How to Properly Execute a Suicide Squeeze

Today’s hand is actually fairly boring, especially at imps, but it did have a nice ending that ended with me making an overtrick via a suicide squeeze. This is also why I like matchpoints more than imps. You have to be on your toes all the time and the decisions you make are more evenly weighted than they are in imps. A defensive error to allow an overtrick can be and fequently is as big as a defensive error that allows a game or slam to make.

Dealer: N Vul: EW		North
		♠	62
		♥	Q9732
		♦	Q7
		♣	KQJ5
West				East
♠	AKQ73			♠	JT5
♥	865			♥	AJ4
♦	T95			♦	A42
♣	83			♣	AT42
		South
		♠	984
		♥	KT
		♦	KJ863
		♣	976

Against my 2S, north leads the ♣K and it look like there are 8 tricks with virtually no chance for a 9th – KQ doubleton of ♥ or KQJ tripleton of ♣ seem to be the only legitimate chances. Anyway, I won the lead, drew trumps and ducked a heart to south’s T. They took 1 club and then led diamonds, I took the A and ruffed a club. Finding no good fortune there, I exited a diamond and hoped something good would happen. Sure enough, south took 2 diamonds winners and led a 4th round of diamonds, which may have seemed like a safe play, but with the heart entry to the board, the ♣T is still very much in play. Here is the situation with south on lead at trick 11:

Dealer: Vul:		North
		♠
		♥	Q9
		♦
		♣	Q
West				East
♠	7			♠
♥	86			♥	AJ
♦				♦
♣				♣	T
		South
		♠
		♥	K
		♦	83
		♣

Clearly, if south exits with the ♥K, north will eventually score his heart trick, and north has to have the Q for the bidding and play so far to make any sense. but on the diamond lead, north has to unguard his ♥, and the J becomes good for the 9th trick and what would have been a very good matchpoint score for east-west. A fine example of a suicide squeeze!