I often wondered why these famous players get all these exciting hands and make it to the newspaper, while I always seem to get a variation with a few small cards in the wrong spot. Here is a fine example.
If somebody like Zia was playing, he’d probably get the layout on your left. He’d bid 7♦ as east and get to play it on a heart lead. This is a pretty good contract, though the devil is in the detail of the trump suit.
Of course, with my usual luck, I pick up this layout. First spot the difference.
After a natural start, west makes a slam try with 4♦. Cuebids follow and west shows 3 keycards in response to 4NT. You can ask for a major suit K. On the other hand, there are a number of other options that make it a good contract: set up spades, Axxx or a singleton. You estimate your score at -50 to -60 imp’s anyway, so you just bite the bullet and hope for the best. ♠K lead.
Did you spot the difference between the two hands? In the hand above, your lowest trump is smaller than the second trump from west. That gives a nice line of play: win the lead, cross to the ♠A, ruff a spade, ♦7(!) to the ♦K, ruff a spade, ♦A, ♦5 to the ♦6, ruff a spade. If spades split 4-3, the fifth one is now high and can be used to discard a heart, the ♣A is there as an entry.
With the ♦5 and 6 switched, that won’t work. You can still set up the spades but then you don’t have an entry left to cash it.
In the actual layout, you still have a chance; a major suit squeeze against south. That requires south to hold something like ♠KQJx, ♥KQxxx, ♦xx, ♣xx. The play is pretty easy: win the A, draw trumps, cash the clubs and run diamonds, leaving ♠AT and ♥J in dummy with 1 diamond to go. South will be down to ♠KQ and ♥Q and has no good discard on the last diamond.
If this was a hand from Clyde Love’s famous work “Bridge Squeezes Complete”, one of those must read books for anybody learning the game, it would work out like that. However, in my case, I find that south has overcalled on ♠KQxx, ♥KQxxx, ♦xx, ♣xx and the squeeze doesn’t work.
Down 1, another 12 or so down the drain. We finish the evening with a score that does generate some laughter across the room: -69.