januari 25, 2002

	K x x K x x 10 x x 7 6 x x
A x Q 9 8 x K x x J 10 9 x		J x x x x A 10 x J x x x Q
Lead: J	Q x x J x x A Q x A K 8 x

Made 1 —— NS +90 ——

I opened as south 1NT and this was passed out. West started with the club jack and things didn't look very good as there are only 3 sure tricks. When the club queen appeared in east it was obvious that the clubs were 4-1. I didn't know what to do if I took the first club trick so I decided to duck it.

East had to switch to a different color and he chose to play a small spade. This went to wests spade ace, who returned a spade to the king in north. This already gave me 5 sure tricks. On the next trick I tried a small diamond to the queen, but west took this with the king. She decided to return the heart 9. I played small in dummy and east obviously had a problem, but finally decided to play low! If I had the queen of hearts this would have been a good move, but with the jack in the south hand it gave the contract away. I now had all the clues to read the position.

First of all clubs were 4-1. Because west didn't return a spade when she won the diamond king, spades were obviously 2-5. Furthermore, the hesitation by east gave away the position of the heart ace. This was the endposition needing 5 more tricks:

	x K x 10 x 7 6 x
- Q 8 x x x 10 9 x		J x x A 10 J x x -
	Q x x A x A K 8

I just cashed the ace and king of clubs. On the first club east could throw a small diamond, but on the second he was squeezed! East had the following loosing options left:

• If east throws another diamond, the diamond ace will drop the jack and the diamond 10 will be my seventh trick.
• If east throws a small heart, I just duck a heart in both hands for easts ace. The king of hearts will be my seventh trick.
• If east throws a spade, I take the spade queen and diamond ace and throw east in with a diamond. East can take his spades and heart ace, but has to let me make the king of hearts for contract.

Although the defence could have been better, I like this hand very much because I was able to read the ending perfectly when we still had 8 tricks to go.