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I can’t think of any reason to expect a spade void rather than a diamond void. I can think of several reasons not to choose a spade rather than a diamond. If west has only one heart, we need him to hold a void for spades to work but a diamond works if he has either a void or a stiff. The odds of his having a stiff and a void must be far lower than two stiffs If he has two hearts, we don’t need him to hold a void in the suit we lead..a stiff will do as well. But if he has two hearts and a doubleton in the suit we choose then leading diamonds may get him a ruff when the suit breaks 3=3 in the opps’s hands. That’s not true in spades Finally, it’s possible that partner can’t get a ruff but that the opps hands are, to some degree, mirrored. Say north is 4=6=2=1 and south 3=5=3=2 and north holds the spade Jack. Partner has something like x x xxx KQJxxxxx (This would be consistent with north passing initially, since some players won’t open 2M with four cards, especially say KJxx, in the other major) A spade lead gives away the contract. A diamond lead doesn’t I can’t, on just a few minute’s thought, come up with any similar argument for a spade lead rather than a diamond.

There are several layouts in which a squeeze will operate. The reason I wanted the club Jack in dummy is because the lead of the club king virtually assures us that only LHO can guard clubs. Nobody can guard all three threat suits…so if we can isolate one defender as having to guard clubs, we are likely to have him in a simple squeeze position…indeed, if he has short diamonds, we have him squeezed in the blacks IF he is stuck guarding clubs. Meanwhile, we’d be squeezing east in the pointed suits. After six hearts, a club and two diamonds, we have K10x void void 9 opposite Ax void Qx void and LHO, if guarding clubs, can’t have more than 3 spades, so the last top diamond squeezes him out of spades. And RHO has already been forced down to two spades, in order to keep two diamonds…an easy double squeeze When both defendants can guard clubs, the situation is more complex. Maybe LHO had KQJ10 in clubs….but, more likely, RHO has 10x or better in clubs. Having said that, so long as RHO has 4+ diamonds, he has to unguard one black suit on the run of the hearts. If he unguard clubs, we have the simple double, so he unguards spades. Now we have K10x void void 9 opposite Ax void Qx void and RHO is down to one spade, two diamonds and his club guard. If that sole spade is a honour, it drops under the ace and we finesse against LHO. There are other combinations and exactly how we see the end game will depend on how the opps discard. I didn’t want to spell all of this out in my initial post because I don’t have a definitive answer, nor (imo) is there a 100% line. Matters are much more difficult if LHO guards diamonds. Indeed, I see very little chance of making in that case…we need him to also be dealt either 5 spades or the QJ. I think Given who posted this, I suspect that we do end up finessing the spade 10, which would be a pretty layout.

Ah, I caused you to misunderstand. Apologies. This is *the version* of ACBLscor that everybody has been using since Windows 7 burned DOS. 20 years of tournaments and club games have run with ACBLScorW. In fact, I'm quite surprised you have, never mind can run, the DOS-only version. It Just Works, as well as the DOS version did at least. In fact, exactly as well as the DOS version did. What I meant was that if you go in expecting "standard Windows look-and-feel" rather than "DOS program you can mouse-click, if you really want to", you will be disappointed. I try very hard when training new directors to "take their mouse away"; it is *at least* twice as fast to do things with the keyboard (and arrow keys, if necessary) than with the mouse. Which, if you're used to the DOS version, will already be second nature to you.