| Dlr: East | ♠ 5 3 | |
| Vul: None | ♥ A 10 9 2 | |
| ♦ J 8 4 3 | ||
| ♣ A K 5 | ||
| ♠ A K Q J 9 8 | ||
| ♥ Q | ||
| ♦ A K | ||
| ♣ 10 7 6 4 |
| West | North | East | South |
| 2♥ | 3♠ | ||
| Pass | 4♣ | Pass | 4♦ |
| Pass | 4NT | Pass | 5♣ |
| Pass | 5♦ | Pass | 6♦ |
| Pass | 6♠ | All Pass |
Your jump to 3♠ over East’s weak two-bid showed strength, not weakness. After a couple of control-showing bids, North used Roman Key Card Blackwood to discover that you had three key cards plus the trump queen and ♦K. West leads the ♥5. How will you get to 12 tricks on this deal?
Solution
As he surveyed dummy at trick one, declarer could count 11winners. The problem was finding a safe 12th. At first sight, it seemed to be one of those deals where declarer thinks he would probably have to guess which squeeze to execute in the endgame.
Then rather suddenly, a new idea struck him and he called for the ♥2 at trick one. East took the trick with the ♥K and exited with his singleton ♣3.
Declarer made no mistake at this point. He took the trick with dummy’s ♣K and, as there was only one entry left to dummy, he called for the ♥9 next. East played the jack and declarer ruffed it with the ♠8. After drawing trumps with the ace, king and queen, declarer claimed 12 tricks: six trumps along with two tricks in each of the side suits. The full deal:
| Dlr: East | ♠ 5 3 | |
| Vul: None | ♥ A 10 9 2 | |
| ♦ J 8 4 3 | ||
| ♣ A K 5 | ||
| ♠ 10 4 2 | ♠ 7 6 | |
| ♥ 5 3 | ♥ K J 8 7 6 4 | |
| ♦ 7 5 2 | ♦ Q 10 9 6 | |
| ♣ Q J 9 8 2 | ♣ 3 | |
| ♠ A K Q J 9 8 | ||
| ♥ Q | ||
| ♦ A K | ||
| ♣ 10 7 6 4 |