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Your support makes all the difference.BOTH DECLARERS were well satisfied with their efforts on this deal from a recent match. It came as something of a disappointment to them both to find that their team had not gained on the board.
At both tables South opened with a weak Two Hearts and West overcalled in diamonds. North raised to Four Hearts and, although East considered competing, all passed.
West cashed two top diamonds and, at one table, switched to the seven of clubs. Declarer played low from dummy and, after winning with the queen, East returned the queen of spades. Convinced that East held the king of clubs as well as the queen South played for a squeeze. He cashed dummy's ace of clubs (a Vienna Coup) and ran six rounds of trumps throwing clubs from dummy. Now East had to part with his king of spades or unguard the spades.
At the other table West switched to his singleton spade at trick 3. Now South could not afford to give up a club before drawing trumps and if he drew trumps first there would be no convenient way back to hand. Instead South played for a different type of squeeze after winning with dummy's king of spades.
He took just five rounds of trumps discarding a spade and two clubs from dummy. East had to discard from SQJ10 CKQ6. He parted with the six of clubs but now the ace and the jack established a trick for South's ten. It would not have helped East to throw a spade instead for the ace of spades and a spade ruff establishes a trick for dummy's nine.
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