2 932 J9873 K652
	AQ84 KQ864 A QJ8

Me	LHO	CHO	RHO
1	1	2	Pass
3NT	Pass	4	All Pass

A

2

4

I play low from each hand, and LHO continues with a second trump to her partner's J. I win, of course. I start with one spade, four hearts, one diamond, two clubs, and a spade ruff. That's only nine tricks. On the upside, I only start with two top losers. I really would have preferred to ruff a few spades in dummy; oh, well.

What do I need to make this hand? I think it's going to take either a squeeze or a black suit endplay on LHO. A black suit squeeze is possible if LHO has four clubs, but the timing will be tough; as soon as I play a second club, LHO can win and play a third. There aren't enough entries to squeeze RHO in the minors; that would require two dummy entries, as it will have to be a trump squeeze. What will it take to endplay LHO? She'll have to have three clubs exactly so that she is forced to hold up until the third round of clubs. It looks like she has six spades (no raise), and two hearts. If she has three clubs, she'll have two diamonds, so I need to eliminate the diamonds.

I proceed: A, A, spade ruff, diamond ruff. LHO drops the Q10 on the two rounds of diamonds. I don't think she's being subtle. She probably has two diamonds. Maybe three. I might as well draw the last trump. To my great surprise, LHO has the third one. RHO pitches the 3. How odd. I guess my only hope is that LHO started with 5-3-2-3 exactly. If she has six spades, I am going down. Hey, wait a sec! RHO pitched a club. If LHO is 6-3-2-2, my fourth club will be good and reachable. Looks like I'm cold now. So I continue with the Q, which holds, and the J, which also holds. On the third round of clubs, LHO wins and is endplayed. I have to score my Q for a tenth trick. The whole hand was

	2 932 J9873 K652
K10753 A105 Q10 A107		J96 J7 K6542 943
	AQ84 KQ864 A QJ8

Partner looks pleased, but says, "I was sure you were going to overtake the Q and ruff another diamond." I reply, "in some variations, I would have, but at that point, it only catered to LHO's having 5-3-3-3 shape exactly. If RHO had shown up with the third trump, I'd have had to guess if she had 6-2-2-3 or 5-2-3-3."

LHO is gnashing her teeth and stammering, trying to figure out a way to blame this on her partner, when he pipes up with, "like my club discard, Ma? I thought you'd need to know the club count."

Once they leave the table, I start laughing. If RHO had had the third trump, I might have had a real guess for the contract. If I judged that LHO had six spades, which seemed likely due to the lack of raise, I'd've played a third club after the second one held, but if I judged she had only five spades, I'd've had to overtake the club and ruff a diamond. If I were wrong, I might go down, because this gives LHO a chance to discard her A! But not once RHO has pitched his club winner! Of course, if I had judged to take that line, I'd not play the J on the second round, but he 8 instead, but had I misjudged that it couldn't matter, I might have ended up losing a trick to the 9. Except that RHO pitched its support away, giving count.