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.

Keeping your cool when the opponents luck into something good

In the same round as the hand mentioned in the previous post, feeling like we are way down in the match with 2 boards to go, I pick up:

x
K987
AQTxxx
AT

Both vul., righty opens 1H, I bid 2D, and the same guy that just bid the bad slam asks whether 2D is anything special and Mila says it's normal. Right there is a big giveaway as the where the rest of the diamonds are. That's a bad question to ask. Please don't do it. It gives away too much information to your partner. If it has any meaning other than basically, "I have 5 diamonds and 10 or so points", it will be alerted. So, the guy bids 3H, invitational, and righty bids 4H. Seeing a chance for a big swing our way, I got greedy and doubled and led my stiff spade. Sure enough, dummy comes down with KJxxx of diamonds and the A of hearts and the ace of spades. The hand is certainly beatable (probably by 2 tricks) if I just make safe exits (hearts) instead of trying to get cute and lead an ace. But I got greedy again and played ace and another club at some point, which turns out horribly because partner had only the queen of clubs, so declarer's possible 3 losers in clubs vanished into onyl 1. -790 was worth -5 imps against +620 at the other table but down 2 would have gotten us 15 imps back from their previous good fortune. Alas, we lost the match by only 18 imps.

In the 6th round, I had an opening lead problem against 3NT. The auction went 1C-1NT-P-2C;P-2S-P-2NT;P-3NT-P-P-P. I held:
Jxx
98xx
T9xx
Kx

Clearly they have only about 24 hcp and this is a very close game. I expect declarer has clubs well stopped, partly because he went on the game with a minimum (unless partner has opened extremely light in 1st seat or lefty invited with less than 8 hcp) and partly because partner didn't double 2C. So, I led the 10 of diamonds, hoping to just not give up anything. As it turns out, declarer's club stopper was only ATx and partner had QJ9xx so a club lead kills it right away. I tried to blame this on the opponents but really, I can't. I don't think I made the wrong lead but it just didn't work this time. Nex time with this auction declarer will have AQTx of clubs and the diamond will be right.

A little later in the 6th round, we have the auction 2S-X-3S-P;P-X-P-P;P. Who has the spade length? The doubler or the passer? On this particular hand, no matter how I played, I was going down 2 for -300 when they can make 400 in NT of clubs. But I was just amazed that the person who made 2 takeout doubles had QJTx in spades and a singleton A of hearts. I can't play against that kind of bidding. I would have been really upset if it had affected my line of play. I'm upset anyway. This guy had no logical reason to think we weren't making 3S. He had a 3 count with 6 clubs and a singleton spade - clearly should bid 4C. Whatever. They're not good players and I'm not going to try to understand how they think that doubling 2S is takeout but doubling 3S is penalty. It doesn't make any sense. If 2S-X was takeout, then 2S-X-3S-P-P-X is also takeout. But if 2S-X is penalty, then the other double also is penalty.