July 16, 2013 – Am I Good Enough to Pull Off a Squeeze?

Squeeze play, to many, is the hardest element to master in bridge.  My wife, and regular partner, swears that she cannot play a squeeze.  Still, I have seen her land 100’s of contracts via a squeeze, and the later conversation always goes like this:

Steve:  Nicely played.  I thought you didn’t do squeezes.

Betty:  I don’t.  I lucked into it.  Besides, the cards were marked, so the play was easy.

That last is the real key – most squeezes are no different than any other aspect of declarer play – they involve counting, placing cards, keeping track of the cards played, and picturing the ending.  Can you pull one off?  Yep.

Our group was scattered among several tables on Sunday, rather than playing together.  I have chosen two declarer play problems to discuss this week.  Since these were from the same table, most of you haven’t seen these hands yet.  Take some time to consider how you might play them.
The first problem was a very aggressive 3NT contract:

The auction, with no one vulnerable, was:

West leads the club three, to the queen and ace.  East returns the club ten to West’s king.  West now shifts to the spade two.  How would you play?

Counting our winners, we have a club and two spades set up.  We can develop at least five diamonds tricks, maybe six.  If we have to lose a diamond trick, the contract will be hopeless.  The defense will continue spades, and win a diamond, two clubs, and at least a spade and the heart ace.  So, since the contract won’t make without a friendly diamond lie, we should assume such a lie.  That means that East must hold the diamond king, either singleton or doubleton (since we can’t get to dummy twice to play on diamonds). 

Once we make that assumption, the play is very easy.  Win the spade king, cash the club jack, play a diamond, and hope for the best.  You’ll either make it or go set, and set a lot! 

At the table, we win the spade king, and screw up, leading a diamond without cashing the good club.  The diamond king pops up – that’s nice, but, when East shows out on the next diamond, we have nine tricks, but the ninth, that good club, seems stranded.  Can we recover from our blunder?  How would you play the hand from here?

We could run our diamonds, and lead up to the heart king.  Maybe the ace is onside.  Is it? 

Well, no.  East made two take-out doubles, suggesting quite a good hand, and West has already shown up with the king of clubs.  East certainly has the heart ace, and likely has every other high card as well.

What do you know about the distribution?

West led the club three, fourth best, with the two missing, and East played ace and ten.  This suggests that West held five clubs, East three.  West shifted to the spade two, so West does not hold a doubleton spade.  We already know that East had only one diamond.  Putting this all together, it appears as though East held four spades, one diamond, and three clubs, and so …?  Five hearts. 

The full hand might well look something like this:

After winning five diamonds, the position will be:

You lead your last diamond, and East has no good discard.  If East throws a spade, you can play spade ace, spade, to win the last trick with the heart king.  If, instead, East throws the heart queen, you play a heart, duck the spade queen, and win the last two tricks with your ace and ten of spades. 
Isn’t that cool?  You messed up earlier, and left a winner stranded, but recovered with a squeeze!

Here was the actual hand:

 
Our declarer did not cash the club, mistake #1.  But diamonds were two-two with the king onside, so declarer could and should have played the diamond six to the seven to cash the ninth trick.  Declarer, instead, continued running diamonds, strike two, getting to the squeeze ending above, but, when East threw a spade in the ending, declarer got out a heart.  Strike three.  Out. 

These misplays made this into a very interesting and instructive hand. 

The second exhibit found declarer in five spades doubled, after a competitive auction:

Neither side was vulnerable, and the auction went:

West started with a high heart, which you ruff.  On auctions like this, it is never clear which side was bidding to make, and which side was saving.  Partner has a great dummy for you, and you have very good chances to make five spades.  Here, it feels like West doubled, thinking that we were saving.  Let’s see if we can change his mind.  Plan your play.

Checking our winners and losers – there is only one obvious loser, the trump ace.  We may lose a club, and we have three long diamonds to worry about.  As for winners, we should take five trumps, two diamonds, and the club ace.  We need three more, and those could come from either minor suit.  Deciding which minor suit to develop seems pretty hard.  Either suit could work out. 

My instinct is to play on clubs, planning on drawing trumps, and then playing ace of clubs and a club.  If clubs are three-three, all our diamonds go away.  If West has the club king, likely on the auction, and wins it, all our diamonds go away, and if West ducks the king, we don’t lose any clubs, and can go back to diamonds.  Still, the main reason I prefer starting on clubs is that the diamond suit might still come home if clubs fail.  If we start on diamonds, and that suit goes bad, we will have almost no extra chances left. 

So, I suggest playing a trump at trick two.  Which trump?

This is unlikely to matter, unless trumps are 4-0, but, given the aggressive bidding, a bad split in one of our suits wouldn’t be that surprising.  If West has all four trumps, we should start with a high honor.  Then, we will know to finesse West for the spade ten.  Unfortunately, West will win a spade and force us again, so we won’t have time to set up clubs.  We will need to run the diamonds, and won’t be able to trump a diamond in dummy.  Frankly, I don’t think we can survive if West has all the trumps.  If East has all the trumps, we do better playing a low spade to the queen.  Then we can trump a diamond in dummy, and finesse for the spade ten.  Neither split is very likely, and this is all probably irrelevant, but it seems best to lead a low trump to the queen.  I often waste my time thinking about stuff like this, completely academic thoughts that won’t matter at the table.

Academic?  Not this time.  Here was the full hand:

  
After leading a low spade to the queen, East will probably duck.  We’ll shift to diamonds, trumping the third round with the nine.  When diamonds turn out to be three-three, the hand is over.  A trump to the eight, and drive out trumps, losing a club at the end.  Nicely played!

I’ll come back to the actual hand in a bit, but first, let’s play around a bit, and pretend that the cards were quite different.  Suppose, when you lead a trump to the queen, it holds.  You continue trumps, and West wins, and plays a third trump, as East discards two hearts.  This leaves:

Now what? 

My original plan was to draw trumps and try the clubs, and nothing has changed, so play the club ace and a club next.  We are home if West has the club king, but no, West follows low, and the queen loses to the king.  Back comes the heart jack, which we trump.  Here’s what’s left, and we need the rest of the tricks:

How do you continue?

It looks right to play a diamond to the ace, and lead the club jack.  If clubs are three-three, we are home, and if not, we take a diamond finesse, making if East started with three diamonds to the queen.  Neither of these options will work in my fantasy world, however, because this was the full hand:

with this ending:

Even though neither minor suit split, the hand was still makeable from this position.  How?
Deal out these cards and play around with the position.  Find out what happens if South leads the last trump, discarding the heart seven before testing the minor suits. 

Finally, let’s return to the actual hand:

At the table, declarer trumped the heart lead and tried diamonds, trumping the third round with the five, and was no doubt quite pleased when the suit split.  The spade queen came next, revealing the bad split, as East ducked.  Dummy continued with the spade nine, which held, and then passed the club queen to West.  West got out a club to declarer’s ace.  South played a high trump to East’s ace, trumped the heart return, drew the last trump, and claimed. 

As I said above, I think declarer should go after clubs, not diamonds, but that choice is very close, and I don’t fault declarer for choosing to play on diamonds.  Even given that, there were four major errors committed in this sequence.  Name all four!

 

1.  North should trump the third diamond with the nine, not the five.  If won’t matter at all if diamonds are three-three, but if West has the last diamond, you don’t want East to overruff with the six.  Trumping with the nine would be crucial if West had a hand like
   W

   West

   ♠

   104

   ♥

   AKQ98

   ♦

   Q543

   ♣

   K2

    

2.  East must win the first spade, and continue hearts.  Dummy has no quick entry to finesse against the spade ten, so winning the first spade and forcing declarer will set the contract whenever partner has a club card. 
3. Once East ducked the spade queen, declarer had 11 sure tricks – five diamonds, five trumps and the club ace.  Run the spade nine, cross to the club ace, and knock out the spade ace.  Why not try the club finesse?  Well, if it loses, the defense can play another heart, bringing South down to two trumps, the same as East.  Now, declarer can’t knock out the trump ace without losing control of the hand.  So, of course,
4. West, in with the club king, should play another heart and set the hand.