Gatinburg Squeeze/Endplay

I only made it to Gatlinburg for the weekend. I thought I had a reasonable plans for the weekend but all such plans somehow fell though and I would up playing the Saturday-Sunday KO with Jim, Wendy, and Tom, who kept me down in bracket 3 (out of 4). It’s kind of amazing how much attendance drops off – the KO that started Friday had 15 brackets but only 4 in the KO starting Saturday. The midnight games were fun as always as well and I was on the winning team both nights. I also enjoyed playing against a Quebecois couple thrice in full KO and found a new favorite liquor - Fireball (cinnamon whiskey). This was an interesting declarer play problem from Sunday.

Dealer: N Vul: None		North ♠ J8 ♥ T9xx ♦ Q ♣ KT98xx
		South ♠ KT7x ♥ QJ8x ♦ AKx ♣ Qx
West	North		East	South
—	Pass		2♠	Pass
Pass	3♣		Pass	3NT
Pass	Pass		Pass

Dummy wasn’t as promising as I expected but there’s still a play for 3NT. 4♥ has no play being off 4 tops plus a spade ruff and a possible club ruff. The play started with a low spade to the A, then ♠Q to my K with LHO discarding a discouraging diamond.

My ♣Q held trick 3 and LHO rose with the ♣A for trick 4 as RHO shed a spade. Next was a diamond to dummy, taking out the entry to the clubs. There appear to be 9 tricks via 2 spades, 2 hearts, 3 diamonds, and 2 clubs if I knock out the heart honors now. The last 2 hearts would provide the transportation to cash the ♣K in dummy and the pointed honors in hand. I can’t afford to cash any of those before the hearts are knocked out because that would set up the defense’s 5^th trick to go along with the ♠A, ♥AK, and ♣A. However, my HQ was allowed to win trick 6 so I have to arrange some sort of squeeze/endplay or have the good fortune of LHO having both heart honors and no 4^th diamond.

Not quite sure where I wanted to end up after the last heart, I played low to the T and RHO’s K at trick 7. She continued diamonds. Now I play LHO for the ♥A so cash the ♠T at trick 9. LHO is known to have to discard from ♠-, ♥A, ♦xx, ♣Jx. Obviously he can’t throw a heart but if he throws a diamond, I cash my last diamond and throw him in with a heart, forcing him to give dummy the last 2 club tricks. If he throws a club, I play HJ to throw him before taking the last diamond with the HT as an entry to the now-good clubs.