[pclayton]

Here's a neat hand from the NAOP:

Scoring: MP

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At my table the opps bid to 4♥ after I made a WJO of 2♠ which got Brian off to a disasterous lead of the Q♠; an irritating -620.

DF says 4♥ is COLD. Can you see how?

[awm]

Well a diamond or spade lead gives the contract away immediately. Suppose a club or diamond lead. Declarer can play two rounds of clubs, planning to ruff a third round in hand and pull trumps. Opponents can't really stop this from happening (they can't profitably play diamonds or spades). So eventually declarer can run trumps to reach the following four-card end position, having lost a club and a heart:

Scoring: MP

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Of course, west could keep a club instead of a spade or diamond. But in any case, on the play of the last heart west is stuck. He must either:

(1) Come down to one diamond. But then the two diamonds in dummy are good from the top.
(2) Come down to singleton queen of spades (or no spades at all). In this case declarer can play a spade to the king, establishing a spade trick to go with the diamond trick.

[pclayton]

awm, on Oct 1 2006, 08:16 PM, said:

Well a diamond or spade lead gives the contract away immediately. Suppose a club or diamond lead. Declarer can play two rounds of clubs, planning to ruff a third round in hand and pull trumps. Opponents can't really stop this from happening (they can't profitably play diamonds or spades). So eventually declarer can run trumps to reach the following four-card end position, having lost a club and a heart:

Scoring: MP

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Of course, west could keep a club instead of a spade or diamond. But in any case, on the play of the last heart west is stuck. He must either:

(1) Come down to one diamond. But then the two diamonds in dummy are good from the top.
(2) Come down to singleton queen of spades (or no spades at all). In this case declarer can play a spade to the king, establishing a spade trick to go with the diamond trick.

So I'm curious what this type of squeeze is called? I'm not sure I've seen it in the classics.

This isn't a mole squeeze is it?

[zasanya]

A guard squeeze (awm-pclayton style)?
Nice hand.

[winkle]

I don't know the official name, but it reminds me of a vice squeeze.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Vice_squeeze

[inquiry]

winkle, on Oct 2 2006, 08:54 AM, said:

I don't know the official name, but it reminds me of a vice squeeze.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Vice_squeeze

It is a vice squeeze

[hatchett]

I thought the strict definition of a vice required one hand to be squeezed out of one card of a pair of touching honors such as QJ, JT etc. This does not happen here, so I am not convinced this is a vice.

[inquiry]

hatchett, on Oct 2 2006, 02:06 PM, said:

I thought the strict definition of a vice required one hand to be squeezed out of one card of a pair of touching honors such as QJ, JT etc. This does not happen here, so I am not convinced this is a vice.

In this case, Qx is equivalent to QJ... since any small card wit hthe queen works. Change the spades to

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And you woudl call it a "vice squeeze" (or if you like put KT in dummy. The mechanism is identically the same.

It certainly isn't a guard squeeze, since one loser remains in the guarded suit. Nor is it a three suit squeeze or any form of strip endplay (delay duck type vulenerable stopper type things). This is just a form of a vice squeeze.