John Ramos of Los Angeles managed to squeak out his contract-fulfilling trick in today’s deal from the 2025 Von Zedtwitz Life Master Pairs. Even though Ramos was only in a nonvulnerable part-score, the trick turned out to be highly valuable at matchpoints scoring.
East took the first two diamond tricks and played a third round, ruffed by South. Ramos led the heart king to East, who pressed on with a fourth diamond lead, which was ruffed low and overruffed. The defense had gone according to plan so far, but West now had to guess which black suit to play. He guessed wrong by shifting to a spade, which went to declarer’s queen.
Ramos supposed that West had started with at least four spades, based on this defense, in which case routine play would lead to down one. However, with the club honors surely divided, the run of the trumps would exert great pressure.
So it proved: On the final trump trick, West was forced to bare the club king in order to guard spades, while dummy was also reduced to three spades and one club. Declarer then finessed the spade 10 before exiting with a club. The defense was cooked now — if West was allowed to win the club king, he would have to resurrect dummy with a spade. If instead East went up with the club ace, it would swallow West’s king, and now he would have to continue clubs to give South the queen and eight. (This ending would have worked even if East had held the club nine.)
Ramos had brought off a rare winkle squeeze.