The New York Times Composite Squeeze and the Blogasphere
Both Jonathan Weinstein and Franco Baseggio have blogged about this deal which appeared in the NY New York Times on Monday. This was the headline.
Swedish Trial: A Whole Lot of Squeezing Going On
When I noticed it was about a composite squeeze so of course I couldn’t resist looking at the deal
| North | ||
 K Q 4 3 2 |
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 J |
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 A Q J 9 3 |
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| West |  A 8 |
East |
|
|
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|
 Q 7 4 |
 10 8 6 5 3 2 |
|
 10 6 |
 7 5 2 |
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|
|
South |  J 6 4 |
|
|
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 A K 9 |
||
 K 8 4 |
||
 K 10 9 7 |
Now since I just finished official work on Love’s squeeze book today you would think I would want a squeeze holiday. Well apparently not. Phillip Alder’s column included a very long auction to arrive in 7. He explains some of the bidding and you will be intrigued to know that South was able to determine all of North’s major high cards even including the J.
The opening lead was the 10. This is my thought process when I look at this deal. North-South have lots of tricks if spades split so the issue becomes how do you make the hand if spades split badly. Clubs and spades can be guarded by only one opponent. The heart guard may be split or held by one opponent. What squeezes are available if spades don’t break? Is it best to try to isolate the club menace? How should I play the hand to keep most chances working? That is how I have been trained by Love!
I suggest you follow the link to the New York Times column now to read all about this deal played at the Swedish trials by Peter Bertheau. Here is an abbreviated account according to Alder:
Bertheau, seeing 13 top tricks if spades were 3-2, drew trumps (West discarded a club), played a spade to his ace and returned a spade to dummy’s king, getting the bad news when Peter Fredin (East) threw a heart. Now South cashed dummy’s last two trumps and then hearts. West is triple squeezed and has to give up at least one suit. This leads to a double squeeze >>>> ergo composite squeeze, a triple squeeze on one opponent followed by a double squeeze to yield one trick and in this case one grand slam.
What Jonathan points out in his blog which is an open letter to Phillip Alder that while Betheau’s line is pretty (who couldn’t love a composite squeeze) it is not the best line. After trick 5 when West had shown up with the spades and had thrown a club the hand was 100%.
If you ruff a club, either clubs break 3-3 (as is the case) in which case a simple club ruff brings home the bacon by setting up ziggy as the slam going trick or you will know exactly who has the club guard. If it is West you have a simple squeeze and if it is East you have a double squeeze. Since you are in effect playing the hand double dummy you can’t really go wrong.
Very nice point, Jonathan.
He goes on to say that West must first throw a heart to give declarer any problem since it will create ambuguity in the ending
Now Franco went down another path. One that I was thinking of myself. He supposed the hand was in notrump and he looked at the best strategy by the defenders and declarer. To simplify the problem a bit he ignores extreme distributions on defense. Declarer is going to run all the diamonds after testing spades. At that point declarer has arrived at this position:
North
Q 4 3
J
–
A 8
South
–
A K 9
K 10 9
West is known to have two spades remaining. He has therefore cannot be guarding both hearts and clubs and has given up at least one of these suits. Declarer has a reasonable chance of guessing the ending from West’s pitches. The Weekly Trout (Franco) does speculate on how the defender can give declarer the maximum chance of going wrong through his discards. The problem with that is that it requires pretty perfect knowledge by the defender of declarer’s hand fairly early on. While dummy was fairly well described in the auction declarer’s hand is less well known. A lot can be deduced from the contract and the fact that declarer didn’t claim. If you are interested in game theory as applied to bridge and how to play and defend compound squeeze you will want to read The Daily Trout.
Can I add anything? Not much to the fine analysis performed by the others. It is interesting to think about omniscient opponents but let’s remember the defenders are at a disadvantage. In contracts like these they need to help each other. That means they need to be careful about their discards and they need to signal. In addition, early on they don’t have that clear a picture of exactly what declarer has. That is an argument for playing a fourth round of trump early. On this deal for example, even if West works out that he needs to throw a heart on the third round of trump, will he really feel good about throwing one on the fourth round? If he throws a club on the fourth trump then it seems that playing three rounds of clubs and ruffing one will put declarer in a very good position even when clubs don’t now break. Even if he does throw a heart you may still work your way through the ending.
Perhaps the most interesting thing is how much information gets passed around these days on the net. First this hand was played on BBO. Then a commentator (Roland Wald) passed on the information to Phillip Alder. Then Phillip wrote about it in the New York Times and so on… Cool isn’t it.
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Hi Linda…just a small nit: the triple-then-double squeeze you refer to is known as a compound squeeze – although “composite” does seem to also fit.
Cheers.
Dear Linda, either I’m off my head but this contract on the layout does not require a squeeze. At trick one take the 10 of diamonds lead in dummy with the jack. Play then goes as follows: 2 top clubs ( Ace first). Then a club ruff with the diamond queen. Then back to the Ace of hearts, and a heart ruff . Over to Ace of spades, and a club ruff with the diamond Ace. Small diamond 3 back to the King-8 to clear trumps. Boss heart and two boss spades to cash to see off 13 tricks. Please let me know if I’ve got it wrong and that I am insane after all.
Howard…you are neither wrong nor insane. Your “declarer reversal” line is a perfectly good _double-dummy_ line as far as it goes scoring six trumps, two clubs, two hearts, and three spade tricks for 13 in all. However, it all falls apart if trumps are 4-1 to which your line doesn’t cater and is therefore at best a 68% line (slightly less if East is able to pitch his singleton spade on the third club and then ruff the spade lead).
The _single-dummy_ line, after the lead, of drawing trumps picks up any diamond break (including 5-0) and brings in the grand when spades are 3-2 and is therefore at worst a 68% line. Once squeeze chances are added in (when spades break badly), the percentages rise. I don’t have the exact percentages off the top of my head but there are simple two-suit squeezes against either opp, double squeezes with either hearts or clubs as the key suit, triple squeezes against either opp (West e.g., holds Jxxx-QTx-Tx-QJxx), and as documented, compound squeezes. My guess is that all of these would add at least 10% to the overall chances.
The (double dummy) line you suggest requires four entries to the South hand: twice to ruff clubs, once to ruff a heart, and once to draw the remaining trumps. As the cards lie, all the entries are safe; but in order to cater to 4-1 trumps, you would need to use the trump entry to your hand at trick 2 (so that you could switch horses in time). Unfortunately, you would then have used an entry prematurely and, even if trumps are 3-2, the three-ruffs-in-dummy approach would fail.
Regards,
Phil
Hmmm. I have given this a bit more thought and I think your line has potential after all but requires varying the order of entries to hand: win trick one in dummy, play three rounds of clubs ruffing high in dummy, cross to the diamond King. Now if trumps are 3-2, continue by ruffing the fourth club, crossing to the heart ace and ruffing a heart, and finally using the spade ace as the last entry to draw the last trump. This plan fails if as previously mentioned, a defender is able to void him/herself of spades while declarer is ruffing clubs but only when holding the outstanding diamond. This plan fails if, in addition to holding three diamonds, a defender also holds at most four black cards.
If at trick 5, when you cross to the diamond King, you discover that trumps are 4-1, abandon the plan and draw the remaining trumps. You will have to guess what to discard from your hand on the last trump. The position will be:
KQxxx
J
—
—
Ax
AK9
—
T
If West holds the sole club guard, cash the hearts to squeeze him in the blacks (the only squeeze available) then try and run spades. Otherwise you will have to jusdge what has happened. If East has the sole club guard, you will have to guess if he also holds hearts (cash spades) or spades (cash hearts). If you can’t tell, play for the black suit squeeze as it is more likely that East guards spades than that he solely guards hearts. In all cases, you retain 3-2 spades as your final chance. If you cannot tell who has the club guard, and no spades have been pitched, play the opponent short in diamonds for it and play accordingly.
You make the slam regardless of the diamond split (if East shows at at trick 1, you will reduce to the position in Linda’s diagram) if spades are 3-2 or if one of the squeeze chances comes in. You will show a net loss only if a defender has 3 trumps and only four black cards (someone other than me will have to do the relevant math) but gain when they don’t since you will not have to resort to any squeezes at all.
Cheers,
Phil
Dear Phil. I have to admit that my bridge brain could not handle all that analysis and consideration at the bridge table. Given the time constraints imposed upon us mere mortals, we are obliged to go for lines of play that come to us relatively quickly….obvious, straightforward, and uncomplicated. The ability to play a hand whereby alternative plans ( such as complex squeezes ) can still be used as fall back positions is the hallmark of great players. Anyway, thanks for the education in how to really play bridge, and how to give yourself those extra % chances for bringing a contract home ( allowing for those worst scenario breaks ). I’m truly impressed.
First having just completed a revision of Clyde E. Love’s Bridge Squeezes Complete and spending at least two weeks on Chapter 7, compound squeeze, I don’t know why I named it a composite squeeze. Love did muse on the choice of names, composite or compound squeeze. I guess subconsciously I think composite better expresses what the hand is at the beginning, a squeeze within a squeeze.
In the original article in the New York Times which I quoted Alder says:
Bertheau, seeing 13 top tricks if spades were 3-2, drew trumps (West discarded a club), played a spade to his ace and returned a spade to dummy’s king, getting the bad news when Peter Fredin (East) threw a heart.
I and I think all the other bridge writers who discussed this deal, made the decision to start the analysis at this point. It is a recovery from a place where things have gone wrong when the declarer may not have considered all the possibilities.
Of course one risk in the dummy reversal is that someone will ruff a club. It does seem unlikely since it would require a 6-1 club split and the other much greater risk, as mentioned is that the trumps don’t break 3-2. I like the line suggested where you find out if trump are breaking before fully embarking on the dummy reversal. But I haven’t actually done the analysis to figure out if this is the very best line starting back at trick one.