From                   5th August 2009, Board 2

                                          Difficulty            * * * *

                                          N-S Vul              Hands Rotated for Convenience

4♦ was Redwood, 4NT showed two without the ♣Q, 5♦ was the King Ask, 6♦ showed the ♦K (specific King responses), and North took a shot at 7NT.

West leads the Spade Three, won by Dummy’s Ace.  First, you test the Clubs, playing a Club to the Ace and a Club back to Queen.  When both defenders follow your trick count is up to 12. 

The percentage play in Hearts is to play them from the top unless there is enemy distribution to suggest that West has Heart length.  There are no such indications, so you cash the top three Hearts (pitching a Diamond from hand), but, alas, the ♥J does not come down and East pitches a Spade on the third round.  Well, the good news is that the ♥J is in front of Dummy’s Ten, and that will improve your squeeze chances.

What next?

SOLUTION

There are numerous squeeze possibilities, and the sequence of plays which maximizes the chances appears to be: ♠A, ♣A, ♣Q, three top Hearts, ♦A, two more Clubs.  This leaves the following N-S hands:

                        Dummy

                        ♠ K9

                        ♥ T

                        ♦ 3

                        ♣

                        Declarer

                        ♠ T

                        ♥

                        ♦ KT

                        ♣ 6

Let us say that by now West has pitched two Diamonds and East two Spades.  Then on the last Club West pitches a Spade.  It’s decision time.  Has West come down to?

            A:         ♠Qx    ♥J                                [In all three cases, the ♦Q and ♠Q

            B:                    ♥J      ♦Qx                    can be replaced by the Jacks]

            C:         ♠Q      ♥J      ♦Q

In Case A, you must pitch a Diamond, then cash the ♦K to squeeze West in the majors

In Case B, you must pitch a Spade and cash the ♠K to squeeze West in the red suits.

In Case C, West has already been the victim of a Guard Squeeze.  He had to hang on to a Diamond honor in order to protect Partner from a Diamond finesse, so he could no longer protect the Spades.  So, you can pitch a Diamond and East is now squeezed in Spades and Diamonds.

So, the percentage play is to pitch a Diamond, hoping for Case A or Case C to materialize.

As it happens it is the more exotic Case C which brings home the 13^th trick.  Is it obvious to play for Case C rather than Case A?  No, but it does seem to be the most likely.  Case A is actually three sub-cases (West could have ♠Qx or ♠Jx or ♠QJ), whereas Case C is 4 sub-cases (West could have ♠Q or ♠J, and also could have ♦Q or ♦J).  So, we’d go for the (successful) Guard Squeeze, so much more fun than a regular old major suit squeeze!

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