Even if a
Squeeze is “Simple”, that Doesn’t Make it Easy
(An introduction to simple squeezes)
By Stan Dub
As South, vul vs. not, you deal and hold (s)KT74,
(h)A63, (d) J96, (c)A62. You open 1
club, LHO doubles, partner redoubles, and
#1 S H D C
A Q A 7
8 J Q 4
6 8 T
8
5
K A J A
T 6 9 6
7 3 6 2
4
You hold up your ace of clubs until
the third round (East following all 3 times), pitching a spade from dummy.
There are 9 tricks if the diamond finesse wins, but when you run the J of
diamonds, East produces the King and cashes the T of clubs (West following).
You pitch a heart from each hand on this.
East now leads a heart in the position below:
S H D C
A Q A -
8 J Q
T
8
K A 9 -
T 6 6
7
4
You need the rest of the
tricks. Should you finesse the
heart? If you play the Ace of hearts,
how do you like your chances?
You should not finesse the
heart. You and your partner have a
combined total of 25 points, leaving the opponents with 15. West made a takeout double but his partner
already turned up with the King of diamonds!
West almost certainly has the remaining 12 points, including the King of
hearts. But if West
has that, you can make the rest of the tricks by squeezing him in hearts and
spades. This will be the position
before leading the last diamond:
S H D C
A Q 8 -
8
Q K
- - (East’s
cards irrelevant)
J
5
K 6 - -
T
7
On the lead of the last diamond, you
discard your heart, and West is squeezed.
If he pitches the King of hearts the Q is good, but if he pitches a
spade instead, your Ten of spades will set up.
(Before moving on, consider whether
the defenders might have defended differently to defeat the contract. More on this later.)
Congratulations! You just landed your game contract by
executing a “simple squeeze”. This name
is not intended to diminish the significance of the technique, just to
distinguish it from other types of squeezes.
“Simple squeezes” are the most common form of squeeze, and a player who
can recognize and execute simple squeezes can be assured of winning many more
tricks in the course of a year, even without mastering the more esoteric types
of squeezes.
The term “simple squeeze” refers to
a squeeze in which a single defender is squeezed in two suits. In a simple squeeze, one defender holds cards
in two suits that protect against declarer’s establishing an extra winner in
these suits. The defender is said to be
“squeezed” when he is forced to discard from one of these suits, thus allowing
declarer to establish an extra winner. A simple squeeze is contrasted, for
example, with a “double 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.
In “Bridge Squeezes Complete,” Clyde
Love’s classic 1959 text on the subject, the author lays out the four
conditions which must be met in every successful simple squeeze, using the word
“BLUE” to aid in memory. The four conditions
are as follows:
If these four conditions are met,
the squeeze will always succeed in producing an extra trick for declarer.
Returning to the example given
above, the four conditions make clear that the defenders could have
defeated the hand. By cashing the last
club, East “corrected the count” for declarer, permitting him to satisfy
Condition L. If instead East had played a heart without cashing the club, the
squeeze would have failed.
#2 S H D C
A A A A
K J 4 K
5 6 9
4 4
Q K 6 6
3 Q 3 4
2 T 2
9
5
South declares 6 hearts after an
auction without interference. West leads
the Q of clubs. You win the Ace of clubs
and draw trumps in two rounds. How do
you continue?
If spades split 3-3 you have 12
tricks, but what if they don't? Is there
a play for 12 tricks when spades don't split?
If West has 4 or more spades plus the QJT of clubs (or any 5 card club
holding), he can be squeezed. But wait....if spades don't split, "L"
is not satisfied...you still have two losers left at this point. So at trick 4, play a small diamond from each
hand to "correct" the count and satisfy "L". (Note that this cannot cost a trick, because
even if spades split you still only have 12 tricks.) Assuming they return a diamond (the squeeze
would still operate in a slightly different end position no matter what they
return), run the hearts, arriving at this hoped-for position before the last
heart:
Position
A: A - - K
K 9
5
4
J - -
J
9 T
7
6
Q 5 - 4
3 2
2
West is squeezed. If he pitches a club your 9 of clubs sets up,
and if he pitches a spade you pitch the 9 of clubs and your 4th spade becomes a
winner.
Note that this position contains an
element of ambiguity, because the pitch of the T or J of clubs does not
actually guarantee that the 9 has been set up.
It would be sad to pitch your long spade only to find that spades split
all along, and the club 9 was not a winner.
To prevent this dilemma, the King of clubs should be cashed before the
last heart (for example, after the Ace of diamonds and before running
hearts). That would leave the following
end position before the last heart:
Position
B: A - - 9
K
5
4
J - -
J
9
7
6
Q 5 - 4
3
2
Now if West pitches a club it will
be the last club spot higher than the 9, and the position will be clear. It should be noted that this squeeze will
operate equally well against East if she is the defender that holds the long
spades plus 5 or more clubs.
#3
S H D C
A Q 9 K
2 8 6 Q
4 4 7
2 3
K A A -
J K K
J T
T 5
5 3
3
Again South
declares 6 hearts with no opposing bidding.
The opening lead is the Jack of clubs, covered in dummy, East plays the Ace, and you ruff. You draw trumps in 3 rounds, West following
once and then pitching small club, small spade.
Now you are cold unless West has all the diamonds; you lead a small
diamond, intending to insert the T if East follows. Alas, East pitches a spade. What now?
You have only 11 winners. There are no threat cards in spades or
hearts, but you do have threats in both diamonds and clubs. You know West
started with QJxx of diamonds, so if he also started
with all the missing clubs higher than the 7, he is ripe for a simple
squeeze. This may not seem likely, but
it is the only chance. Anyway, West did
lead J of clubs. Isn’t it possible he
started with JT98x of clubs? Sure.
Let’s check whether the four
mandatory conditions (“BLUE”) are satisfied for a squeeze on West. With threats of T of diamonds and 7 of clubs,
is B satisfied? Yes, if West has the
hoped-for club holding, he will be BUSY in two suits, and his partner will be
unable to help West prevent your setting up one of
these threat cards. Is L satisfied? No, because even though you have 11
winners, you have not yet lost any tricks and you still have two LOSERS (more
on this later). Is U satisfied? Yes, one
threat (the club 7) lies in the UPPER hand (behind West). Is E satisfied? Yes, the Ace of spades is the
ENTRY to the club threat. To summarize,
assuming West has the hoped-for club holding, three of the four conditions are
satisfied, but L is not. Therefore, to
produce a foolproof squeeze against West, all that is necessary is to lose a
trick without having the winning opponent be able to
destroy any of the mandatory conditions.
If you were in dummy you could either duck a club or duck a
diamond. Having now played the diamond
from dummy, you can produce the same result by either ducking a diamond
immediately, or by playing Ace of diamonds and then playing another diamond to
West. Let’s say you duck the diamond in
both hands and West wins the 7 and comes back the diamond Queen. You win the Ace and play your last two trumps,
pitching a club and a diamond from dummy.
Now you play K of spades and lead the J of spades to the Ace. This will be the position before you lead the
last spade:
S H D C
A - 9 Q
7
- -
J T
8
9 (Irrelevant)
J - K -
T
5
On the lead of the last spade, West
is squeezed; he must pitch either a diamond (setting up the diamonds in your
hand) or a club (setting up the 7 of clubs).
In either case, you have the rest of the tricks.
Was this a hard problem? Not really.
Once you realize (a) that a simple squeeze will work against West if he
has the desired club holding to go with his known diamonds, and (b) that there
is no other chance, it seems straightforward to try for the squeeze. To try for the squeeze you only need to watch
your entries and remember that you need to lose a trick (“BLUE”) as soon as
possible. In fact, this problem was
taken from the September, 2007 issue of the ACBL Bulletin. The winning team in the National Senior Swiss
won IMPs on this board when they made 6 hearts on the
squeeze, while their opponents played in 7 hearts, doubled and down 2. The winners of the event provided this hand,
and the Bulletin wrote that declarer’s “expert play helped the team to a 15-IMP
gain” on the board. Don’t tell anyone,
but you or I would have done just as well.
© 2007 by
Stan Dub is an attorney in Beachwood and a longtime member of Unit 125.