As I was typing, Jack also posted on A. It's a fascinating hand.
There is some, well a lot, of duplication in my comments and Jack's.
Now I have looked up the hands, some of them anyway, and A has some interesting features.
First I look at the two hands, the one given and the one opposite:
K432
A7
A752
876
AQ8
862
QJ109
KQ5
The auction, starting with the hand shown as S, non-vul versus vul:
1
- (1
) - Dbl - (p) -?
Where do we want to play this, and how should the auction go?
That's far from clear, at least in my opinion.
We need Lho to hold the
K for either 3NT or 5
to have much of a play. So assume he has it. Now
KQJxx and
K probably suffices for most people to justify 1
, so the
A could be anywhere.
Assume the
A is to our right. If we now assume the
K is on our left (probably so, given the overcall and the location of the
A) and if we assume
are 3-2 then it appears that 5
is a make. But 3NT? We have three tricks in
, one in
, four in
, that's 8, so we had better assume
are 3-3 or else that
are 6-2 (so that holding up in
for one round will keep them from being run when Rho is in with the
A).
Well,
were 4-2 and Lho has both the
K (that's good) and the
A not good in 5
but it turns out to be good in 3NT since it is Lho who wolds the
length, subjecting him to a triple squeeze (actually a triple squeeze without the count!) on the run of the
.
All four hands:
K432
A7
A752
876
T976
J5
KQJ53
T94
K8
643
AT
J9432
AQ8
862
QJ109
KQ5
Suppose the defense starts with
. Declarer takes the second
, goes to the board with a
, runs the
, it holds, so declarer cashes all four
. W follows to the second
, tosses the
T on the third
, and on the fourth
he has the choice of tossing the
A, or throwing a
winner, or tossing a
so that
now run. Ouch!
So we want to be in 3NT if the triple squeeze is on, but if the
A is in the other hand, so that W easily just tosses
on the run of the
, then, assuming
are 3-2, we want to be in 5
. Or maybe the
split. But maybe they don't.
It's a fun hand
