You are in 6 spades. Even though you bid diamonds as your second suit, Lefty opens the 2 of diamonds. You decide it is a singleton diamond. How do you play the hand? God has not blessed you with very good spots in diamonds. But has he given you what you need?

Ummm, another problem. Righty shows out on the first round of trumps.

If trumps were 3-1, you could draw trumps, play out the clubs and hearts, ruff a heart, and end up with this situation.

3
--
K54
--
       --
       --
       QJ8
       Q
A
--
943
A3

Assuming the lead is in dummy, you lead a diamond towards the 9xx. Righty must play an honor, or you make your 9 good. Righty is then endplayed -- the lead of a diamond lets you win with the 9, and the lead of the club lets you slough a diamond in one hand and trump in the other.

But trump broke 4-0. If you lead diamonds before drawing trump, Lefty gets a diamond ruff and you are down. So you have to draw trump.

Fortunately, the situation is right for a squeeze-trim-elimination. Your loser count is two. Righty cannot throw a diamond without giving you another diamond trick, if you still control whatever suit Lefty might lead. You have actual high-card control of hearts and clubs, instead of having to rely on trump control.

Unlike the typical squeeze-trim-elimination, Righty could by choice make either suit the elimination suit. But Righty has to make that choice long before you do. Because you want the lead to be in dummy, you come down to

--
K
K54
K
       --
       ??
       QJ8
       ??
--
6
943
3

Righty has two more cards. If they are both clubs, you cash your heart, squeezing a club out of Righty, then you trim the last club out of Righty's hand and run the diamond endplay. If Righty has two hearts remaining, you reverse the order -- the club king squeezes a heart out of Righty and the club heart trims the other heart. If Righty has saved one of each suit, then it does not matter which order you play your kings.

It does matter that you are winning the second round of clubs in the dummy. If you had not:

--
K
K54
8
       --
       --
       QJ8
       Q10
--
6
943
A

Similarly, you could have used your trump as the heart control. That forces you to end up in dummy after playing the last free winner, which is not necessarily a problem. If the situation is:

--
x
K54
8
       --
       --
       QJ8
       Q10
A
--
943
A

However, if Righty decides to make hearts the exit suit:

--
x
K54
8
       --
       Q10
       QJ8
       --
A
--
943
A

If you had had the 8 of diamonds in either hand, then you could execute the endplay starting diamonds from either hand. Then it would not have mattered which hand had the last club (if you saved a heart honor as the control), or if you used your trump as the control in hearts (as long as the club control was in dummy). The only failing situation would be if both the club honor is in your hand, you are using trump as the heart control, and Righty saves hearts as the exit suit:

--
x
K84
8
       --
       Q10
       QJ7
       --
A
--
943
A

If you are running a simple squeeze and one of your threat suits is AKxx opposite xx, you are better off if you can retain a trump as a control in that suit, or if you can ruff the third round of that suit. Both opponents might stop the third round of this suit, but only one stops the fourth round of this suit.

However, for the squeeze-trim-endplay, you try to avoid using a trump as the control, unless entry considerations dictate otherwise. For this hand, you want end up in the dummy, so the heart honor is perfect as the heart control.

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Squeeze-Trim-Endplay Hands
Variations (Controlling both exit suits)

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