This and That
By Stan Dub (
Area bridge
players owe a debt of gratitude to Harvey Bernstein for his many years of
writing the weekly bridge column in the Plain Dealer. Over the years
When I held this hand in a recent club game, my partner was Phil Becker. As dealer, I held (s)AT, (h)AQT5, (d)AT64, (c)T98. I opened 1NT and Phil raised to 3NT, ending the auction.
#1 S H D C
J K Q A
9 7 9 Q
6 J
7
5
3
A A A T
T Q T 9
T 6 8
5 4
LHO led the
4 of spades, ducked around to the Ten. I next played the Ten of clubs, which won,
There are 12 top tricks, and 13 tricks if the Jack of hearts drops, so you play 3 top hearts (pitching a diamond from dummy) but both defenders follow small to three rounds. Now what?
In my last column, I discussed simple squeezes. I also described a double squeeze as “a squeeze in which there are “threats” (cards that threaten to become winners if a defender discards higher cards in that suit) in three suits, and each of the defenders is squeezed in turn in two of the suits to establish a single extra winner.” Double squeezes are relatively rare, and it’s therefore very satisfying to pull one off. Here you have 12 winners and threats in three suits. The only complication is that there is only one entry to dummy (the club suit), so the Ace of spades must be cashed first in order to make the J of spades a threat. After cashing the Ace of spades, the hand more or less plays itself. I ran the clubs, pitching two diamonds because I needed to keep the heart card as a threat. Before the last club, the position was as follows:
S H D C
J - Q 5
K - J - - J K -
7 8
- T A -
T
On the lead
of the last club,
Note that
there was nothing particularly brilliant required on my part to bring this
off. The only notable things I did were
to cash the Ace of spades before running the clubs, and to make sure not to
discard my threat cards (the long spade in dummy and the heart in my
hand). As it was, the opponents could
not avoid their fate after LHO led the small spade, so long as I played it
correctly. But the squeeze would not
have succeeded if I had failed to cash the Ace of spades. Note also that the squeeze would have failed
if LHO, rather than
Worth discussing is my opening bid of 1NT with “only 14 high card points”. We do play 15-17, and I don’t go out of my way to violate that, but this hand is worth far more than 14 points because of its three aces and four tens.
The point
count method is only a tool to predict trick-taking ability, and an imprecise
tool at that. Counting points is no
substitute for judgment. I once read an
article in Bridge World that argued that the traditional point count method
overvalued Jacks and undervalued Aces and Tens.
It proposed using instead a 60-point system where Aces were worth 5,
Kings 4,
* * * *
The next hand is taken from the semifinal round of a Knockout event at the recent Pittsburgh Regional. Matthew Granovetter was on my left and playing with Patricia Katz. My partner for this event was Marty Baff (yes, I admit it, I do seem to luck out for partners).
In second chair, vul vs. not, I held (s)6, (h)T964, (d)8, (c)AJT9864. Pat passed, I passed, and the bidding continued 1S by Matthew, 1NT by partner, 4S by Pat. I bid 5C, which became the final contract. Matthew led the 5 of spades. My hand and dummy are shown below:
#2 S H D C
K A A Q
J Q J 5
8 5 7
3 4
Lead: (s) 5
6 T 8 A
9 J
6 T
4 9
8
6
4
I played the Jack of spades, losing to the Ace, and a spade came back. I pitched a heart and won the King, as Matt played the Ten. When I played the Queen of clubs, Pat followed small and I ducked, but Matt showed out, pitching a diamond. How do you like your chances, and how do you continue?
It looks like you may have to lose a club and at least one heart, unless Matthew has specifically doubleton King-Jack of hearts. That’s unlikely (somewhere around 2-3%, I think), so can you improve on that? Maybe. If you can get to an end position where you haven’t lost any tricks and you hold AT of clubs and a loser, you can lead the loser and then win the last two tricks with your trumps. To do that you need to find King of hearts on your left and you need to trump 3 losers in your hand. Entries must be used exclusively for leading trumps or trumping things. A check of your entries confirms that it could work. You finesse the club again and play a heart to the Queen, which wins. Ruff a spade. Now Ace of diamonds and ruff a diamond. Then a heart, on which Matthew plays the King and you win Ace. You lead another diamond; Pat plays a spade and you ruff again. Having now ruffed yourself down to two trumps, same as Pat, you exit with your last heart. Pat wins the Jack of hearts and you can claim the last two tricks with your AT of clubs over her K7. The full hand was:
S H D C
K A A Q
J Q J 5
8 5 7
3 4
Q K K - A J
T K
T 2 Q 9 8 3 7
7 9 4 7 3
5 6 2 2
5
2
6 T 8 A
9 J
6 T
4 9
8
6
4
After the hand, Pat Katz was the first to point out that she could have defeated the hand by returning a diamond (or a heart, actually) at trick 2, instead of a spade. That would deprive me of a dummy entry, and prevent me from ruffing in hand 3 times.
I wish I
could say this hand won us the match but it didn’t. We gained IMPs on
the hand and were leading by 4 at the half, but the opponents pulled away in
the second half to win. Matthew and Pat
were very gracious, as were Pam Granovetter and her
partner at the other table. In the
evening the Granovetter team beat the Mark Lair team
in the finals, after which I celebrated the Sabbath with the Granovetters with much food and wine in their hotel room.
They are lovely people and my only complaint is that Matthew plays unbelievably
slowly. Still, it was my first
experience with them, and it was delightful.
Some readers may know that 25 or so years ago, Pamela (then Pamela Bridson) lived and played bridge in