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In one of the pairs events at the Gatlinburg MABC this week, most E-W pairs bid to a spade contract, either game or slam, and quietly made 12 tricks. Seemingly a dull hand, but at a few adventurous tables where West decided to grab for a top board by bidding 6NT, the play became interesting.
South led the queen of hearts, won on the board, and declarer led a club, ducked. Crossing back to dummy with a spade, declarer led another club off the board, and this time North took the ace. (Ducking again would have complicated matters, but I see no reasonable alternative for declarer but to cross back to the board, take a guess in clubs and hope to be able to fall back on the actual line of play if it goes wrong.) North returned a heart, East won and ran spades leaving this five card ending:
♥9 ♦Q962
♠Q ♦K3 ♣K9 ...... ♥8 ♦AT54♥T ♦J8 ♣T6
When declarer cashes the last spade (throwing a diamond from hand), North gets the dubious honor of deciding which defender will get squeezed. If North throws a heart, that will expose South to a three-suit squeeze, as a diamond pitch will allow declarer to pick up the diamonds via a finesse later. If North throws a diamond instead, allowing South to throw a heart, this will only put off the deadly moment, as when declarer cashes the king of clubs now North will be caught in a positional squeeze.
As a practical matter, the heart pitch is a slightly better option for North, as it leaves a faint hope that declarer might make a mistake at the end and play for the drop in diamonds instead.