[lamford]

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An interesting hand from Wednesday's heat of the Children in Need Sims, played in a number of British clubs. Whether you are in 4H or the pushy 6H matters little, as it is matchpoints. North leads the nine of hearts, and you win with the jack, cross to the queen of hearts, North discarding the eight of spades (normal attitude) and you play a diamond to the king and North's ace. North exits with a diamond, and you win with the queen, and ruff a diamond high (South starting with ♦JTx which does you no harm). The singleton trump opening lead suggests a black suit finesse may fail, but do you now cash the ace of spades before crossing to dummy in trumps?

[gszes]

IF you want to try for the squeeze it will be slightly better to cash the spade ace AND the
club ace before going back to dummy with a trump. The advantage of cashing 1 top club first
is it at least makes a simple squeeze against rho a show up squeeze when you lead a club and
if the club Q does not appear that eliminates many distributional probabilities and may help
you decide to finesse or not.

There is a two part question here.
1. Do you really want 6 to make since if you are not in it?
2. Is the inference about black suit finesses losing really strong enough as to make a squeeze
a better proposition than a straight finesse? what about a straight finesse combined with trying
to ruff out the club Q?

The main problem with trying for a squeeze is that there are a rather large number of non squeeze
hands where simply trying to ruff our Qxx of clubs will give you what you need. lho has started out
with 4d 1h rho 3d 3h there are 8 spades missing and lho would be the favorite to have 5 of them and
thus only 3 clubs (with or without the spade k).

While it is not fancy and won't get your name in the papers trying to ruff out the club Q and falling
back on the spade finesse seems like the most solid plan overall.

[gnasher]

I think it's clear to play for the squeeze. Try constructing a hand where you'd lead a singleton trump as North and you don't have both black-suit honours.

[whereagles]

Yeah trump lead suggests something like 4144: Kxxx x Axxx Q?xx. The squeeze seems to be working even if South has ♣10xx (where a pin of the 10 would also work), so it rates to be the best line.

[gszes]

Hmm I hate to lead the dreaded singleton trump as much or more than most but in this
particular auction, where the very strong hand has leaped to game in hearts, the lead seems
abnormally safe. On top of that there is a solid minority (majority?) of players that believe
in attacking leads and would readily underlead the club Q especially QT instead of a singleton
trump. I am not against playing for a squeeze it just seems like too much of stretch to
automatically conclude it is better merely because of seeing the hated singleton heart lead.

[lamford]

gszes, on 2014-November-15, 09:57, said:

1. Do you really want 6 to make since if you are not in it?

I am not sure that this is correct thinking. You are only competing with those in four.

I cashed the ace of spades, and the top club and crossed with a trump and North's discomfort was apparent to the barman downstairs. I wondered if I should have not cashed the ace of spades, and played it as trump squeeze, gaining when South has Qxx in clubs. My thoughts were that some Norths could bare the king of spades and keep four clubs to the queen, when I would have to read the ending. Not that this would have occurred to this particular North.

[nige1]

lamford, on 2014-November-15, 14:02, said:

I am not sure that this is correct thinking. You are only competing with those in four.

Yes.

lamford, on 2014-November-15, 14:02, said:

I cashed the ace of spades, and the top club and crossed with a trump and North's discomfort was apparent to the barman downstairs. I wondered if I should have not cashed the ace of spades, and played it as trump squeeze, gaining when South has Qxx in clubs. My thoughts were that some Norths could bare the king of spades and keep four clubs to the queen, when I would have to read the ending. Not that this would have occurred to this particular North.

IMO Lamford made the right choice of the automatic squeeze because it requires no guesswork. If he had played the trump-squeeze, it doesn't seem so hard for a player with ♣Qxxx and ♠K to bare the latter and give him a nasty guess.

[AreyHakaal]

I am for the Vienna Coup and not in favor of the squeeze as North may smoothly bare his King of Spades.Vienna makes the squeeze automatic whoever holds club Qxxx and also the SK also.

[The_Badger]

Interesting but not conclusive. Why singleton trump? (Because it's the only safe lead...mmmm) Attitude signal that may be false (not likely but possible). And as probability goes, if N has both already shown the ♦A and "by attitude" the ♠K, it's less likely he has ♣Q. North is probably 5-1-4-3, a 5-3 ♠split statistically more likely than 4-4, and then the hand with 4♣s (South) is more likely to have the Q.

Good that you can see squeeze possibilities, but they shouldn't be based on just a lead surely? Yes, I agree, a trump lead may have cost the defence. It's nice and satisfying when the squeeze works, and you achieve something in the room that no-one else has done, but it shouldn't be the basis of "going against the odds".

[Lovera]

Hallo, there is in this hand vary squeeze positions (but this doesn 't mean that all is ok): two positional against South, also an automatic whilest for trump squeeze if squeeze card is in East (en passant i prefer to say so instead lho or rho to avoid mistakes) it needs to have in dummy two entry (one for card to ruff and the other to rescute when winner). But in club ruffing in third round we can catch Queen 3th in every side.. Than having N already show A and missing 10 points.. it are divided ?

[lamford]

Lovera, on 2014-November-16, 14:22, said:

Hallo, there is in this hand vary squeeze positions (but this doesn 't mean that all is ok): two positional against South, also an automatic whilest for tramp squeeze if squeeze card is in East (en passant i prefer to stay so instead lho or rho to avoid mistakes) it needs to have in dummy two entry (one for card to ruff and the other to rescute when winner). But in club ruffing in third round we can catch Queen 3th in every side.. Than having N already show A and missing 10 points.. it are divided ?

I think I understand. You are correct that one can always pick up ♣Qxx in either hand, as well as both black honours in the same hand, but only if you know the original black-suit distributions. I agree with gnasher that it is very likely both black honours are with North, so the trump squeeze can rarely gain.

[Lovera]

I think that part of solution is on distribution of points : when opp are silent we lacking information (it is true that a type of bidding like this one gets a limit to consider that) are going to say points are equally divided or it is 6-4 such as with J in S and A in N yet in N we have ♠ K and ♣ Q but the same points we have if ♣ Q is in N. About shape than it is possible be as already in posts indicated but at this point the problem is where is the Queen ? As i've said we can try to catch ruffing at 3th round in club, but if don't ? When we consider a positional type E2(=with two cards to entry) against Qxxx and Kx in S if S discard spade we can lead little to A and then little to (winner) J but if instead S has three spade and three clubs without Queen ? Now squeeze doesn't work but impasse yes if on last red card in E looking dscarding in S we pitch little spade and reserving Q and after leading J or x to dummy ...(against Kx now) impassing, bye.