943
AK4
A4
A10986

AKQJ876
83
5
J43

The contract was 6. Reese, on your right, had overcalled dummy's 1 opening with 1. Crawford bid 4 and dummy raised to 6. The opening lead was the 2.

The contract is a simple endplay, except that Reese shows out on the first spade. One simple play for the contract is to take the double club finesse. However, Reese's overcall made it plausible that both the K and Q were offside. (I do not know how many points Reese showed with his overcall.)

So how would you play the hand?

The success of a squeeze-strip-endplay always requires deciding whether your opponent has pitched too many cards from the threat suit or has saved the threat suit and can be endplayed. So, if you want to run a squeeze-strip-endplay, it would be very helpful if you knew how many clubs Reese had. Normally, you can't trust your opponent's discard because your opponent doesn't know what is going on; you can't trust Reese because he is a better player than you.

So, if Reese started with four clubs and you thought he started with three, he might pitch a club and you might think you needed to attack that suit rather than run the endplay. If Reese started with two clubs, you will think he has three and again try the endplay.

Fortunately, Crawford had a sixth sense for reading cards. I think he would have reasoned that the opening lead marks Lefty with three hearts, so Reese had 5. Reese then probably does not have six diamonds, because he would have mentioned them first. So he has at least 3 clubs. Finally, Lefty probably would have led a club if he had a singleton. So that marks Reese with 3 clubs.

If Crawford knew that Reese had the KQ of clubs, he could have simply run all of the spades, coming down to:

--
A
A
A109

--
8
5
J43

This is the standard squeeze-strip endplay with controls in both exit suits. If Reese pitched a club, attack clubs to set up the long club. If Reese has saved a heart and a diamond, cash the red aces in any order and lead a club to endplay Reese in clubs. If Reese saved two hearts, lead the ace of diamonds to complete the squeeze portion of squeeze-trim-endplay. Vice versa of Reese saved two diamonds.

However, Reese does not necessarily have both club honors. It would be very nice if you could trim Reese down to 3 clubs in the ending position and yet be in your hand to lead a club. Then you make your contract even when Lefty has a club honor.

Fortunately, trumps can serve as controls in the exit suit. Usually, they are critical for this purpose because you don't otherwise have a control in that suit. In this case, you have controls in both exit suits. But for purposes of ending up in your hand, it is very useful to use them as controls. Crawford in fact came down to this position.

--
A4
A4
A109

76
8
5
J43

Again, if Reese has saved only two clubs, you can attack clubs to set up the long club. If Reese has 3 clubs, he has only 4 red cards. If they are two hearts and two diamonds, you can ruff out his hearts and diamonds in either order, ending up in hand to lead a club. If Reese has saved 3 diamonds, for example, you play ace of hearts and ruff a heart to reach this position:

--
--
A4
A109

7
--
5
J43

Again, if Reese pitched a club, you attack clubs to set up the long club. Otherwise, he has 2 diamonds, which you trim by leading to the ace of diamonds and ruffing a diamond. Again, you are in your hand to run the endplay. (If Reese saved 3 hearts, you ruff out diamonds first.)

I think that Crawford could figure out the distribution at trick 1. Without a good idea of the distribution, I am not sure that squeeze-trim-endplay is a better choice than the double-finesse in clubs. But had Crawford been wrong in his assessment, there are reasonable chances that he could have found this out during the play of the spades.

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4. Squeeze-Trim-Endplay Hands
Squeeze-Trim-Endplay: Trump as a Control

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