I missed a straightforward squeeze yesterday

Yes, you read the title right.

I did miss a squeeze yesterday. It was a pretty straightforward squeeze to execute.

Yes, I really did miss it. Believe it or not, it did happen. There's a hand record to prove it:

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?myhand=M-431672-1340064000

As always, the bidding is questionable when I'm involved. As you might have figured out by now, am not too interested in mundane aspects of bridge such as bidding. Am more interested in improving my card play technique. And yours.

So, we reach the contract of 5 D after the bidding sequence shown.

The opponents take the first 2 tricks with the Ace-King of spade, RHO playing the Jack under the 2nd spade..

You would normally think a 3rd spade would cause an uppercut. Spades were 4-3. Let's work with that assumption for the purpose of this discussion.

So after taking the first 2 tricks, let's say opponent passively exited a trump. Let's also say trumps are 3-3, as they were.

What now? We have six diamond tricks, 2 top clubs, 2 top hearts. Where's the 11th going to come from?

Obviously, it has to come from a squeeze. As far as simple squeezes go, a simple squeeze can exist in the following manners, on the hand:
1.LHO holds 3 or more clubs, and the spade winner. Then, simply running your diamonds and the AKH will squeeze LHO. Six diamonds and AKH is 8 winners. 2 tricks lost, 3 cards left. Dummy will keep 2 clubs and the spade ten. LHO can't keep both the spade Q and 3 clubs.

2.RHO holds 3 or more clubs and the Queen of heart guarded. The play is nearly identical. You cash the exact same winners, but pitch the spade ten in dummy assuming LHO has the spade Q. Down to 3 cards, dummy has the JH and 2 clubs. If RHO has  3 clubs left, the QH would have fallen under the AKH.

This is in an ideal world. In the real world, the devilish opponent switched to a club, the 9 of club..

There goes the squeeze. In the ideal world, we kept 2 clubs in the DUMMY in the end position. Thus, we preserved the late entry to dummy, keeping the spade threat and the JH threat alive as long as possible.

Now, we can't do that any more. If LHO has the club stopper, the squeeze still works, but when RHO has the stopper, the squeeze just got broken up. Or so I thought.

So I mechanically covered the 9 with the ten, which fetched an honor. I took the trick, and ran my trumps.

Six diamonds taken, and 1 club.2 spade tricks taken by opponents.
Down to 4 cards, I kept Honor-8 club in dummy (preserving the finesse position), 1 heart and 1 spade.

RHO now safely unguards H, keeping 2 clubs, 1 heart and the spade.

Cashing hearts now is useless. RHO discards after dummy. The premise that LHO has the spade stopper seems to have sunk me.

What really sunk me was my changing of my assumption.

I had originally assumed that regardless of where the club stopper was, I was NEVER going to use dummy's club as a threat.

Rewind to the ideal scenario: With the passive D exit, I ran the trumps and brought dummy down to 2 clubs. I never used dummy's Ten-8 spots. The opponent's club 9 switch lured me into the trap.

Only one opponent can have started life with 3 clubs here. The correct play is fairly simple, once you realize the clubs in dummy are a mirage.

9 of club: ten, Jack, king.

Now run six diamonds as before.9 tricks gone.

Dummy comes down to BARE club ace,  Jxx H and the spade Ten (about to pitch on the last trump, after LHO).
Assuming LHO has the putative spade stopper, we discard the spade ten after seeing the QS doesnt appear from LHO. RHO instead follows the spade ten discard with the spade queen!

Nothing to fear. Dummy has 1 club and 3 hearts to the Jack.
We have 2 clubs and AKH in hand

RHO can keep only 4 cards.

RHO can't have kept 2 clubs AND 3 hearts to the Queen.
Just watch the discards. If ANY hand pitched a club early, then that hand probably started with 4 clubs (it can't be 2 because he would then expose his ptr's club holding. It can't be 3 because that would be giving up the stopper prematurely). Watch the last discard of the hand which pitched club.

If the last discard is not a club, it means that opponent (RHO, here) has kept 2 clubs and therefore has Qx H.
Lay down AKH, and get to dummy and enjoy the JH.

If the last discard was a club, then unblock AC, get back to hand to enjoy the good club.

A textbook .....criss cross squeeze.
Doggone it.

Winkle squeezes are cute

Earlier today, I encountered an interesting hand that I felt merited an update to the blog.

As with most of my blog posts, this one revolves around the concepts of squeezes and end-plays.

Here is the hand record:
http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?myhand=M-18607264-1337512419

I opened 2 NT with the West hand (yeah, 19 HCP, 5 card H suit, I can see your sanctimonious shakes of the head. Cut it out, because that's not the point of this post). 2 NT was the final contract.

The opening lead was a diamond, and it's time to assess prospects.

4 hearts seem likely. Either a 3-2 break or 4-1 onside (with the obvious safety play) will guarantee me 4 heart tricks.2 clubs for sure, 3 club winners are there but there's an unblocking issue there. And there's the Ace of diamond.
All in all, prospects are OK, sort of. We can untangle 8 tricks if Hearts behave. They can untangle maybe 3 diamonds with a 4-3 break, 1 heart when we duck, and Ace-King of spade. So they have 6 and we have 8 if we manage to untangle clubs before they cash out. I can live with down 1, but it doesn't hurt to try to make the contract.
So I duck a couple of diamonds to disconnect the 2 hands in case diamonds are 4-3, and win the 3rd. So diamonds were 4-3, and North probably has the 13th diamond.
It's time for that "obvious" safety play in heart. Ace of heart, Heart towards dummy's 9 (picks up QJxx H onside. It's a bigger priority than unblocking clubs. I can afford to overtake a club to ensure 4 hearts, if the break was 4-1 onside).
North wins the 2nd heart, South following (so our 4 H tricks are ready to pick). North then cashes the 13th diamond (that's the 4th defensive trick), and exits the 9 of club. On the 13th diamond, I pitch a club in dummy (needing no more than 3), and a spade in hand (Dummy's ten of spade can guard the suit, for now. I don't want to let go of my precious winners; If they take their spades, good for them).

Of course, if North exited spade, we wouldn't have a blog post. But even with the club exit, we still have only 7 tricks since the clubs are still blocked.
The club 9 provides an idea. Since dummy's clubs are AT86, if we cover the 9 with the ten, South (not knowing you have KQ doubleton) might play the Jack and we could then overtake the club on the 2nd round in dummy and cash the good 8.
Good idea, so we play the Ten.
South is too smart for us, and ducks the ten of club and we are forced to win the Queen of club. Clubs are still blocked, do you see a path to 8 tricks at this point ?  (I did, as soon as the 9 of club was led; Yeah, am being boastful, this is my blog, suck it up)
Scroll down for the reasoning.





























I reasoned as follows. Someone  has Jx or Jxx or so of clubs by current count of the suit (since they had lots of clubs). Probably is South. Regardless of which opponent it is, what happens when we cash out the 3 hearts, bringing ourselves down to:
S:QJ
C:K
Dummy:
S:T
C:AT
What can the opponent with Jx club do, if he/she also has a spade honor?
The spade honor will have to be bared.
Say that opponent has only one spade honor, example Kx spade.
So to keep Jx club, they have to bring themselves down to the bare Spade King.
Now, the 8th trick can be untangled. We unblock the club Queen, and exit the spade Queen. If the King is allowed to hold, then the last trick is scored by the club Ace in dummy. If the KS is overtaken by the Ace, OUR Jack of spade just got promoted to winner. The spade suit has "winkled" a trick.
This is the definition of the 'winkle squeeze'. You squeeze an opponent out of the ability to cash 2 spades as a partnership, then throw them in with the bare honor to extract a trick from the OTHER suit they were guarding.

As the hand was dealt, it turned out even cuter. It wasn't just a winkle squeeze, it was a winkle squeeze without the "throw-in endplay" element.
So on the last heart, South has to pitch from:
C:Jx
S:AK
Unable to unguard club, South lets go of a spade honor (hoping his partner had the spade queen; The nerve...does he think I open 2 NT on 17 HCP???).
Now we can set up a trick with the spade QJ without even unblocking clubs. We can cash the club queen, yawn and exit spade Q. Alternately, we can exit spade Q and get the next 2 tricks. Viva Winkle!

P.S: I realized as an afterthought that it is easy to misplay this hand.
For example, for those of us trained to automatically put unblocking requirement as the number 1 priority automatically.
For the unblockers, the play would go as follows:
Win the 3rd diamond.
Unblock KQ club.
Ace and out a heart, and hope that the opponent makes the MISTAKE of leading club.
Now, even a reasonably experienced opponent can make out that your play was unblocking club, and would know enough to not lead club. Perforce, they would then stumble into the spade play.
If not perforce stumbling into spade, perhaps they exit heart safely (if you duck the 2nd H as the safety play, as I did, but after unblocking club).
Bottom line is,  the unblocking play in club rates to lead opponent to the winning defense.
That is the primary reason why it is a defeatist move to unblock club, and the only play with a chance of success is the Winkle squeeze.

SCARY NAME Bridge technique for dummies

Having started my blog with a series of 'advanced' articles, I decided to devote an article (and maybe a few to follow up) on more basic stuff.

This article is about a concept that apparently scares the heck out of many of my fellow bridge players.

When I sit down and discuss the concept, they often quickly say "I don't quite follow SCARY NAME Bridge technique".

Or, "am still learning SCARY NAME Bridge technique, and I haven't quite got the hang of it yet".

Here is an example of SCARY NAME bridge technique in play from a hand I played tonight on BBO:

http://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?myhand=M-3344813-1332394134

Both tables got to the same 4 spade contract. This was in a close IMP game (Barometer scoring), I made it using SCARY NAME Bridge technique play, and the other table didn't, so we ended up winning comfortably.
You can review the play yourself at the table where the declarer went wrong. At the point when declarer ruffs with the spade Queen, let's say you are in the 'hot seat', and instead ruff with the spade 7.
Do you see how to execute the SCARY NAME Bridge technique play that I executed at the other table?

It's not rocket science. After 3 rounds of clubs (KA, club ruff), both opponents cannot guard club simultaneously. Our side had 2+4=6 clubs, so even whether the suit is 3-4,2-5,1-6 or 0-7, BOTH opponents cannot have a club left in their hand.
For simplicity, let's assume the opponent with a club left is LHO of declarer (I will separately 'prove' that it "can't be" RHO).
So if diamonds are 3-3, then unless LHO also has QJx diamond, the diamond guard is "split". IF you cash your trumps, LHO can bring himself down to 2 diamonds and let his partner keep Honor-x-x and stop the suit.
Therefore either LHO needs to have QJx diamond or any 4 card Diamond suit.
As long as this holds, simply cashing your 2 trumps executes SCARY PLAY Bridge technique on LHO.

If he throws a club, you keep club in dummy and discard the D loser.
If he keeps the club, you throw dummy's club on the last trump and play out your big diamonds, diamond Ten will score as long as the cards are dealt for SCARY PLAY Bridge Technique to work.

Yes, SCARY PLAY Bridge Technique is the Bridge Squeeze. No prizes for figuring that out.

There could be prizes however if you help me understand human psychology: what makes this play so SCARY as a bridge player? Why is it so scary to cash your 2 trumps? I could show this hand to my bridge partners/friendly opponents and I would expect 75% of them to be mortally scared of cashing the 2 trumps. I read the same bridge books, I expect this play to be passe/par for the course. I do find my results from hands with SCARY PLAY technique on offer are significantly above average when I'm playing the hand than when my partner is (and gains more often than it 'should' when my opponent is playing the hand).

Side note: RHO cannot have the 13th club because RHO had 5 hearts, at-least 2 spades, and with 4 clubs, only 2 diamonds, which would mean barring a bizarre deal (Honor singleton, or QJ doubleton with RHO), you weren't going to make the contract, and assuming you can't make the contract is not a useful or acceptable assumption.