Squeezes and such
I love squeezes. In fact right now I am working on an update to Clyde E. Love’s famous book, Bridge Squeezes Complete. If you are interested in squeezes there are many good books I could recommend including David Bird’s
Bridge Squeezes For Everyone. It is well written and quite comprehensive. It is designed to make you a good squeezer. And of course there is the award winning, A Bridge To Simple Squeezes by Julian Laderman. I only raise this topic because in my last blog, as several astute readers pointed out, the slam I discussed needs a squeeze. This was a slam that was bid and made at both tables. So let’s look at the play and you can decide if you want to get to this slam. (The deal has been rotated for easier viewing).
The following is only for very advanced bridge players:
| Dummy | ||
| ♠ J5432 | ||
| ♥ A1053 | ||
| ♦ A54 | ||
| ♣ 2 | ||
| West | East | |
| Declarer | ||
| ♠ AKQ1098 | ||
| ♥ 62 | ||
| ♦ K76 | ||
| ♣ A7 |
| West | North | East | South |
| pass | pass | 1♠ | |
| pass | 2♣* | 3♣ | 4♣ |
| 5♣ | pass | pass | 5♦ |
| pass | 5♥ | pass | 5♠ |
| pass | 6♠ | all pass |
The opening lead is the ♣J which you win with the ♣A. You now play two rounds of trump as East follows and West discards two clubs. It appears that you have a heart loser and a diamond loser. Your only hope is either a squeeze or an endplay. Let’s think about this carefully. What do we know about this deal from the bidding and first few tricks? East must have six clubs to the KQ. It is unlikely that he has seven for two reasons. First he didn’t open the hand 3♣. Second East bid 5♣ and almost certainly has four clubs for that bid. East also has two spades. He has five red cards. At this point the squeeze will operate if he has three hearts and two diamonds. If this is true then West will have to guard both diamonds and hearts. Our plan is to have a heart-diamond squeeze against West. (The squeeze will also operate on hands where West has the KQJ of hearts and five or six diamonds).
If you want to be a squeezer follow along with me. If only one hand is guarding both hearts and diamonds (here West) and we can get down to one loser then all of West’s cards will be busy. The threats are going to be the ♦7 in the South hand and the ♥10 in the North hand. We need to remove all the hearts from the East hand and we need to lose a trick.
Here is the whole hand:
| Dummy | ||
| ♠ J5432 | ||
| ♥ A1053 | ||
| ♦ A54 | ||
| ♣ 2 | ||
| West | East | |
| ♠ void | ♠ 76 | |
| ♥ KJ84 | ♥ Q97 | |
| ♦ QJ1098 | ♦ 32 | |
| ♣ J1064 | Declarer | ♣ KQ9853 |
| ♠ AKQ1098 | ||
| ♥ 62 | ||
| ♦ K76 | ||
| ♣ A7 |
The ideal trick to lose is a heart because we have to do one more thing. We have to make sure that only West can guard hearts. We want to remove all the hearts from the East hand. So after drawing trump, we duck a heart. We win the return and then play the ♥ A and another heart, removing all of the hearts from the East hand. Now we can ruff a club if needed and run all the trump. Here is the position when we play the last trump:
| Dummy | ||
| ♠ – | ||
| ♥ 10 | ||
| ♦ A54 | ||
| ♣ – | ||
| West | East | |
| ♠ – | ♠ – | |
| ♥ K | ♥ – | |
| ♦ QJ10 | ♦ 32 | |
| ♣ – | Declarer | ♣ K9 |
| ♠ 8 | ||
| ♥ – | ||
| ♦ K76 | ||
| ♣ – |
The last spade squeezes West. If West throws a heart then the ♥10 will be good, a diamond will set up a diamond winner.
That is how the slam was made. Was it a good slam? As was pointed out in a comment to the last blog it needs the red suits to be split so that West has exactly three hearts and two diamonds. And to make it worse an opening diamond lead which doesn’t seem ridiculous from the West hand will break up the squeeze. I will let you figure that one out for yourself if you are a squeezer. One hint is that when the defense gets in on a heart they must return another diamond to destroy declarer’s squeeze.
So was the bidding as good as I made out? If not who was pushy? South could have had a slightly better hand. If he held the ♦J that would have improved the odds on the slam a lot. But North was probably a bit pushy since even with this great hand slam was still a reach. While I still admire the auction I admit it is not a good slam. Although as I recall Bob Hamman would say if you make it then it is a good slam.