Just Another Push

Playing in the first round of a regional Swiss, I get dealt a pretty good hand.

	Q7 J93 J94 KQ1087

	A82 AK108 52 AJ93

Declarer	Dummy
1NT	3NT
Pass

The bidding is uneventful, but the final contract is far from cold. The opening lead of the

3 is good news and bad news. The bad news is that they have found my weak spot immediately. The good news is that diamonds appear to be 4-4.

RHO wins the K and returns the 6 to his partner's queen. LHO cashes the A and leads his fourth diamond to RHO's 10. I have discarded one heart from dummy and two clubs from my hand.

RHO continues with a small heart. I could finesse now, but there's no rush. I win the A, unblocking the J from dummy, cash the A (a Vienna Coup), and run the clubs. Nothing exciting happens, so we come down to

	Q 9 — —

	— A10 — —

Now I can either finesse the

10 or play someone for having been squeezed by starting with the

K and

Q. Which shall I try? I think it is pretty clear to drop the

Q. RHO didn't know I have the

10, so he'd surely not play a heart away from the queen unless he was going to be squeezed anyway. I lead a heart to my

A and win the last two tricks; LHO started with both the

K and the

When we return to our teammates to compare scores, they seem pretty happy. They say they were very good except that they let a game make on the last board by leading a heart. Obviously, they mean this hand (why didn't my opponent lead a heart from Qxxx instead of a diamond from AQxx?), so I reply, "I got a diamond lead, but it is just another push."

The defense could have beaten 3NT by shifting to a spade at trick two. That is far from obvious. I didn't play the J from dummy at trick one, so once RHO played a second diamond, they no longer had any chance to prevail.