[paulhar]

In the Bridge World Improve your Play section, you are in 7NT on the auction 1NT P 7NT. West leads the heart ten. Their solution states that if diamonds don't break well, the only legitimate chance is a pointed-suit squeeze against West. See if you can do better. My solution is in hidden text.

Scoring: Rubber

Lead is ♥10.

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Spoiler

With the S8 as a threat, the squeeze works against either player. Win 4 rounds of clubs (hoping for a spade discard from 3-5-2-3 to change the pseudo squeeze into a real one), then cash S-AK, and finish the hearts.

Best to win the first heart with the ace or king to give an awful defender with 3-5-2-3 a reason to think he has to guard the hearts. If you play the queen from dummy and an honor from hand, even a bad defender won't keep hearts.

[inquiry]

I really doubt you added to much to the squeeze possibilities here. Winning the A or K of hearts is, of course, automatic, and playing clubs before touching anything else is of course normal. Give nothing away...

The only thing you got is the simple squeeze works against either opponent, as long as you cash the spade AK semi-early (throw two spades away on third heart and fourth club). So in fact, if diamonds are not 3-3, then you need spades 4-2 with long spade sin the hand with long diamonds, either hand will do. You will need to cash the spades while you still have heart entry to your hand (voertake teh heart queen).

This really is a boring little problem... 12 sure tricks, squeeze only chance if no luck in diamond split.

Ben

[Free]

This ain't really an interesting hand imo Everyone can count to 12 sure tricks, and to improve your chance of making this contract you'll try an automatic squeeze...

[paulhar]

inquiry, on Aug 25 2004, 01:50 PM, said:

I really doubt you added to much to the squeeze possibilities here. Winning the A or K of hearts is, of course, automatic, and playing clubs before touching anything else is of course normal.

Very true. For Ben and Frederick and me, this is a boring little problem. For any of my students, it's way beyond them. There must exist some players inbetween these levels where the simplest of squeezes is routine but the 'automatic' order isn't so automatic and I hope these players enjoyed/learned from this problem. I didn't think a squeeze was appropriate for the beginners' forum. (This would probably be true for 90% of The Bridge World's Improve your Play problems - too much for beginners but B-O-R-I-N-G for Ben & Frederick. On the other hand, the Test Your Play problems might not be so boring...)

I guess in the future if I have a problem that I feel is beyond beginnerish but I'm pretty sure isn't for the elite, maybe I should put 'for non-experts' in the further description.

Incidentally, TBW admitted that in the haste to put out the magazine, they overlooked the best line. Unfortunately, they probably got about a thousand E-mails on it. Maybe my posting it here will save them from receiving a few.

[Free]

"automatic squeeze" is just the name m8 And for advanced (perhaps expert+) players this should also be the automatic line of play

[paulhar]

Free, on Aug 25 2004, 03:21 PM, said:

And for advanced (perhaps expert+) players this should also be the automatic line of play

At first, I was thinking that you have been a lot more fortunate than I was in picking chairs opposite 'advanced' and 'expert' players, as less than half of my partners take the correct finesse or properly trump in dummy let alone play their cards in the right order for a squeeze. But then I noticed the word 'should'...

Of course, Ben's and your point is well taken. Upon further reflection, most of the players on the forum are the more studious type and are quite atypical of the avarage pickup partner in Bridge Base. So, perhaps you are right, the advanced and expert people who actually take the time to read these forums would consider this problem automatic. On the other hand, your average advanced and expert player on BBO - not so automatic; 7NT down 1 if the four spades and four diamonds are to the left of the D-AKQx although most would fall into it if they were on the other side. This is true for Adv/Exp pickup partners and opponents alike.