Textbook hands that come up.

Dealer: E Vul: NS		North
		♠	AJ953
		♥	54
		♦	A73
		♣	AJ6
West				East
♠	KT742			♠	Q8
♥	A			♥	Q6
♦	Q84			♦	J652
♣	K976			♣	QT853
		South
		♠	6
		♥	KJT98732
		♦	KT9
		♣	2

East	South	West	North
P	4♥	P (?)	P
P

My teammate demonstrated solid declarer play on this hand.  At my table we competed to 5 Clubs, but North went for the vulnerable game bonus, competing to 5H.  Declarer guessed hearts correctly, but did not discard properly and made only +650.

Against my teammate, the club lead was won with the Ace and next came the correct guess play of a heart to the Jack.  West won and returned a spade.  Declarer won, ruffed a spade (important, to isolate the spade threat) and ran trump.  For the 4-card ending, West holding ♠K♦Q84 ♣K could either pitch the King of clubs, or pitch a diamond.  (a spade would be fatal).  After thought, a diamond was discarded.

Declarer kept 1 spade, 1 club, and Ax of diamonds in dummy and cashed the last trump.  At the table, West pitched a club, and when dummy let go of the spade, East was squeezed between diamonds and clubs.  If instead West had parted with another diamond, dummy still parts with a spade, and a diamond to dummy’s Ace fells West’s jack, and the finesse is taken through East.

The literature calls this a ‘pentagonal guard-squeeze’, as West is triple squeezed. Letting go of clubs creates a standard positional double squeeze, spades on West, clubs on East and diamonds in the middle; but letting go of two diamonds creates a finesse-able position, thus the ‘guard’.  Definitely fun when this comes up at the table AND you get it right!