Linda Lee — My personal bridge blog

Howard’s Contribution to Love

  North
s_thumb522
KQ75
h_thumb522103 
d_thumb522Q10743
c_thumb522 AQ
 
     
  South
s_thumb525
AJ8642
h_thumb525 K96
d_thumb525
c_thumb525 K852
 
West North East South
      1s_thumb52_thumb1
pass 2NT* pass 3d_thumb525*
pass 4c_thumb522* pass 4h_thumb522*
DBL 4s_thumb52_thumb1 pass 6s_thumb52_thumb1
all pass    

Opening Lead: s_thumb52_thumb110 (both defenders follow).

http://bizarrebridgeworld.blogspot.com/ left this squeeze problem in the comments of my blog asking for contributions to the Love Practice Deals squeeze downloads.   Howard gave some hints but I decided to see if I could employ an auction to accomplish the same purpose.  After North made a game forcing raise South showed diamond shortness.  West doubled South’s heart cue bid  How do you play this hand?

Don’t read on till you are ready… spoilers coming.

From the auction it appears that the hearts are offside.  That being said you have eleven top tricks.  There is a chance that diamonds might set up for another trick and if that doesn’t work you will likely need some sort of squeeze or possibly an endplay (or both).  In any case it seems reasonable to start by ruffing diamonds.  Can you afford to draw the second round of trump.    There is some risk in playing too many rounds of clubs without leading trump  But there may be some chance to make three ruffs in dummy if you defer it.  But there is another possibility as we will see.  In any case you decide to defer it.  You win the opening lead in dummy and ruff a diamond.  East plays the d_thumb525J on the first one and after that both players play low.  You play a club to the king and ruff another diamond.  You continue with another club.  Everyone follows and you ruff a third diamond with the s_thumb525J.

This is now the position

  North
s_thumb522
Q75
h_thumb522103 
d_thumb522Q10
c_thumb522 
 
     
  South
s_thumb525
A8
h_thumb525 K96
d_thumb525
c_thumb525 K8

At this point you do have some information.  It seems likely from the play to the first diamond trick that East holds the two remaining diamonds, the ace and king.  One way to proceed might be to eliminate the black suits throwing a heart from dummy and then play the last club.  If West has exactly four clubs he will be endplayed forced to lead a heart which will give you the trick you need.  To follow this play you would play the s_thumb525A and then the c_thumb525K and c_thumb5258 throwing hearts from dummy.  What if West shows out on the fourth club.  You could ruff the club in dummy and West will only have hearts left.  You would then lead the h_thumb52210 from dummy.  West will still be endplayed as long as he has at least the AQ or AJ which seem almost certain.  So this seems like a reasonable plan. 

There is one other case to consider.  What if West has five clubs?  This plan will not work because West will not be endplayed.  There is one small chance if West has 2-3-3-5 distribution.  It does require East to have the h_thumb522J or h_thumb522Q.  Do you see it?  How would you continue if you knew that West had that distribution and the h_thumb522AQx for example.

You now have to play for the very pretty entry shifting squeeze.  The play continues in a similar fashion to the approach above but you cannot draw the last trump.  You will need that to manage your entries.  You play the clubs throwing a heart from dummy on the first and ruffing the second when West shows up with five clubs.  Now you lead the h_thumb52210 from dummy.  West wins the h_thumb522Q.  He must return a trump or you will win the rest on a crossruff.  You plays the s_thumb522Q from dummy but now East has these cards remaining

h_thumb522Jx 
d_thumb522AK

If he discards a diamond you win the trump in dummy and ruff out the last diamond.  If he throws a heart you overtake the spade winning in hand and lead the h_thumb522K for the ruffing finesse smothering his h_thumb522J.  So sweet.

In real life is this the right way to play the hand or should you play for West to hold three or four clubs?   If you knew for sure that West had the remaining spade it is safe to play this way and it will work no matter how many clubs West has.  When you see that the clubs are not 5-1 you can revert to the original plan.  The downside is that if East has two trump and the clubs are breaking than you are going down.  Without a peak or some other information I think you are best to draw the last trump unless you have always wanted to play an entry shifting squeeze.

Howard did provide the actual distribution as part of the problem and also the information that West held h_thumb522AQx.

He didn’t provide an entire hand but from the information he gave me it would look something like this.

  North
s_thumb522
KQ75
h_thumb522103 
d_thumb522Q10743
c_thumb522 AQ
 
West
s_thumb522 109
h_thumb522 AQ5 
d_thumb522 952
c_thumb522 J10973
  East
s_thumb522 3
h_thumb522 J8742 
d_thumb522 AKJ86
c_thumb522 64
  South
s_thumb525
AJ8642
h_thumb525 K96
d_thumb525
c_thumb525 K852

That is the first entry shifting squeeze I have ever figured out by myself not knowing that it was that kind of squeeze in advance (I did know a lot about all four hands of course).  I really enjoyed the experience.  Thanks Howard.

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