[MrAce]

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Imps, 6 NT , silent opponents.

-Lead ♣2, 5, T and u won in hand with K

-♠2, 7, Q, A

-♠9, T, 3, 5

-♣ 3, 4, Q and East discards ♦3

How do you play the rest ? Is there any line better than guessing ♥ Q blind ?

[rogerclee]

I don't think you can do anything more than the extra showup squeeze chances of Qx in whichever is the short hand, depending on the count.

[rduran1216]

there must be some great line here, just so many entries and top tricks...

[dellache]

Why did West lead a dangerous club under Jxxx and not a Spade ?
What was the bidding ?

[Fluffy]

I think counting hearts will be better than showup squeeze in the end. because it smells like LHO is 3334 or 2434, that diamond discard is very likelly from Jxxxx, maybe Jxxxxx. So I'd just play diamonds from the top discarding my clubs and then run spades and clubs discarding the diamond.

First of all test second diamond just in case, also third spade before third diamond.

[WellSpyder]

I thought you were going to ask us how to play the ♣ suit - that is what I started thinking about after the description of trick 1. What is opponents' lead style? Do they lead low from a doubleton or 3 small cards? Both of these are uncommon where I play, and C2 from low cards would be a pretty unusual false-card, too, if oppo aren't playing such leads. So, risky though the opening lead would have been, I think I would be playing LHO for ♣J unless you tell me they are playing low from 2 or 3 small. (Of course, ♣2 might be a singleton, but (i) RHO is unlikely to play ♣10 if holding the 8 as well, and (ii) if ♣2 is a singleton you will see LHO show out in time to change your mind.)

[rhm]

No, very likely not.
The ♣ threat is useless, because it lies under the holder West and East very likely will control diamonds, again sitting over the the threat. So a squeeze will not operate. Find out more about the distribution and finally finesse, likely against East, since he probably has more cards in ♥.
I at least are at a loss deducing anything from the opening lead, since West had a safe lead in ♠, but preferred a dangerous but successful one in ♣.

Rainer Herrmann

[cherdano]

What is wrong with playing for a double squeeze? Cash two spades, pitching a heart, cash the top hearts, the last club, and you will make when
- RHO has ♥Q (double squeeze),
- LHO has ♥Qx, or when
- LHO has 5 diamonds.
Certainly beats finessing RHO for the ♥Q.

[Fluffy]

Arend is right, dunno why but the ♦3 discard by RHO made me think that somehow LHO won the club and returned a diamond killing the comunication O_o.

Nevermind, counting all suits is still a strong alternative.

[mikeh]

One rule that is extremely powerful is that in these circumstances, RHO has 5+ diamonds. The initial discard is almost always from a 5 card suit and will definitely, here, not be from a 4 card suit unless we have shown shortness...even then, the pitch by a skilled defender seems odd, since he would be transferring the diamond guard to his partner, presumably already known, by RHO, to have the club guard.

If we assume that RHO is defending as would 99% of the world, then playing for a layout on which LHO has 5+ diamonds adds nothing to our chances.

Despite the huge number of assets and the relative ease of transportation, no double squeeze seems to operate.

If RHO has the red guards, then we can have a simple squeeze against him: we simply cash our black winners, pitching a heart from dummy on the last spade, and rho cannot hold 4 diamonds and Qxx in hearts as he comes down to 6 cards.

But if LHO has the heart Q, can simple squeeze him by cashing our black winners and pitching a diamond from dummy.....when we cash the diamonds, reducing to KJx in hearts opposite A10, with the club x in S, LHO cannot hold the club J and the Qxx in hearts.

But it is not a double squeeze: to squeeze RHO we have to pitch a heart from dummy before the squeeze operates, and to squeeze LHO, we pitch a diamond. Thus we have to commit to a simple squeeze against one of the opps.

It does us no good to cash the diamonds early either, since we have to pitch a heart from hand on this, and that means we can't squeeze RHO in the reds anymore.

Leaving aside, for the moment, the club to the 9 option, and playing as posted, I would cash the diamonds, pitching two clubs, then cash the spades, pitching a diamond, and then rely upon the count in the hand. I will play rho for 5 diamonds. Since I will have a complete spade and club count I will have a precise, tho probably inferential, count on hearts, and will play the long hearts for the Q.

BTW, unless rho shows only a doubleton spade, it is virtually impossible for him to hold xxxxx in hearts....and if he did, he'd almost always have pitched one on the clubs. So we can (probably) ignore Qx hearts in LHO as a possibility.

Going back, however, to the hand....I would have won the club, driven out the spade, cashed the spades to get a count and if LHO was unknown to me or known to me to be not strong, I would have played a club to the 9. The 2 from x2 or xx2 is weird...weirder than (for a bad player) 2 from Jxx2. Against anyone for whom I have respect, I would play for the count.

[cherdano]

I assume these are bad opponents (lead from Jxxx against 6NT??). I don't see what would stop 99% of bad opponents of discarding from a 3-card diamond suit when they see ♦AKQx in dummy.

[rogerclee]

Never mind.

[JLOGIC]

cherdano, on 2010-December-15, 16:54, said:

I assume these are bad opponents (lead from Jxxx against 6NT??). I don't see what would stop 99% of bad opponents of discarding from a 3-card diamond suit when they see ♦AKQx in dummy.

If RHO has 3 diamonds and 1 club, he needs all 4 spades in order for it to be possible that he has 5 small hearts. Presumably he doesnt after the S9 came back but we can check it for sure by cashing a spade. Assuming RHO has only 3 spades then he would always have the HQ anyways so no squeeze is necessary. I don't think there are really any relevant hands where we squeeze LHO in the minors even if RHO did pitch from 3 small diamonds since we would have hooked RHO for the HQ after getting a count anyways, but obv we should confirm the spade count first.

[MrAce]

♠ are 3-3. if u cash 4th ♠, LHO discards a ♦ and RHO discards a ♥, if u cash ♣ K RHO discards another ♥.

[gnasher]

We can cash the last spade as well before deciding what to do - we throw a club on that, and still have the option of Arend's double squeeze, the round-suit squeeze, or a heart finesse against either hand.

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2010-December-15, 16:54, said:

I assume these are bad opponents (lead from Jxxx against 6NT??). I don't see what would stop 99% of bad opponents of discarding from a 3-card diamond suit when they see ♦AKQx in dummy.

There is nothing inherent in bridge logic that would stop them. However, in real life people almost always throw from their 5+ suit(s) on their first discard. Steve Manfield (I think) wrote some great articles in the BW many years ago, and one of them was entitled The Idle Fith, I think. It dealt at length with the reality that players instinctively make their initial discard from a 5+ suit when neither declarer nor dummy hold 5+ in the suit...the '5th' card held by the defender seems to be 'idle' or useless. He showed that in some circumstances this isn't true.

However the BW is read by only a small percentage of the bridge population, and many of those who read it now weren't subscribers (and some weren't even born) when he wrote the article(s). Even amongst those who should know better, my experience suggests that most still pitch the idle 5th when they have nothing more specific to show.

In fact I am willing to make a modest bet....if you watch for this, you will see that the first pitch, when not being used to convey a specific message, will be the 'idle 5th' suit almost all the time. Give the average RHO xxxx Qxxxx xxx x or xxxx xxxxx xxx x as examples, and I think the vast majority of players would automatically throw a heart.

Now, if you posed it as a question, you alter the outcome of the experiment...the player begins to think...not about what to pitch but about what the point of the question is and that will cause some people to do something they wouldn't do at the table. So the bet would be difficult and horrendously time consuming to actually implement, since you'd have to rely on, say, a lot of kibitizing. BBO lends itself to this....if you see a hand come up, you can quickly get say 10 examples of how it was played, and some of them will resemble normal bridge.

So I wasn't arguing that as a matter of theory there couldn't be 5 diamonds on your left...tho one does have to wonder why an opp would lead from Jxxx rather than, say, Jxxxx or xxxxx....but, as you point out...he made a hideous lead anyway so reading his leading habits is going to be unprofitable most of the time.

[mikeh]

gnasher, on 2010-December-15, 18:19, said:

We can cash the last spade as well before deciding what to do - we throw a club on that, and still have the option of Arend's double squeeze, the round-suit squeeze, or a heart finesse against either hand.

I must be being particularly slow today....I don't see a double squeeze.

All I see are two simple squeezes in a layout where we have to choose one of them...committing to one means giving up on the other. What have I missed?

I admit I am ignoring the prospect of LHO holding both minors....if he is, I can find out by cashing 3 rounds of diamonds and claiming my 3 heart winners....LHO will be known to be 3=1=5=4...see Justin's post... so I hardly need call that a double squeeze.

[gnasher]

mikeh, on 2010-December-15, 19:11, said:

I must be being particularly slow today....I don't see a double squeeze.

All I see are two simple squeezes in a layout where we have to choose one of them...committing to one means giving up on the other. What have I missed?

I admit I am ignoring the prospect of LHO holding both minors....if he is, I can find out by cashing 3 rounds of diamonds and claiming my 3 heart winners....LHO will be known to be 3=1=5=4...see Justin's post... so I hardly need call that a double squeeze.

There are:
(1) A simple squeeze against LHO when he is 2254
(2) A simple squeeze against LHO when he has ♥Q
(3) A simple squeeze against RHO when he has ♥Q and the diamond guard

We can combine (1) and (3) by playing as Arend suggested - cash the hearts and the black-suit winners. A more accurate description would be "simple squeeze played as double", but does anyone really care? It looks like a double squeeze, we play it like a double squeeze, and the only reason we know it's not a double squeeze is that someone has already thrown a diamond.

[MrAce]

No, there is no double squeeze. You can make simple squeeze both sides depending on where you think the ♥ Q is.

By the way, opponents were GIB.

On the opening lead, i tried to win with 9 ...oh well, didn't work

I played 3rd ♠ and saw everyone followed. Then i played the 4th one, on which LHO discarded a ♦. At this point i knew 4-4 ♦ is not a possibility anymore. Either LHO started with 5♦ and first ♦ discard was from xxx, or LHO started with 3 ♦ and first ♦ discard was from 5 cards or more. Against good players, i would suspect that they would discard from xxx in order to not help me count hands if i cash 3 ♦ for example...anyway, if LHO has 5♦+4♣+3♠ then he has a stiff ♥. If LHO has 3♦+4♣+3♠ then he has 3♥. Combination average he has 4/2 = 2♥ while other one has 10/2 = 5 ♥. I don't know how scientific this is but honestly thats what crossed my mind at the table. So i decided to play EAST with ♥Q, discarding ♥J on 4th ♠. RHO discarded a♥. I cashed my ♣K, west discarded another ♥.

Spot cards may be different than original but doesn't matter. That's close enough to the original deal

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[Fluffy]

so fun, all the lines make