Too Much Love?

I am just finishing up the work on Bridge Squeezes.  I have to review Chapter 6,7, and 8 one more time to check the changes made by Ray and Julian Pottage.  So far all my problems in Chapter 1-5 were not those changes but things I didn’t really quite understand the first time round.  I am also adding short chapter summaries.

Then I get to write Chapter 9.  Chapter 9 is going to have some more advanced squeeze types.  Ideas that  came after Love wrote his book.  I have some example squeeze, many of them provided by Julian but I still have to write the chapter.  Ray and I have been debating exactly what goes in.  As it is this book is longer than Ray wanted and we keep adding things.  I have found a few things to take out.  One thing that has going is some esoterica where Love showed you a squeeze at trick one.  Still there will be a lot of things that Julian or I want to put in that won’t make the cut.

Now I see squeezes everywhere of course.  It seems like I can’t watch or play one session of bridge without a squeeze popping up.  I had this one today for some uptricks.

I opened 1H and Sylvia bid 1S.  I bid 1NT and when Sylvia checked back I denied three spades so she decided to play 3NT.  The opening lead was a spade which ran to the SJ.  I continued spades and East won the SK and switched to the HQ.  At this point I have ten tricks.  I could duck the heart to rectify the count but if East now switches to a club she will ruin my communication for a squeeze.  No problem.  I can play for a strip squeeze.  I won the heart and ran all my winners.  West must hold a heart and two clubs.  I can throw her in on the heart for a club lead.  She did make the nice play of throwing the HK since her partner was known not to have that card and came down to the HJ (Which she shouldn’t have) the CK alone and a diamond.  I dropped it anyway.  East had kept the H72 and if the HK was a true card then she had no clubs left and West had the protected club king. 

It just didn’t seem likely to me that she would throw all her clubs and keep all her hearts.  Beside if that were true there was no squeeze anyway and that would be no fun.

Thanks Clyde. 

Now I guess I better start to work on a book on bidding.