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Author Topic: To Squeeze or not?  (Read 2851 times)

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Offline OliverC

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To Squeeze or not?
« on: June 24, 2017, 01:10:41 PM »
Saw a lovely hand during the European Pairs Championships today, featuring Zia Mahmood and Jeff Meckstroth


North
 !S 10x
 !H AQJ
 !D AJ10xxx
 !C xx


South
 !S AKQJxx
 !H x
 !D xx
 !C AQJx


Zia was South and opened 2 !C (rather light) and they zoomed up to 6 !S by South and then Meckstroth, no doubt emboldened by Zia's initial 2 !C Opening, decided to bid one more and they ended up in 7 !S . West led a small trump.


Plan the play.


Clearly you absolutely need to find both of the round suit kings onside, so you have to make that assumption and play on that basis. Zia did, but his plan was to take two Clubs finesses and then ruff one Club high in Dummy and use the !H finesse to create a parking spot for the losing Diamond.


I wish I could tell you of a happy outcome on this one, but West ruffed the second Club (East having started with K1098xx) and Zia ended up two down. If you make the assumption that the round suit kings are both onside, though, the double squeeze, using Diamonds as the pivot suit, is a respectable alternative to Zia's plan:


Declarer wins the first trick with the 10 !S and takes the Club finesse. Three more rounds of Spades follow (West started with 4) and now the Heart finesse. When that wins, Declarer is home and dry: The losing Diamond goes away on the Ace of Hearts and now a second Club finesse and the Ace of Clubs brings this position



                      North
                      !S
                      !H J
                      !D AJ10
                      !C
West                                    East
 !S -                                        !S -
 !H K                                       !H x
 !D Qxx                                   !D Kx
 !C -                                        !C K
                    South
                   !S xx
                   !H -
                   !D x
                   !C x


Now Declarer plays his last Spades. West can shed a Diamond and East a Heart on the Spade, but on the second Spade West, discarding before Dummy, has to come down so the stiff Queen of Diamonds in order to retain the K !H . Declarer throws the now useless J!H from Dummy and East in turn has to hold onto the K!C and must therefore blank their King of Diamonds. 2 Diamonds now wrap up 13 tricks and the Bols Brilliancy Prize for Declarer!


Both lines obviously need the Club and Heart kings onside. Zia's plan needs the Clubs no worse than 5-2 (unlucky), but the Double Squeeze doesn't really need anything else and works even on 6-1 Clubs and almost any distribution of the Hearts.


The full hand:



                      North
                      !S 10x
                      !H AQJ
                      !D AJ10xxx
                      !C xx
West                                    East
 !S 9xxx                                  !S 8
 !H K109xx                             !H xxxx
 !D Qxx                                   !D Kx
 !C x                                       !C K109xxx
                      South
                      !S AKQJxx
                      !H x
                      !D xx
                      !C AQJx


Not a good result for our heroes, but perhaps justice was done, because it's an outrageous contract and EW would have been justifiedly aggrieved by their zero on this Board if Zia had managed to bring it home.
« Last Edit: June 24, 2017, 01:14:26 PM by OliverC »
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