You've lost one trick, but can now ruff the second heart, draw trumps and count eleven tricks off the top (eight trumps and three clubs). But as is so often the case at Match Point scoring, never ignore the possibility of an extra overtrick, converting a middle into a near top.

My first thoughts were trying to sneak through an early diamond, if South has the ♦A and ducks a diamond lead from dummy. But this is unlikely to succeed after that bidding, and risks losing two diamond tricks if ♦A is offside.

I resorted to plan B, drawing trumps, cashing three top clubs discarding a diamond, and optimistically leading out trumps hoping for a mis-defence, though by then the defence know I'm out of hearts and clubs, so hanging on to ♦A is not exactly a huge challenge. Predictably enough, this line resulted in eleven tricks for a middle and a rather flat board.

I should have thought a bit harder and come up with Plan C, which is completely safe and stands a much more realistic chance of a twelfth trick.  Simply run all eight trump tricks, apologising to the opposition for the unimaginative approach if it's an informal game. You still have a guaranteed eleven tricks, but now there are a couple of extra chances:

a) A defender may discard a club from a "worthless" holding like ♣xxxx (unlikely, with East's 4-card suit visible in dummy, but stranger things have happened at the bridge table).
b) There may be a squeeze, if one defender holds four clubs and ♦A. Now that is not so unlikely, by my reckoning. The odds on either defender holding ♦A or four clubs are evens in each case (one or the other defender must have them), so 25% of the time you'll get lucky and one or other defender has both these holdings, making them vulnerable to a squeeze.

If you think you need a post-graduate degree in astrophysics to execute a squeeze, think again. Many squeezes need little or no skill, it's just a matter of cashing your winners in the right order (often easier said than done, to be fair). But that's dead simple here, your only winners are the eight trump tricks in hand, so you cash them, keeping all four clubs untouched in dummy. By trick 8, you are down to ♠x ♦Kx  and ♣xx, while dummy still has ♣AKQ2. 

North is squirming with ♦A and ♣J10xx (assuming he hasn't already blown it by carelessly discarding a club), and when you lead your last trump at trick 9 he can throw in the towel... he either has to discard ♦A [best, hoping partner has ♦K, but not this time] or throw his fourth club, a stopper. Whatever he discards, declarer is presented with an easy twelfth trick. Click on Show All Hands to see that North has both ♦A and the club stopper, and has no defence against the squeeze on this line of play.

For obvious reasons, this is called an automatic squeeze. It doesn't matter which defender has the long clubs and ♦A and declarer doesn't have to do anything remotely clever.

All declarer has to do is to watch out for a discard of ♦A (fairly eye-catching) on the run of the spades, which doesn't even require the most basic card-counting effort. If ♦A is discarded you cash the ♦K and take the last three tricks in dummy.  Otherwise, you cross to dummy and play clubs from the top, fingers crossed.  This time, you're in luck and the twelfth trick has been made by force on a simple squeeze, with ♣2 now established as a length winner. Play through the deal again with Play it again if you're not clear how the squeeze has worked.

As an aside, this is arguably a drawback of match point pairs, as it never makes sense to claim the "obvious" number of tricks, if you can mindlessly cash out your winners hoping for a slip or a squeeze for an unexpected overtrick. This approach is usually a complete waste of time and may not be popular with the opponents, but occasionally pays off.

On the traveller, it's apparent that only one declarer found the line for 12 tricks — well done Paul. Ironically, the runaway winners on the night didn't need the extra trick to score a top on the board, as they were doubled in 4♠... but that's another story.

Dave Simmons
March 2026