A2 - K2 - - QJ J2 - AQ JT - - K KT3 - - He has two tricks, and hopes to squeeze West for a third. He leads the king of spades, and West has no answer: a heart discard allows declarer to win all four tricks, while the queen of diamonds lets declarer overtake with dummy's ace of spades and exit with a diamond to West, who now must lead away from the heart jack for the third trick. At first it appears that West can survive by discarding the diamond ACE, letting South have the ace of spades and king of diamonds and no others, but declarer counters by refusing to cash the king of diamonds, exiting with the deuce instead. The position is interesting, and I wonder what it's called. It feels basically like (Love's term) a vulnerable-stopper strip-squeeze, but with the overtaking element compensating for the lack of a diamond in South's hand: South's shape in a classical position would be 1=2=1=0. We can also rearrange the East-West diamonds so that they can avoid the endplay, giving West AJ and East QT. Now West's ace-discard really does hold declarer to two tricks: is there a name for that play? -- Cheers, Alan (San Jose, California, USA) Other posts: |