Simple Squeeze With the Count

Here is another of my favorite deals from the Birmingham regional, also in the Sunday Swiss. I was declarer in 6NT with a spade lead. How would you bring this one home? 

Dealer: S Vul: None	North ♠ xx ♥ xxx ♦ Axxx ♣ AJTx
	South ♠ AQx ♥ AKQ9 ♦ Kx ♣ KQxx

The free finesse (which is a wining finesse) gives you the 11^th trick. East had preempted in spades so you kind of knew the spade position anyway. Where is the 12^th trick coming from? If hearts are 3-3, the H9 will be a winner, but is there another place the 12^th trick could come from? Diamonds? Spades?

We already know east has the remaining spades so if he has 4 hearts, he can be squeezed in the majors, but that is very unlikely. If either opponent has 4 hearts and 4 diamonds, that person can be squeezed in the red suits.

First, you have to duck a trick to reduce yourself to 1 outstanding loser. In this case, duck a diamond (or play K and another diamond). Now, only the person who started with 4 diamonds can guard that suit and keep dummy’s small one from becoming good. The position you want to get to is to have A9 left in hand and Hx and Dx in dummy with the lead in dummy. The defenders would still have to hold a diamond honor and 2 hearts with an honor. Given that east started with 7 spades, odds are good that west started with 4 hearts and 4 diamonds.

Dealer: S Vul: None	North ♠ ♥ x ♦ x ♣ A
West ♠ ♥ JT ♦ Q ♣		East ♠ KJx ♥ ♦ ♣
	South ♠ ♥ A9 ♦ ♣ x

Upon cashing the CA at trick 11, east’s hand is immaterial and west cannot guard both diamonds and hearts. For declarer, it is easy: If the diamond is good, cash it at trick 12. If it’s not the boss, play a heart to the A and hope that the 9 is good.

To Rabbi or Not to Rabbi

I guess this would be considered a successful regional for the 2.5 days I attended. Joel, Jimmy, my dad, and I won a bracket 2 KO without breaking a sweat. It’s still amazing how huge a difference there is between the top bracket and everyone else. We are one of the few teams that falls solidly in between the true top flight and the low flight A and that seems to be how most of the teams I play on are. Sunday, we placed 2^nd in A/X – typical. Here’s one hand where I kind of snookered Tom Carmichael. I’m glad it was an expert declaring because he would count out the hand and reach what I think is the correct decision, albeit a decision that didn’t work out well in this case. Here it is (hands rotated, because I would never sit east): 

Dealer: E Vul: Both	North ♠ A9x ♥ Qxxx ♦ AQJx ♣ Jx
	South ♠ KJxxxx ♥ Ax ♦ xx ♣ Qxx

West	North	East	South
		1♥	1♠
X	2♥	3♣	3♠
Pass	4♠	Pass	Pass
Pass

Put yourself in Tom's shoes. West leads the HK. Yay! Tom wins the ace, plays a spade to the A and a spade back. No yay as east shows out, discarding an encouraging club. To buy some time for making the critical guess, he gives west his spade trick (east discarding a heart). West then leads a middle club, east plays AK and another. After winning the CQ, most declarers would probably just take the diamond finesse and be done with it. Instead, Tom realizes that east has opened the bidding and is known to have only 8 hcp outside of diamonds. Meanwhile, west has made a negative double and is known to have only 5 hcp outside diamonds and the DK is the critical card.

Tom cashes 2 trumps to see if that gains any helpful discards. East discards another club and then a heart and west discards some diamonds. So east started with 5 clubs and west only 3 – interesting. Now we know that east’s distribution is either 1-5-2-5 or 1-6-1-5 and west is either 3-2-5-3 or 3-1-6-3. The odds certainly favor them having the most distributional hands (1-6-1-5 with east and 3-1-6-3 with west) since they were so active in the auction with so few values. If east started with Kx, the contract is doomed. He pitches after dummy so no red suit squeeze is possible. Now Tom has to guess whether east started with stiff K or small stiff. Is x, JTxxxx, x, AKTxx enough to open the bidding (first seat, all vulnerable)? Is Qxx, K, Txxxxx, xxx enough to make a negative double of 1S? It basically comes down to deciding which of those are more likely. If it matters, I was the opener and my dad (certainly the more aggressive bidder of the two of us) was the responder. I’m pretty sure I would have tried to Rabbi (drop a singleton K offside), as Tom did. Even if you think that me opening with a 6-5 8-count and my dad negative doubling with a 6331 5-count are equally likely, successfully Rabbi-ing is a cooler play and therefore the one I would go for. Despite this big swing for us, Tom and company (Capp Jr, Onstott, and Casen) won the match by 11, won the event, and were the top masterpoint winners for the whole tournament by a big margin.

Dealer: W Vul: Both	North ♠ A9x ♥ Qxxx ♦ AQJx ♣ Jx
West ♠ Qxx ♥ K ♦ KTxxxx ♣ xxx		East ♠ x ♥ JT9xxx ♦ x ♣ AKTxx
	South ♠ KJxxxx ♥ Ax ♦ xx ♣ Qxx