Duck Soup
by Foxymoron

I think for about the third time in a row, I went off here in a game I could make; and again I did not give the hand my best shot.  The auction was fairly typical but plenty of Wests led a diamond, which led to an overtrick when declarer set up the clubs, mundanely. Now declarer has a double spade stop and can not be beaten. I faced a low spade lead, and needed in theory to duck the first trick to succeed. Now I can win the second spade, concede a diamond, win the third spade, and run four rounds of hearts, triple squeezing West. He can come down to ♠JT ♦J8 ♣KQ. Now I can duck a club, and the defence only has four tricks.

The defence is pretty hard if I win the first spade and lead a diamond immediately. West has to duck. Now best is to cash four rounds of hearts, but West discards the jack and ten of spades, and keeps three clubs. Now his partner can be reached in spades with the 98 and has two hearts to cash. Of course none of this happened when I was at the helm, as I just played for a favourable club position, but I think I need ♣KQx ♣KQ, ♣KT or ♣QT onside,  or ♣KQ offside if I read it. With the hearts 0-6, I guess the first two of these are unlikely.

I must admit I would lead a diamond on the above hand, as did many Wests, and that gets only 15% of the match-points. At least when I did not find the club layout I needed, I managed to salvage 30% by playing the strip squeeze on West for one off.