[Rebound]

Scoring: IMP

5 ♠ South. Opening lead ♦7. East wins and returns a ♦. How do you proceed?

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Auction: (1♦)-P-(1♥)-2♣-(3♦)-3♠ -(4♦)-4♠-(5♦)-5♠*

At every table where the hand was played in a spade contract, the play to the first few tricks was the same, ruff second diamond, cash ♠A, dropping the K, and after that is where I apparently went wrong. I reasoned that if I lead the ♠ 9 back to my hand like all the other spade declarers did, and then played a heart toward the KQ, I would have no way back to my hand if the heart was allowed to hold. Instead, I played the ♥K off dummy, won by West with the A. West returned the ♣7. Rather than risk the finesse, I tried what turned out to be a hopeless squeeze. I want up A, played the ♠9 to my hand and ran the ♠'s coming down to this:

Scoring: IMP

5 ♠ South. Opening lead ♦7. East wins and returns a ♦. How do you proceed?

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Note that at least one pair that made 5 just lost a club to East and East did not return a heart. I think in another case West went up A on the first lead of ♥ to dummy, but I can't swear to that. So, the question(s): with best defence, can it be made? Was my line totally terrible, especially given the bidding?

*Comments about the bidding are not unwelcome and will most likely be entertaining

[cherdano]

I am pretty sure it cannot be made against reasonable defense on the actual lie of the cards. However, I would not be surprised if many BBO defenders would hop up with the ♥A on the first round.

About your line: Your squeeze is just an elegant way to try to club finesse You know that West has 4 hearts from the bidding, so it only works if he has the ♣K, and also a 5th heart. However, it has the benefit of ensuring at most down one, so there is s.th. to be said for it.

I think I would just play on the club finesse (spade to the hand at trick three) and go down one.

About the bidding: On South's first round, given we are white vs red, I would predict many votes for 2♠, 3♠, 4♠, maybe 1♥ or 1NT, but very few for pass... About the final 5♠ bid, I don't know, but I don't like it.

[Rebound]

Yes, I realized later that if the position I was playing for existed, then the finesse was also working so I might as well have just taken it. Thanks to Inquiry's thread on squeezes, I should have known that. Oh well.