More Double Dummy

Lots of upcoming hands from the recent Edgar Kaplan regional, but first, this double dummy problem from my dad.

Dealer: Vul:		North
		♠	43
		♥	A98
		♦	T43
		♣	AT983
West				East
♠	JT9			♠	Q87
♥	KQJT6			♥	73
♦	J			♦	K987652
♣	J642			♣	K
		South
		♠	AK652
		♥	542
		♦	AQ
		♣	Q75

South ducked the heart King lead, and West continued with the Jack. South has losers in spades and clubs, and 2 in hearts, but could pitch a heart on a long club (given time to set it up and trumps drawn). Thus, West must be prevented from gaining the lead to cash a heart while declarer is at work. To do so South uses an avoidance play in trumps by winning the second heart and leading a spade towards hand, planning to duck if East plays the Queen (if he leaps, declarer will be able to draw trumps and work on clubs). If not, declarer must win, cross to dummy in clubs, and lead a spade up again.

If East ducks, South exits in spades, wins the forced diamond return via finesse, and runs trumps and the Ace of diamonds.

In the three card ending N/S hold 1 heart and 2 clubs, and West, who must keep 2 clubs, is therefore squeezed down to the same distribution, allowing a heart throw in and club endplay.

East can make it more interesting by going up with the spade queen on the second round.  Declarer ducks, and when a trump is returned, declarer finds himself possibly a trick short, having not had time to finesse in diamonds (since the entries were needed to lead up in spades).  But, no problem, declarer runs all the trumps, pitching the T98 of clubs (important!), and then plays the A-Q of diamonds in this position.

Dealer: Vul:		North
		♠
		♥	9
		♦	T4
		♣	3
West				East
♠				♠
♥	K?			♥
♦				♦	K987
♣	J6?			♣
		South
		♠
		♥	5
		♦	Q
		♣	Q7

On the queen of diamonds, west is strip-squeezed down to the same 1 heart and 2 clubs from earlier positions.

If East wins, the forced diamond return (south pitching a heart) squeezes West between clubs and hearts.  If instead, East ducks, west is thrown in via hearts.  Notice that dummy had to keep 3 diamonds for the first case, and one heart for the squeeze, thus could keep only one club.  If the club 3 had not been kept, then when thrown in, West could return a low club stranding declarer in dummy with a diamond loser.

You may wonder what if West had returned a diamond at trick two, thus threatening a diamond ruff if East puts up the queen of spades on the first or second round of spades. However, having failed to knock-out the ace of hearts, declarer can just win that lead, and play A-K and a spade. Now there is time to develop clubs by losing a trick to East.