[Mbodell]

This is a hand I held this past week. You are in 7NT. The opponents know declarer's exact shape, and that he has the 3 key card in spades and the Q of spades. You have 13 tricks if spades were to break 3-2. But if they don't how will you play the hand?

Opening lead is the 7♥.

Scoring: MP

Bidding unimportant but included for completeness:
1♦*-1♥*:10-15 unbalanced, no 5cM, (at least 1 A or 2 K); gf relay
2♦*-2♥*:3 suits including ♣+♠;relay
2♠*-2NT*:short hearts;relay
3♣*-3♥*:4144; key card in spades
3NT*-4♣*:3 or 0 key cards; how about the Q
5♠*-7nt:Have the Q, don't have any K; we have them all

opening lead 7♥

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Plan the play.

As usual Adv/Exp please don't post spoilers too early.

[Mbodell]

In an effort to claim you win the A♥ and play the A and K of spades (possibly not the best line, but go with it) and RHO pitches the 9♣ (standard signals) on the 2nd round of spades. Now what?

[Quantumcat]

Maybe there is a double squeeze. I'm not good at squeezes but I'll give it a go.

West has the spades and East has one of the diamonds or clubs, probably diamonds given the ♣9.

So you want to reach a position like this:

---

Where when you play the last heart, if East throws a club you have 1 heart, 1 diamond and 1 club, so he throws a diamond. Now if West throws the spade, you have 1 heart, 1 diamond and 1 spade. So he throws a diamond. Now you have 1 heart, and 2 diamonds! Making.

How to reach this position? Play out AKQ of spades, then the two kings and the ace of clubs, then all the hearts, throwing all the spades from dummy and keeping 2 diamonds. If during the play you think the minors are reversed in the opponent's hands, keep Ax of clubs and T of diamonds in dummy.

I have no idea if this is right, I am probably talking rubbish. I don't think there can be any other kind of squeeze since West with the spades plays after dummy (where the long minors are).

[han]

Very nice solution Quantumcat. You could make the same double squeeze with the roles of clubs and diamonds reversed, how do you know which minor west is guarding?

[Quantumcat]

To have a double squeeze you want both defenders to have 2 of the card you have Ax of, and one each to have one of the cards you have one of. So for the opposite, the defenders want something like this:

---

Now they have something they can throw with no upset, east keeps his 2 diamonds while west can throw one, so west can keep the club which east can throw. If you choose the other way, just reverse the words "club" and "diamond" for the above. If they choose to do this, reversing the minors in dummy doesn't help, then the diamond is already high, so the club and spade can never be high, and they can BOTH throw diamonds with no ill-effects.

For this to happen, west needs to be able to have BOTH a club, AND a diamond at the end, he throws the one dummy has Ax in, and east makes sure to have 2 in that one. So, the DS CAN'T happen (assuming very good defense) with both minors 4-3. At least one has to be 5-2 so west can only have 1 of them, and the one west has, you keep Ax in!

What if they are both 5-2 with east? You could have a simple squeeze with the minors. You would just run your hearts, keep Axx in both minors, and when east discards a minor leaving him with 2 of them, you throw the other, can play A and K (or just the A if you used the king already) to get rid of both people's holdings, and have the third one for trick #13.

You could find out by seeing how many hearts east has. If two, he might have 5/5 minors, but then he might have 6/4, in which case the DS is on. How do you know?? You can play A and K in a minor to see if west shows out. If he does you're fine, cause you need Ax in the one west HAS and he discarded on the other so its ok. If he doesn't discard you're not fine cause if he started with 4, you need the Ax for the DS.

Maybe you could start with a SS on east and somehow figure out whether he has a 6-4 or a 5-5, and keep the Ax in the 4 cd suit if he has one then do a double squeeze. And if he had 5-5 keep going with the simple one. If he has more than 2 hearts ... try to get a clue about which one east is long in (was the ♣9 meant to tell us?) then cash the AK of it so you have the Ax of the one west has.


Well ... probably what i have said is all wrong, and I don't think I can go any further. It's confusing!!

Beginner's problems should be counting a defender's points and figuring out whether to play the K or J of a suit! Shouldn't be squeezes :-(

[pretzalz]

Spoiler

It's actually called a compound squeeze and hardly seems beginner/inermediate fare. You are actually 100% is you can guess the opponent's shapes, sadly you aren't always going to guess right and will likely stew for a while. Basically, you cash SQ, SA and then 4 hearts pitching 2 spades, a club, and a minor. Then you cash the KA of the minor West has abandoned and return to the other K[if east has voided a minor you can switch minors] and finish off the squeeze with the SK. How to know which minor West has abandoned:?

West has 2 hearts and has pitched 3 diamonds
    assume he unguarded diamonds works whenever he has less than 6 diamonds
West has 2 hearts and has pitched 2 diamonds and 1 club[switching minors is equivalent]:
    If he is 4=2=3=4[1225 cases], he's unguarded diamonds
    if he is 4=2=2=5[[441 cases[, he's unguarded diamonds
    if he is 4=2=5=2[441 cases], he's unguarded clubs
    if he is 4=2=6=1[49 cases], he's unguarded clubs
    (4=2=4=3 he's unguarded both) So assuming diamonds are unguarded is 77.3%
West has 3 hearts and has pitched 2 diamonds
    4=3=3=3[1225]/4=3=2=4[735] unguarded diamonds
    4=3=5=1[[147]/4=3=6=0[7] unguarded clubs
    assuming diamonds is 92.7%

and so on some of the other cases are more of a pure guess.

[Mbodell]

Quantumcat, on Nov 2 2008, 07:00 AM, said:

Maybe there is a double squeeze. I'm not good at squeezes but I'll give it a go.

West has the spades and East has one of the diamonds or clubs, probably diamonds given the ♣9.

So you want to reach a position like this:

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ x ♥ K ♦ x ♣   ♠ J ♥   ♦ Jx ♣   ♠   ♥   ♦ Qx ♣ J ♠   ♥   ♦ Ax ♣ T

Where when you play the last heart, if East throws a club you have 1 heart, 1 diamond and 1 club, so he throws a diamond. Now if West throws the spade, you have 1 heart, 1 diamond and 1 spade. So he throws a diamond. Now you have 1 heart, and 2 diamonds! Making.

Nicely done.

At the table I cashed KQJ of hearts pitching a ♠,♦, and ♣. West pitched the 2♣ on the 4th hearts giving West 4 spades and 3 hearts. And sure enough when you cash the K♣ and play a low club to hand East splits with the Q♣ and West shows out on the 2nd round of clubs giving them 2 total (one on the heart, and one on the first round of clubs), and now you know west was 4342 and East was 1435 and now if you cash the Q♠ (if you haven't already) and cross to the K of ♦ you'll have the exact layout you suggested. And if opponents cooperate and keep their club and spade guards you can even beer.

Also, as I found out on this hand layout, East had the Q of ♦ so if you take the practice finesse you go down.

I agree this wasn't really a beginner question, but I guess I thought it might be intermediate since I thought it might be too easy for the experts, and challenging but doable for the intermediates who post here. Apologies if I misjudged.

[vuroth]

Nicely done, Quantamcat!!

In response to JustADummy, I still find squeezes to be beyond me. I still need some work at counting/visualization, before I could reliably pull one off. The best that I can say is that sometimes it will occur to me that there might be a squeeze, but that I have no idea how to accomplish it.

I certainly don't mind being exposed to problems like this one, but I'm not ashamed to admit that it was over my head.

0.02

V