1. Texas Transfer. Asks partner to bid four spades.
This hand was played at the finals of the Flight A knockout teams at a recent senior's regional tournament at Fort Wayne, IN. Marty Baff of Beachwood was the "kibitzer" and was kind enough to bring this hand back so we could all enjoy it.
North dealt and opened a very standard one no trump. South's jump to four hearts was alerted and described as a Texas Transfer. West's bid of five diamonds was a sacrifice, but keep in mind that East-West are not vulnerable so this is good strategy at any type of scoring.
After the intervening bid North has a couple of options. With a good hand and three spades he should accept the transfer at the five level. With only two spades, it may be better to defend, depending on partner's holding. He may pass with a minimal holding, or double with defensive values, as is the case here. South does not have a defensive hand and his five spade bid ends the auction.
The opening lead is the king of diamonds, which wins. West now puts the king of clubs on the table. Put yourself in the South seat and decide on how you will proceed before reading on.
Your first order of business is to count your tricks. You have eight spade tricks and two aces in the North hand for a total of ten. In other words, you are one trick short for your contract. You have a long trump suit and potential threat cards in the dummy, so a squeeze is possible, but in order to execute that option, you must duck the king of clubs. This is called "rectifying the count". Basically, you have to get to the point where there are no "idle" cards in the defensive hand that is going to be squeezed. Declarer may not always be sure which hand is going to be squeezed, but if he still has a trick to lose, and he can lose it early without damage, he should do that in anticipation of any potential squeeze.
West, still on lead, does best to switch to a heart. Declarer can not afford to do any more ducking and wins the ace. He next plays the king and queen of trump, then ruffs a diamond to hand. East shows out and West has only one unknown card. (Declarer knows that West started with eight diamonds, two spades, the king of clubs and the two of hearts.) Declarer plays seven of his spades, coming to this three card ending:
The four of spades draws the jack of diamonds from West, who is known to still hold the ace, so the queen of diamonds is pitched from dummy. East is now in the unenviable position of having to guard against North's known club holding, and so must discard the king of hearts. The nine of hearts is now cashed and the ace of clubs fulfills the contract. Had East retained the king of hearts and discarded a club honor, declarer would simply play a club to the ace, clearing the suit so that the ten of clubs could take the last trick.
Had South elected to not duck the king of clubs at trick two, the last trump would be led to a four card ending and East would have an "idle" card which would allow him to retain guards in both threat suits and defeat the contract. The best way I know of to learn about these types of positions is to lay out the cards and play through the various alternatives.