The Story of the nine of diamonds

December 29th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I will never write yet another version of right through the pack.  But yesterday playing with a competent partner my nine of diamonds had a story to tell.  It was really the story of a not so perfect declarer and a very good defense by partner but the role of the 9 gave me a chuckle.

I was East playing with a friend who is a very good player.  I held this hand.

East   976  J763  93  J1098

West	North	East	South
			1
3	3	pass	3NT
pass	4NT	pass	5
pass	6NT

The opening lead was the 10 and this dummy was spread.

	North AK5 AKQ94 86 K76
		East 976  J763  93  J1098

I will start by saying that you are going to defeat 6NT, it will turn out to be about undertricks.  Declarer played off four rounds of spades throwing dummy’s small diamond and my thought process was a bit too simple.  It went along the lines of got to hold clubs and hearts.  On the fourth spade partner threw the 2 and it was my turn.  I knew I was going to throw a diamond but it didn’t occur to me to think about which one.  Playing upside carding I threw the 9 to say … no help here.  Well actually I did have some help but I just threw it.  Doh!  Partner quite likely held the a good piece of the diamond suit higher than the 9 and certainly held a diamond tenance.  The 9 was to valuable to throw.  Here is the whole deal. 

	North AK5 AKQ94 86 K76
West 1076 102 KJ10752 Q4		East   976  J763  93  J1098
	South QJ83 85 AQ4 A532

Declarer tried hearts and when they didn’t break declarer  might have conceded a heart trick for down one.  No squeeze is possible and the diamond finesse obviously is not working.  One slim hope is that clubs are three-three and somehow West gets on lead after the third club and is endplayed.  Declarer played the K but West was not going to be endplayed (it wasn’t going to matter here but South might have had five clubs).  She threw the Q under the K.  Declarer was now committed and played a club to the A hoping that West had QJ10.  West followed low to the club and declarer’s goose was mightily cooked.  In desperation he played a diamond towards dummy to reduce the carnage.  Here was the ending:

	North -  94 8 7
West – – KJ107 –		East -   J  3  98
	South   –   – AQ4 5

My partner made the fine playing of ducking the diamond (she was not going to get endplayed) and the 8 won the trick.  I however claimed the rest.  But had I kept the 9 I would have had all of them. 

I know that declarer may not have played the deal perfectly, but my partner made several fine plays, first not leading a diamond.  The hand can be made on a diamond lead just by conceding a heart.  Then by dumping the Q and  finally by ducking the diamond.

Well done partner.  Sorry about the 9.

My Top List For Bridge In The 00’s

December 28th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

Okay so I am not Time Magazine but I decided to do my best of the decade list for bridge so here goes:

Software/Application: Bridge Base Online

It changed the game.  Bridge Blogging gave us free online bridge with a huge worldwide community and added online Vugraph which in and of itself was a major innovation.

There are other great online websites too but nobody did it better. As I log on right now at 3PM on December 27th there are about 16,000 players online.

Bridge Base Online

Thank you Fred

Best Blogger: Judy Kay-Wolff

Nobody on any website created the interest, the excitement and the emotion that Judy brought to blogging.  She did it with her stories, her poems, her editorials.  She brought passion.  She created controversy.  And most of all she did it her way.  See her at http://judy.bridgeblogging.com/

Judy

Best Bridge Teacher: Eddie Kantar

There are many great bridge teachers but I pick Eddie Kantar.  I know I have a bias here because I really like Eddie.  But Eddie sees an incredible amount in a bridge hand.  You can walk down the street with him and you will be amazed at how much you learn from what he says.  He has a terrific knack of being funny and entertaining and still managing to explain bridge concepts to players of all levels.  Thank you for the lessons, the stories, the home games, your website and your many books.  You are the best.

There is no bridge more fun than Eddie’s Home Game.

Most Revolutionary Bridge Computer Software: Deep Finesse

In the end it wasn’t the bridge playing programs (although some are very good) it was the software that analyzes bridge hands that makes my list.  It allows complete perfect step-by-step analysis of a bridge hand and it makes us writers much more accurate.  It became available at the beginning of the century and it was the forerunner of GIB and some of the other great bridge playing programs.

Deep Finesse

Most Important World Bridge Activity: Youth Bridge

Finally the bridge community realized that we need to foster youth bridge.  We needed to get to the schools and universities.  We needed to create bridge championships, camps, websites and lessons aimed at young people.  They were the future and boy do we need them.

Bridge Personality Of The Decade: Zia Mahmood

There are so many to chose from but I decided on Zia Mahmood.  Zia is one of the few players who is recognizable by his first name alone (like Oprah).  He brings skill, excitement, talent, charm and glamour to the game.  Now with his first world championship under his belt his skills at both top class international play and at the rubber bridge table are clear to all.  His special Zia innovations like the “Zia cuebid” keep everyone on their toes.  Besides he was the first bridge writer who told me about Zone 1, Zone 2 and Zone 3.  There may have been better or more successful players but nobody more colorful.  Besides I still love the picture of Zia with me and Margaret Lerner.

Bridge Player Of The Decade: Bob Hamman

Bob Hamman won the Bermuda Bowl in 2000, 2003 and 2009 and was second in 2006.  In fact in the ten championships held from 2000-2009 (there were two in 2000) Bob’s worst finish was eleventh in 2007.  The amazing thing about Bob is that he won his first world championship in 1970 when I was still at school.  If I were picking the best bridge team I would pick Lavazza Italian team with players like Fantoni, Duboin, Nunes, Lauria and Versace and the best pair would be Jeff Meckstroth and Eric Rodwell but Bob is my pick for the best player.

Bob, a top player for the ages

I may have some more top’s in a future blog.  Let me know what you would pick!

Thinking Good Thoughts

December 23rd, 2009  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Today is a half day of work and then we shut down for the holidays.  The Master Point Press folks are heading out to the big Chinese Buffet.  In the paper this morning there was a lovely article which talked about an experiment in Australia which proved that if you were dieting you were “stupider”.  After lunch we will all be very smart.  That is a happy thought.

I really like the Hazel Nutt blog which is a parody of T’was A Night Before Christmas about a visit from Professor Love and the atmosphere in a bridge game involving a married couple.  Take a look.A Visit From Doctor Love.

I have had a great response to my request for bridge hands and also a comment or two from readers of the original book with some corrections.  I would like to thank everyone who helped and if you have any squeezes you want to share then send them to me [email protected].  Right now I am planning for a free download of 20-25 hands in January.  As I accumulate more hands I may create another download.  Every hand provided directly to me by email is acknowledged in the download and I send you a rough version of my analysis so you can comment on it if you wish.  I think this squeeze cache will provide a great resources for practice for all of us. 

I was realizing that besides lunch today, we were having a big group over on Friday for turkey and then on New Years we are having a Julia Child themed dinner party.  Boy am I going to be smart by New Year’s Day.

I have several bridge games set up on BBO.  Luise’s dad Manny told me that he was fed up watching me play with bad bridge players so I promised I would play with some good ones.  I like going online some times, playing two or three hands with any random partner.   I know you may find this strange.

Its an exciting world we live in and I look forward to 2010 and all it brings.  Happy Holidays.

What to do when you are in zone 3

December 21st, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I was commenting on a match yesterday and at my table the poor East-West pair seemed to be star crossed.  Here is one example:

AJ7 AJ62 AQ108 K10

You are sitting South playing in the Geo Cup final, a round robin team game. Your partner opens 1 which can be short.  Be patient during the auction, your turn will come.

His hand is limited to 17 HCP (Precision style).  You bid 1 and partner raises to 2.  You have some bids for this situation.  You bid    2 which sets a game force.  Partner bids 2NT, natural and you have a bid for this.  You bid 3 asking and partner bids 3 which shows 4-3-3-3.  You bid keycard and partner shows you two missing the queen.   Your turn.  What do you bid now?

I think there is an argument for bidding 6NT.  There is a risk that if partner does not have the 10 you might have two heart losers on a 4-1 split.    Still there is some chance that you might need a ruff to get your trick total to 12.  What do you think?

I was thinking 6NT but then I was looking at all the hands.  Anyway our hero bid 6 and partner produced this hand.

K109
K1083
KJ6
AJ6

It still isn’t clear what is the best contract.  Anyway you get a spade lead which you win cheaply in dummy.  Your play.  Perhaps there might be some tiny argument that suggests that you should lead a heart towards dummy now rather than to your hand.  West might have lead a trump and he didn’t.  But who expects trump to be 5-0.  It was 5-0 today and West had the void.

You now have two inevitable heart losers.  There is no miracle distribution.  The cards are not playing fair.  Now it is possible that your opponents will duplicate your actions but even assuming they reach the same contract they just might cash the right heart first.

There were several more hands along the same vein and by the end of the first five boards it would later turn out that the score was 35 opponents and nil for you.  From my own experience I have noticed that in these situations the best thing you can do is not to push.  If you have a choice between bidding one more or letting the opponents play a hand, then let them.  If you have a close shot at a slam don’t bid it.  Go easy.  The next board was a simple and flat 3NT making five.  I thought that was good, settling.  Now you get this hand sitting North. 

KQ975
void
J10863
KQ10

All vulnerable you are third to speak.  Partner passes and LHO opens with a surprise, 1.  It seems prudent to pass and LHO bids a forcing notrump.   Partner doubles, takeout of spades.  West bids 2 and you venture 3.  4 is passed back to you.  Do you bid or pass?  At our table North thought for a very long time and passed.

That seems right to me even without the “zone” problem.  You know partner has hearts (of course so do the opponents).  Your spades are likely to be more useful on defense than offense.  It was touch and go but 4 went one down.  5 which would no doubt have been doubled goes at least one down.  This was the first imps for your team.  Here was the whole deal:

	KQ975 void J10863 KQ10
J6432 A1042 Q94 A		A10 K8763 2 J8532
	8 QJ95 AK75 9764

Maybe I am wrong.  Maybe it is better to take the save on such a tight contract.  All I know is that sometimes it just seems to work better to pass.  In the end North-South won 22 imps to 1 in the remaining boards.  Not enough to win this segment (4 of 7) but enough to improve things a lot.  And subconsciously or on purpose they played the rest of the match cautiously.  I have notice this works for me too.  I don’t know what this means exactly.

I also want to send my thanks to everyone who has sent me squeeze hands for the Love download.  I really do appreciate it and the more the merrier.

The 2000’s The Decade

December 20th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

Some people are saying that the 2000’s, the years from 2000-2010, was a bust.  Not one of the better decades.  For me it had a lot going for it.  First of all, all of my five grandchildren were born in this time, my son got married to wonderful Luise.  Our company Master Point Press thrived.  I started to work for Master Point Press and I wrote, edited, or proofed many very fine bridge books.   I played some Women’s Bridge and ended up representing Canada three times. 

I love the new technology, the iphones and Blackberries, ipods and now my itouch, blogging, and all that is associated with the rise of the Internet not least watching, commenting on and playing bridge online.  I even like the high definition flat panel screens, business television, online role playing games, cutting my own MP3’s for our car, Youtube, Wikipedia and Skype. 

I think the rise of poker is a good sign not a bad one.  People do love games and they don’t all have to be games you play on a court, rink or field.  We just need to get some money into the game and if they can make poker a spectator sport I know that we can bring some excitement to bridge.

I was trying to think about what my best personal bridge memories of the last 10 years have been.  I think the very best one was winning my first CWTC in 2004 on an underdog team by a small number of imps. 

I remember writing up the Venice Cup Final in Paris in 2001.  The Germans were way behind the home team, France and came back to win it.  My write-up was based on Casey At The Bat and was not only published in the Bulletin but appeared in one form or another in other magazines and books. 

I got to be captain of the Canadian Ladies Team in the Salt Lake City pre-Olympic bridge demonstration.  It was so much fun to cheer the Canadian Men’s Team on to victory.  It was also fun to see Salt Lake City all ready for the Olympics.

There was one match in Beijing that I remember fondly.  It was against England.  Pamela and I bid three slams that were not bid at the other table to soundly defeat the English team.  I had several moments of clarity in that match.  I believe it was a turning point for our team.

Qualifying for my first quarterfinals in Estoril playing with Francine that was the second most exciting.   We needed some good things to happen in the last match to qualify.  Francine and I came out first.  We were close but we didn’t know for sure until the very last board.

I have enjoyed my blog, making new friends and getting to know some very special people like Yvonne and Eddie Kantar and Bobby Wolff and the irrepressible Judy among others.

Ray and I started and still sponsor the IBPA Bridge Book of the year, the new ABTA teacher of the year and have sponsored Canadian teams.  We want to do more of these type of things in the future.

So I only hope that the 10’s are just as good.  I can see the 10’s as the era of ebooks, more bridge computer software and a scary good bridge playing program.   The 00’s were the rise of the Chinese as a bridge power.  I wonder if we will see some new countries involved in bridge.  Will the Mind Sports remain as something special?  I hope that  I get to play with my grandson Marcus or at least kibbitz him playing with my son Colin.  Marcus just turned six so he should start to learn that game soon.  By the end of the decade he will be 16.

So much is changing so fast that some times it is hard to even imagine it. 

Do you have any 10’s predictions for bridge?

Lessons from a not so good BBO Vugraph Match

December 18th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Usually when you plan to watch a match on Vugraph you expect it to be very good and you hold it to a pretty high standard.  But these days many matches of lesser standard are broadcast on BBO.  Such was a match I commented on last night.  It was the first round of a Swiss qualifier and at the table I watched while neither pair shone

, one pair was particularly weak.

Still it is not a waste of time to watch and think about bridge and there were quite a few lesson hands in the 12 board match.  I am not going to name any names because I think the perpetrators of the worse errors were Juniors.  In Canada when a crime is committed by juveniles the names are withheld.  I do the same in this blog in that spirit.  One hopes they will do better in the future and one does not want to stain their record.

Here was the first hand.  I could see it coming.  Its board 1 you are East, second to speak with nobody vulnerable and this is your hand.

Q J5 A873 J107643

North opens 1 precision style so it can be as short.  You sensibly pass and South bids 1.  Your partner bids 1 and North continues with 1NT which is 11-14.  It would never occur to me to bid on this hand.  I don’t have a fit with partner.  I don’t have a lot of high cards and my suit is not robust.  What I am thinking about right now is whether to lead a spade or a club.  But you are young and so you decide to bid 2.  I don’t mind this bid too much.  The Q is likely to be a useful card and you have six clubs.  This is passed to North who bids 2.  Now if you would consider bidding again smack yourself and go to the back of the class.  Our young hero found out that 3 doubled was not a good spot.  North did well to double 3.  He held

J632
A64
104
AQ98

To finish off the story partner held

A9754
KQ3
QJ2
52

The hand should have gone down 2 but our young declarer was so flustered he went down 3.  A dull board had turned into a loss of nine imps.  Lesson: Save the heroics bidding for matchpoints.  It is really okay to defend some hands.

The next hand is quite an interesting one.  Sitting West, this is your hand

Q107
1086
AQJ62
A6

You are West in third chair and you open 1 at favorable vulnerability.  North doubles and your partner bids 1.  You raise to 2 and North bid 3, clearly a very strong hand with hearts.  Partner bids 3 and North who will not be silence bids 4 when the bidding comes back to him.  He has a strong two suiter.  South gives preference to hearts.  You are defending 4 and partner leads the K.  This is dummy

863
Q74
107532
 102

What is your play at trick one? Demerit points for anyone who did not overtake the diamond. Even if partner is leading from a doubleton overtaking and playing another high diamond cannot cost whatever partner’s hand is.  Somebody suggested that West should play the 2 to suggest a club switch.  Our West played the 6 (I like them?).  But that is silly.  East reasonably continued spades and the opportunity to ruff was lost when declarer won the stiff A and drew trump.  Game making. –620.  The only good thing I could think of at this point for East-West was that the score was 1-1.  They had each made a serious mistake so they were not likely mad at each other.  Partner held

KJ9542
J9
K
8543

I confess I would have bid 4 in the first place at this vulnerability but I think he was somewhat chastened by the previous hand.

Lesson: Don’t let partner make a mistake.  Take charge when you know what to do.

Lesson: At favorable vulnerability with a long suit fit with partner bid as much as you can initially

In case you think that these errors are too subtle how about this one.  Yes, this did happen.  This is an opening lead problem.  You are East and you are tied in errors 1-1 as you arrive at Board 3.  You are vulnerable against not.  North opens 1 in third and over 1 he rebids 1NT.  Your lead.

87
KQ975
752
A86

I think it is brave to lead a heart and not unreasonable and so did our hero.  But into this auction I confess I would lead a small one.  Declarer has a lot of them and a heart honor is likely to give a trick away.  It is true that if dummy has the stiff jack or ten then a high one might work but if I go this route I start low.  Anyway you lead the K and see the singleton 6 in dummy.  Partner plays the 10 standard carding and you win the trick.  I suppose I should show you the entire dummy

QJ64
6
K10984
973

You have a rush to the brain and yes you continue the Q, partner having started with the A10. The rest of the story is too grim to tell.  Suffice it to say that despite efforts by everyone at the table (accept dummy) to throw tricks away declarer some home came home with his contract.

The match didn’t get any better and from time to time not to feel left out North decided to join in and chuck some imps.  If I wanted to write a Why You Lose At Imps book I could probably start by describing a match like this.

These matches are instructive but I wonder if East West who got drilled in the end felt that way..

I Love Love

December 17th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I am now working on the downloads of additional squeeze problems that we will offer for free on www.ebooksbridge.com for anyone who is interested and particularly for readers of our new edition of Clyde E. Love Bridge Squeeze Complete.  I was reading through my preface to the second edition.  I realized how important this project was to me and how much proud I am of the product.

I hope you won’t mind if I share some of the preface with you.  Where you see … I have left something out.

I do remember being 18 years old and laying out those hands from Love.  At that age even though I was in a family of five including three sisters I was lucky enough to have my own room.   My room was one of the few places in our house where there was any chance of some quiet.  When I went to university in Toronto I was still living at home.  I spent too much of my first year at university playing bridge in the University College refectory.  But that first year I was still living at home and still laying out hands from Love on my bed at night from time to time.  I read other bridge books as well, of course, but very few of them required this treatment.

I believe now more than I did at that time that playing cards is a learned skill.  Sure some people have more aptitude for it than others but everyone can be a better card player if they work at it.  Playing cards is not enough.  You need to be study as well.  This could come in the form of software, coaching, lessons, books or even discussions with others.  I think that individual study is probably one of the best forms of learning.  It amazed me how much I learned by working on Love even though I thought I knew a fair bit about squeezes before I started.

I wish that there were more opportunities to work with coaches and to study bridge for expert players.  By that I mean players who are beyond what is generally taught in lessons today.  Maybe a blog is a way of setting up a study group.

I am expecting to get a lot of criticism by book reviewers about changes in the nomenclature.  I am sure that every change we made will be criticized by someone.  But in the end I did what I thought was best along with substantial input from Ray and Julian Pottage who was an advisor and much more during the updating of this book.  Whenever I subject myself to critics as I know I am when working on this type of project I just remember a paraphrase of the some famous lines:

You can’t please all the people all of the time.

Howard’s Contribution to Love

December 12th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

	North KQ75 103  Q10743 AQ
	South AJ8642 K96 – K852

West	North	East	South
			1
pass	2NT*	pass	3*
pass	4*	pass	4*
DBL	4	pass	6
all pass

Opening Lead: 10 (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 J 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 J.

This is now the position

	North Q75 103  Q10
	South A8 K96 – 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 A and then the K and 8 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 10 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 J or Q.  Do you see it?  How would you continue if you knew that West had that distribution and the AQx 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 10 from dummy.  West wins the Q.  He must return a trump or you will win the rest on a crossruff.  You plays the Q from dummy but now East has these cards remaining

Jx 
AK

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 K for the ruffing finesse smothering his J.  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 AQx.

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

	North KQ75 103  Q10743 AQ
West 109 AQ5  952 J10973		East 3 J8742  AKJ86 64
	South AJ8642 K96 – 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.

BBO Commentary

December 11th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  3 Comments 

I enjoy doing commentary on BBO matches as a rule.  There are a number of reasons.  In most of the matches the bridge is quite good and in some very good.  Usually the players have something at stake in these matches, they are important matches, and they are taking it very seriously.  That can sometimes be true of the spectators as well.  Its usually fun to exchange ideas with the other commentators and most important of all I love bridge, watching it, playing it, writing about it and so on and I am happiest when I am doing this in an active way.

But I have been thinking about the deficiencies in this commentary.  While pretty well all of the commentators would be considered experts of some sorts some are just not as good as others.  This is especially true when discussing the play and defense.  Most commentators, me included, do not learn enough about the systems of the players we are watching to comment properly on the bidding although at least here the comments are generally more incisive.  More people can bid well than can play well.

I think a fair number of the commentators discuss the deal with double dummy analysis.  But the players are not playing double dummy and they are trying to make the best play on the information they have.  Also when the talk gets into hypotheticals the on the spot analysis is not always right.  Here is a case in point from yesterday’s Italian Cup.  (I have rotated the deal).

	North Q954 KQJ9 AQJ3 J
West		East
	South AK863 104 K102 AQ7

At our table North opened 1 and  East overcalled 1, 6 was reached from the South hand.  Barring an immediate ruff the only thing that will beat this contract is a 4-1 spade break (or 5-0) with West having the spade length.  Unfortunately yesterday the spades did break badly and the contact went down. 

6NT played from the South hand is a slightly better contract and that might have made all the difference yesterday. 

Let’s look at the play in 6NT.  The opening lead was the 5 won by the A.  Let’s suppose that a club comes back now against your 6NT contract.  You win the A of course and suppose you decide to play some red cards first.  It can’t really cost anything as long as you keep one entry to dummy outside of spades in case the spades don’t break and you need a finesse. So you can play off four rounds of hearts and a total of two rounds of diamonds.  East follows to all but West as expected shows out in hearts and discards a diamond and a club on the hearts.  You don’t know much more than you knew in the first place. 

However, if as might be suggested by the auction East  has the K than you will surely squeeze East if he is the one that has four spades.  In that case the squeeze will work just as well as cashing the Q and finessing the spades.  If the situation is reversed, West has the K and the spade length the squeeze will still work.  So that playing the remaining diamonds works anytime either hand has four spades and the missing club honor while the finesse works whenever East has four spades regardless of who has the K. 

The odds that North has long spades are made less by the knowledge that he has five hearts but it is true that he is quite likely to hold the top club from the bidding.  I think that playing the finesse is marginally the better line unless something during the play suggests to you otherwise in which case you just might play the squeeze.  I think this is a borderline decision and I am happy to hear from dissenters. 

As it turned out West did have all the spades and the K and 6 failed in both rooms.  I did try to explain that there was a squeeze in 6NT although you might not play it on squeeze lines.  East had made a scary overcall on

–
A8763
98
1086432

I found that the other commentators didn’t see the squeeze possibilities and that I had some trouble explaining it to them.  Still I think that it is fun to comment on BBO and if you don’t think the commentators are very good you can always do what I do some times… ignore them.

Solution To Squeeze Hand from yesterday

December 11th, 2009  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

Here is yesterday’s problem.  If you didn’t read yesterday’s blog you still have a chance to look at the problem before going to the solution.

	North 854 AKQ1087 – A765
	South AJ6 65 AKQJ1054 Q

West	North	East	South
pass	1	pass	2
pass	4	pass	4NT
pass	5	DBL	7NT
all pass

Opening Lead: 9

East plays the Q and you win with the A. You play two rounds of diamonds and East shows out on the second, playing the 2. How should you proceed?

Solution

If hearts run then the hand is trivial, so you consider what to do if they fail to break. In that case, the only chance seems to be a spade-heart squeeze — undoubtedly against East. However, this squeeze will fail because it is impossible to cash the free winner (the A) and then return to hand.

But there is a chance after all. If you discard dummy’s A and East holds the K, he will be subject to a triple squeeze. Will this squeeze gain two tricks? Obviously yes: you can squeeze him again by cashing the Q (or, if he throws the K, the J). Evidently this is a case where two losers are better than one.  Here is the whole deal:

	North 854 AKQ1087 – A765
West 973 9 98732 J983		East  KQ102 J432 6 K1042
	South AJ6 65 AKQJ1054 Q