[diana_eva]

This was board 9 from BBF vs JEC:

---

Lead was ♣Q.

How would you play it?

[MrAce]

I would take club in hand (N) clear trumps, cash spade A and cash rest of Dias keeping in dummy a heart, KT spade and stiff club A

I can't tell how I would play without knowing discards though. I think this is pretty much auto play until here. But it would be better if you didn't mention where this hand was played.

[gnasher]

If East has the club length, the only likely legitimate chance is a squeeze against East in the blacks. For that to work, we have to keep either dummy's small club or declarer's ♠A. In the latter case it's a criss-cross. In either case I'm going to have to work out East's shape.

We have two illusory threats: ruffing out the spade suit, and something involving ♥J9. We ought to maintain these for as long as possible.

I'd cash six rounds of trumps throwing a heart, a spade, another heart and another spade. Then, assuming nothing unusual has happened, either unblock the spade and cash the other red-suit winners, or keep ♠A and cash the red winners throwing a club.

[rhm]

Your legitimate chances are that East solely controls the black suits.
But this requires a parlay.
East must be 5-5 in the blacks or holding both spade honors and the club suit.
A point is that East does not know how many spades North holds and if he has only four spades with only one honor. say ♠Hxxx, he might be reluctant to part with a spade fearing that North has Ax in spades and could establish a long spade by ruffing.
If East has any two of the three missing heart honors he might be in trouble after 5 rounds of diamonds
So play on diamonds. After 4 rounds of diamonds:

---

When you play the diamond ten it might not be obvious to East that only a spade discards will lead to defeat.
If he discards the heart ten the contract makes, whether he keeps his other heart honor or not.

Rainer Herrmann

[diana_eva]

I'm gonna spoil this and post the full hand. At one table, Garozzo played 6♦ making +1. At the other table, the juniors playing for BBF bid the grand, but didn't make it and after the match declarer was pretty shook up that he didn't get the play right. I couldn't see how it needs to be timed to make or what the squeeze was, even with all cards in view

---

[gordontd]

diana_eva, on 2014-August-25, 06:25, said:

I'm gonna spoil this and post the full hand. At one table, Garozzo played 6♦ making +1. At the other table, the juniors playing for BBF bid the grand, but didn't make it and after the match declarer was pretty shook up that he didn't get the play right. I couldn't see how it needs to be timed to make or what the squeeze was, even with all cards in view

He needed to cash the final trump without cashing the HA. He'll discard a heart from dummy on it (unless East discards the HQ, in which case he'll discard a spade and have the heart finesse for the extra trick) and then cross to dummy with the CA, where the SK squeezes West in clubs & hearts.

At our table I made it easy for him to make the overtrick in 6D by discarding my clubs in the West hand.

[Fluffy]

wow rainer is wrong for the first time I remember, what happened?

[rhm]

Fluffy, on 2014-August-25, 07:00, said:

wow rainer is wrong for the first time I remember, what happened?

Unfortunately I am far more often wrong than I like ,
However, in this case I saw at least the heart threat correctly.
I think the position is a double guard squeeze.
The double guard squeeze occurs when you have a compound squeeze except lack the needed entries.
In other words, you have threats against both opponents in two suits (here ♥ and ♣), and a third threat against only opponent, with the single threat sitting behind the opponent (here ♠).
Normally if both defenders keep clubs guarded there is no squeeze, because the club in hand is not accompanied by a winner after the lead.
(The club ace needs to be cashed eventually too early to reach the spade king)
But if East gives up hearts to keep clubs he exposes his partner to a simple heart finesse. Note, the guard squeeze would not operate if you exchange the heart ten for a lower heart between East and West.
If East does relinquish clubs a double squeeze develops with hearts the common threat.

Rainer Herrmann

[Wackojack]

I happened to be kibbing the 6♦ contract played by Garozzo and remarked to a fellow kibber that it was a pity not to see if the master could find a squeeze play to make 7♦ although I could not see a squeeze in it seeing all 4 hands.

Now I can see the squeeze play I am interested to know the name of it. Criss-cross guard squeeze? Stepping stone guard squeeze? Following Gnasher's and MrAces' precepts we get to:

---

The play would be: On the 7♦East throws the Q♥ having previosly thrown 2 small spades 4 and 10 clubs and 10♥. Asssuming the Q♣ lead marks East with QJ10, then East is marked with guarding the spades and clubs since the Q♥ discard has to be forced. Now East has to be void in hearts so west's K♥can be finessed.

For me a very instructive squeeze play

[rhm]

Wackojack, on 2014-August-26, 03:14, said:

I happened to be kibbing the 6♦ contract played by Garozzo and remarked to a fellow kibber that it was a pity not to see if the master could find a squeeze play to make 7♦ although I could not see a squeeze in it seeing all 4 hands.

Now I can see the squeeze play I am interested to know the name of it. Criss-cross guard squeeze? Stepping stone guard squeeze? Following Gnasher's and MrAces' precepts we get to:

---

The play would be: On the 7♦East throws the Q♥ having previosly thrown 2 small spades 4 and 10 clubs and 10♥. Asssuming the Q♣ lead marks East with QJ10, then East is marked with guarding the spades and clubs since the Q♥ discard has to be forced. Now East has to be void in hearts so west's K♥can be finessed.

For me a very instructive squeeze play

I do not think this position works on the actual layout if West keeps his ♣9 guarded. In this case East can keep hearts and spades, because the ♣K can not be cashed in time.
Even If East solely controls the black suits and West hearts (he would need 2 cards from ♥K,Q,T to do so) you need to keep a low club for communication in dummy and you get a simple black suit squeeze against East. .
Assuming you have discarded the low club in dummy the criss-cross squeeze does not work even if you keep the spade ace in the above position.
East simply gives up clubs.
Now you have an additional club winner but you can not realize this winner and at the same time unblock the spades to get rid of your heart loser in the North hand.

Rainer Herrmann

[Wackojack]

rhm, on 2014-August-26, 07:07, said:

I do not think this position works on the actual layout if West keeps his ♣9 guarded. In this case East can keep hearts and spades, because the ♣K can not be cashed in time.
Even If East solely controls the black suits and West hearts (he would need 2 cards from ♥K,Q,T to do so) you need to keep a low club for communication in dummy and you get a simple black suit squeeze against East. .
Assuming you have discarded the low club in dummy the criss-cross squeeze does not work even if you keep the spade ace in the above position.
East simply gives up clubs.
Now you have an additional club winner but you can not realize this winner and at the same time unblock the spades to get rid of your heart loser in the North hand.

Rainer Herrmann

Yes that is even more interesting:

---

So East believing that his partner holds 95♣ decides that he can afford to ditch the 10♣. South discards 9♥ and west 9♠. Then declarer plays a small club to the Ace. Next he cashes the K♠ and west is squeezed in ♣ and ♥.

[rhm]

deleted

[rhm]

Wackojack, on 2014-August-26, 08:30, said:

Yes that is even more interesting:

---

So East believing that his partner holds 95♣ decides that he can afford to ditch the 10♣. South discards 9♥ and west 9♠. Then declarer plays a small club to the Ace. Next he cashes the K♠ and west is squeezed in ♣ and ♥.

This works.
That's why it is called a double guard squeeze.
East and West would like to keep clubs, in which case there will be no squeeze.
But if East discards hearts declarer gets s finesse position then in hearts provided East has 2 of the top 3 missing hearts.

Rainer Herrmann

[gszes]

I really like this hand but not for the squeeze reasons shown above, I like it for
its defensive intrigue. After 4 tricks we know declarer has 7d 2s 2c 1h that means
if declarer has the heart Q OR 2 spades we are toast. With this knowledge we can deduce
that partner has 4 spades and the heart Q (at least doubleton due to the bidding) and since
p will have to start making serious discards next trick we need to help guide the defense.

Since we can guard spades and clubs behind dummy it seems we need to make sure
partner guards hearts. Is there any way to do this??? It may seem ridiculous but
surely if we pitch the

Heart K

on trick 4 this will give p reason to believe we have either lost what little sense
we have left or we can guard spades since we are forcing our poor already battle
weary partner to now guard hearts on top of everything else. If we cannot guard
spades a heart K toss is just plain suicidal so p must assume we have not lost our
senses and defend accordingly. Once p guards hearts (reluctantly pitching spades) and clubs
and we guard spades and clubs the hand is over for declarer.

Can we find this at the table? I do not think it is as tough as it first seems since
we are trying to keep declarer from squeezing poor partner when in fact we can cover the
black suits behind dummy ---- exactly the kind of position we need to be in to make sure
a squeeze will not work.

After the hand is over congratulate p on a great lead and with any luck they will
congratulate you on the heart K pitch.

[Lovera]

rhm, on 2014-August-26, 03:06, said:

Unfortunately I am far more often wrong than I like ,
However, in this case I saw at least the heart threat correctly.
I think the position is a double guard squeeze.
The double guard squeeze occurs when you have a compound squeeze except lack the needed entries.
In other words, you have threats against both opponents in two suits (here ♥ and ♣), and a third threat against only opponent, with the single threat sitting behind the opponent (here ♠).
Normally if both defenders keep clubs guarded there is no squeeze, because the club in hand is not accompanied by a winner after the lead.
(The club ace needs to be cashed eventually too early to reach the spade king)
But if East gives up hearts to keep clubs he exposes his partner to a simple heart finesse. Note, the guard squeeze would not operate if you exchange the heart ten for a lower heart between East and West.
If East does relinquish clubs a double squeeze develops with hearts the common threat.

Rainer Herrmann

Hallo, about guard squeeze (and so on) see for all endings my post 36 in "Play 7 NT". Because lacking comunication in double threat it necessary to provide with impasse situation in other suit. The five endings become from double squeeze (an opp loses a card of controll in double threat that passes in the suit of unilateral becaming double threat without comunication ,as you could see ) acting infact "on the last free winner".

[Lovera]

But the intetest of this hand is also for situation in heart that (we can see) is type "squeeze of impasse" (an honor on left two on right) let's allow to recuperate the (good) opening leads that has reducted communications (one way to South). Infact 2 against 3 we had to discard club instead heart (out of consideration already done for reciprocal - 3 cards balanced - double squeeze on club discard by East).

[PhantomSac]

diana_eva, on 2014-August-25, 06:25, said:

I couldn't see how it needs to be timed to make or what the squeeze was, even with all cards in view

Ditto heh.

[Lovera]

At single dummy ( but you already know [= read able to see]) you recognize some positions ending of compound squeeze and because in spade there is not comunation 10 ( card of high value often ) is unilateral (required) in favourable (R=right) position then we cash diamonds minus one to know at which double squeeze ending to get and in this way the hand has to be thinked ; furthemore with 10 there is a winner that recall situation of compound squeeze with alternate minace . Then we act consequently step by step up-to-date the initial hypothesis.

[Lovera]

Lovera, on 2014-September-07, 02:34, said:

At single dummy ( but you already know [= read able to see]) you recognize some positions ending of compound squeeze and because in spade there is not comunation 10 ( card of high value often ) is unilateral (required) in favourable (R=right) position then we cash diamonds minus one to know at which double squeeze ending to get and in this way the hand has to be thinked ; furthemore with 10 there is a winner that recall situation of compound squeeze with alternate minace . Then we act consequently step by step up-to-date the initial hypothesis.

R is right only respect spade of South ( a precisation)