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.

Which Squeeze to play for - never mind, there's only one possibility

Last night I had an interesting play problem in a slam. In 6NT, there are 11 top tricks. How would you plan on getting the 12^th?
 

			North ♠ AK8x ♥ AKx ♦ Ax ♣ Kxxx
			South ♠ Tx ♥ QJx ♦ KT8x ♣ AQJx
	South	West		North	East
	1♦	Pass		1♠	Pass
	1NT	Pass		6NT	Pass
	Pass	Pass

After the lead of the ♥T, I played a spade to my ten and LHO's Q to rectify the count and try to set up a squeeze. Back came a heart, and I then cashed the clubs. LHO discarded 2 low diamonds and RHO ditched a heart. Both followed to the 3^rd heart and to the next 2 rounds of spades, with the ♠J appearing from RHO on the last spade. Under the ♦A, LHO drops the J. Should I now play a diamond to the T or a diamond to the K at trick 12?

In this 2 card ending, I know one opponent has a good spade and there are 3 diamonds out. If RHO has the good spade, the contract is un-makeable because LHO would surely have ♦Qx left. So, we must assume that LHO has the good spade and RHO has 2 diamonds left. The odds are 2 to 1 in favor of him having Qx left rather than xx. With 3 cards out, there are 2 ways he can have Qx but only 1 way he can have xx.

So does this mean that finessing is the right play? Well, no. It's what I did and it took me awhile to figure out that this was clearly the wrong play. LHO wouldn't play the J under the A at trick 11 unless it was his last diamond or if he had only QJ left. And I had a whole count on the hand (except I didn't know for sure who had the remaining spade), so LHO had to have another diamond. Playing the J from Jx left would be giving me an opportunity to finesse that he could prevent by keeping the singleton J. Therefore, the only legitimate line of play was to play for the squeeze where LHO started with ♠Q9xx and ♦QJxx. I'm glad I finally figured that out. I knew it wasn't just a restricted choice available spaces problem but I couldn't figure out why until just now.

Simple Black Suit Squeeze

In our Swiss match against the Granovetters in the Charlotte regional flight A Swiss yesterday, I was fortunate to get to declare this deal. 

Dealer: E Vul: EW	North ♠ Axxx ♥ xxx ♦ x ♣ Jxxxx
	South ♠ K9 ♥ Qx ♦ AKQxxx ♣ KTx

East	South	West	North
2♥	3♦	Pass	Pass
Pass

West, Matthew Granovetter, led the ♥A, then after a couple of minutes continued with the deuce of clubs to Pamela's ace. She cashed the ♥K with west discarding a spade, then continued with the ♥J. How do you play from here?

You can only afford to lose one more trick and that's almost surely going to be a trump because west is a heavy favorite to have 4 or more diamonds. The club finesse is almost sure to lose as well so it looks like a black suit squeeze is in order and should be fairly easy to execute if he has the expected 5-1-4-3 shape.

Ruff the heart low – it can't gain to discard or to ruff high. West over-ruffed and thought for a couple of minutes before shifting to a spade, which I won in hand and then ran trumps. If west doesn't over-ruff, play your top diamonds and throw west in with a diamond. If he leads a club the hand is over; if he leads a spade, win in hand, cash the last diamond, and the ♣K. In either case you come down to the same 3-card ending.

Dealer: E Vul: EW	North ♠ Ax ♥ ♦ ♣ J
West ♠ QT ♥ ♦ ♣ Q		East ♠ x ♥ x ♦ ♣ x
	South ♠ x ♥ ♦ x ♣ T

West cannot hold both the ♣Q and keep spades guarded. When south leads the last diamond, pitch a club from dummy. This is a rather elementary squeeze but it could have been broken up by either repeated spade leads or a club continuation by east at trick 4, after taking the ♥K. It just looks and feels so right to tap declarer, possibly promoting a trump trick for partner.

AKx opposite x is sometimes worth 3 tricks

Last night at the bridge club, a place I haven't spent much time this month, Joel and I had a pretty bad game, but it was still fun. The fun was probably more due to the Malibu than anything. Here is one of our bad boards and a very interesting hand.
 

Dealer: E Vul: none	North ♠ x ♥ Kxx ♦ A9xx ♣ AK6xx
	South ♠ AKx ♥ AQJx ♦ KQx ♣ 98x

East	South	West	North
1♣	Pass	3♠	Pass
4NT	Pass	5♣	Pass
5♦	Pass	6♣	Pass
6NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

3♠ was a splinter and I intended 4NT as a quantitative invite as 4♣, I believe would have been RKC blackwood. Regardless, 5♣ is surely a blackwood response showing 0 or 3 key cards, 5♦ Q ask, 6♣ no ♣Q.

West led the ♣Q and I won the ace in dummy with RHO showing out. Plan the play.

You can count 11 top tricks – 2 spades, 4 hearts, 3 diamonds, 2 clubs - with virtually no chance of picking up a 3^rd club trick, so the 12^th trick will have to come from diamonds or spades. If diamonds are 3-3, it's easy but if not, you have some work to do to potentially set up a squeeze. You might as well start by ducking a club to rectify the count and maybe put some pressure on west. Assuming west does find a spade shift, you proceed to cash all your winners except spades. With the club left to be played, here is the 4 card ending.

Dealer: E Vul: none	North ♠ x ♥ ♦ 9 ♣ Kx
West ♠ Jx ♥ ♦ ♣ QJ		East ♠ QTx ♥ ♦ T ♣ -
	South ♠ AKx ♥ ♦ ♣ 9

West had to hold a club stopper and east must hold the top diamond. Therefore neither opponent can hold a spade stopper. The small spade in declarer's hand will be good to win trick 13.

That's a fairly simple double squeeze. I must say that I didn't give the hand enough thought or maybe I was too tipsy and I tried a different squeeze – the simple squeeze against west having to hold both clubs and diamonds, but that squeeze is much less likely because it would mean east started with 11 major suit cards. So, I went down 1. Despite 33 hcp, no one else reached 6NT but one other pair reached 6♣, down 2, so we still got 1 matchpoint.

Anticipating Partner Getting Squeezed

Saturday afternoon at the Columbia, SC sectional, I declared this fascinating hand against one of the top pairs in the area.

Dealer: N Vul: Both	David Coberly ♠ AQJ ♥ 8 ♦ 985 ♣ AKQ543
Hugh Brown ♠ T7642 ♥ AQ6 ♦ 43 ♣ T97		Greg Roberts ♠ K93 ♥ K9754 ♦ AJ2 ♣ 86
	Andre Asbury ♠ 85 ♥ JT32 ♦ KQT76 ♣ J2

North	East	South	West
1♣	1♥	1NT	2♥
3NT	Pass	Pass	Pass

First off, it’s an opening lead problem for west. I think the ♥A stands out but I would not be opposed to a spade lead. With AQx, there shouldn’t be any danger of giving declarer 2 heart tricks as long as partner has a halfway decent overcall.

Hugh led ♥A and ♥Q, both winning. Playing standard signaling, Greg played the 7 and then the 9. Declarer followed with the 2 and 3 as dummy shed a diamond. Do you lead another heart? Why?

Let’s examine the possibilities from Hugh’s perspective. In light of this dummy, you can count 7 tricks for declarer and clearing hearts will give him an 8^th. A) If declarer has the ♠K, you must cash out - lead another heart, and partner will figure out to cash as many diamonds as possible after taking the ♥K. B) If partner has the ♠K and declarer the ♦A, declarer has 9 tricks unless partner has KQJ. In that case, a diamond lead is necessary to set the contract. That would give declarer 5 or 6 hcp depending on the CJ. C) If partner has both the ♠K and ♦A, it would at first seem that clearing hearts is the way to go as declarer will still be left with only 8 tricks, but that opens up partner to a squeeze. This is definitely the most likely scenario for setting the contract but you need to lead a spade at trick 3.

What about east’s signaling? The 8 at trick one is definitely encouragement but does the 9 at trick 2 suggest a switch now that he realized declarer’s stopper is ♥JTxx? If so, does it suggest spades or diamonds or is it up to the opening leader to figure out which one makes more sense. I’m inclined to think it suggests that partner find a switch but I’m not sure. The spade is obviously the killer on this deal and it’s much easier to find in imps than matchpoints because the threat of declarer having the SK and having red suit tricks go away is too high by not continuing hearts.

At the table, they continued hearts. Executing the squeeze is pretty simple. I won the 4^th round of hearts and runs clubs. Surely the spade finesse is losing (♥K and ♦A probably isn’t enough for most people to overcall 1♥) so it’s right to play for east to have the ♦A and ♠K. Here is the ending with one club to go.

Dealer: N Vul: Both	David Coberly ♠ AQ ♥ - ♦ 8 ♣ 6
Hugh Brown ♠ T8 ♥ ♦ 96 ♣		Greg Roberts ♠ K5 ♥ K ♦ A ♣
	Andre Asbury ♠ 9 ♥ ♦ KQT ♣

If east discards the heart, throw him in with a diamond and he has to lead a spade into dummy. If he throws a spade, drop his now-stiff K. If he throws the diamond, claim.

On the actual deal, he threw the ♦A, which actually is the only legit way to still be able to potentially set the contract. He would need Hugh to have the K, a very slim possibility.