Wild And Optimistic Punt

Pages: Page 4 of 6

Dealer: West
Vuln: Game All
Scoring: Pairs
  1. spade
  2. heartA 10 6
  3. diamondK Q 8 3
  4. club
  1. spadeQ 8
  2. heartJ 8
  3. diamondJ 9 7
  4. club
Green square in centre
  1. spade9 6
  2. heartQ 7 3
  3. diamond10 5
  4. club

Contract: 7NT
Declarer: South
Lead: diamond6
  1. spadeA J 7
  2. heartK 9 5
  3. diamond
  4. club
West North East South
Pass 1diamond Pass 2club
Pass 2heart Pass 5NT^
Pass 6heart~ Pass 7NT**
Pass Pass Pass

^Grand Slam Force for heart
~Axxx or Kxxx
**Very optimistic punt

West, next to play, was caught in a classic guard squeeze. Unable to throw a diamond or unguard the spadeQ, West decided to bare the heartJ, while dummy and East shed diamonds. On the spadeA the heart10 was thrown from dummy, and declarer crossed to heartA, to cash the diamondKQ. Declarer knew that West held all the remaining diamonds and the spadeQ, so the carefully retained heart6 allowed a finesse against East's Queen to land the grand slam.

In fact declarer's legitimate chances in 7NT were always good - as long as the clubs were kind. Depending on the distribution of the other suits and declarer's ability to read the discards correctly, the above squeeze was one of several possible endings that would allow declarer to succeed.

So what about 7heart .. ?
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