If lefty has at least three clubs and at least two hearts, then this hand is cold by ruffing your losing heart in the dummy. Therefore, win the A, cash the AK and cross to your hand with the A, taking care to unblock the J. Now try to cash the Q. If lefty follows, then you will pitch the heart as planned, cross your fingers, play the A, ruff the 9 with the K, pull trumps and claim.

But what if lefty ruffs your Q?

Overruff lefty with the K and run trumps, being careful to unblock the hearts by pitching the 10. If someone is being squeezed, you should be able to tell by their discards. You will find out if the squeeze was successful when you cross to dummy's A in the three card ending shown at right.

If the J is now high, then your squeeze was successful and you can claim. But if it isn't high, then you will have had to have kept track of your opponents' discards to pick the heart suit. For instance, if righty started with three hearts or less, then playing for the Q to drop is probably best.

This end­position is purely a guessing game and table feel is the only thing that can help. In Greg Morse's solution, he played immediately for the drop of the Q and then embarked on the squeeze, and I cannot fault him for it.