Above His Pay Grade

Playing online vs. robots (i.e. idiots), I encounter a fairly rare end position.

In third position, I hold K7 Q AKJ972 A1054. I get to open 1. LHR doubles, partner preempts to 3, and RHR competes with 3. There's no point in bidding 4; they'll just bid 4, so I end the proceedings with an immediate 5. If partner really is joking, at least I'm not doubled.

LHO leads a trump, and I see

	963 A10 Q10853 QJ9

	K7 Q AKJ972 A1054

CHR	RHR	Me	LHR
Pass	Pass	1	Dbl
3	3	5	All Pass

I win in dummy as RHI follows and take the club finesse. It loses and a club comes back. I think that's a minor defensive error, though the winning defense would be missed by most players. I'm pretty sure the

A is offside, so I run my minor suit winners, hoping LHI has both heart honors and I can guess his shape.

He follows to four rounds of clubs while his partner shows out on the third round, so it's reasonable to play him for 4-4-1-4 shape. Before the last trump, the position is

	96 A10 — —
A8 KJ — —		Immaterial
	K7 Q 2 —

Lefty lets go the

8, so I pitch a heart from dummy and exit with a low spade. He was 4-4-1-4, so I make my contract.

When he was in with the K, the winning defense is to continue with the K. That's not an easy defense to find, and it's particularly hard when you don't have count signals available. In a high-level game, I expect most players to find it, but defending against a squeeze without the count is way above the robots' pay grade.