Bridge 09/06/2011

This deal from the Benjamin separated optimists from pessimists. Two pairs reached 3NT when South rebid 2NT and North took a rosy view of his hand; two played in 2NT when North considered his hand to be minimum; and two Souths rebid 3D and played there.

David Weir played in just 2NT, but made an impressive number of tricks. West led the queen of hearts, ducked all round. He saw that continuing the suit would surely establish a trick for North, and made the ill-advised switch to the ten of clubs, a suit where South had advertised strength. This went jack-ace-small and East returned a low club, won with the nine. David led a spade to dummy's ten before running the diamonds, to reach this position as the last diamond hit the table:

West threw the queen of spades, dummy threw a heart, and East, who had to keep two clubs, also discarded a heart. Next came the king of clubs, and West, who had to keep the ace of spades, was squeezed. When he threw a heart declarer discarded the king of spades, and claimed the last two tricks with the ace-ten of hearts.

The double squeeze is a pleasing play, but opportunities are rare. On this occasion it required considerable co-operation from the "expert" defenders.