[inquiry]

I was thinking this one was easy and my line worked, but a semi-decent player took a line I would not have taken (and it failed). Maybe he was right. What are your thoughts about the following questions, and how would you play it after trick 4?

Scoring: IMP

1♥-(ps)-2♥-(2♠)
3♥-(3♠)-4♥-AP

TRICKS
1.) ♠2-(3/5) to JACK-KING
2.) ♣Q-♣T-♣9-♣3 (west thoiught long before the attitude 9
3.) ♥3-K-5-6
4.) ♥J-♣2-♥Q-♥T

---

Questions.

1.) Do you play EAST for singleton ♣Q?
2.) Do you play EAST for six spades (bidding and lead)?
3.) Who do you play for the ♦Q?

Your line?

[JLOGIC]

Whatever is happening in clubs it is bizarre. West didn't lead a high club or overtake the queen and cash a club. But he also pitched one.

For now I don't have to speculate on the clubs. I will play one myself. Assuming a spade comes back I will ruff and lead a heart to dummy and ruff a club.

If LHO has 5-6 clubs assuming RHO has the SA I have a claim double squeeze.

If LHO has 4 clubs then the club is high so I can pitch my diamond.

If LHO had 3 or less clubs then they seem to be 3163 so I claim on the diamond finesse.

It should be noted that LHO can break up the squeeze if he has 5/6 clubs by shifting to a diamond himself, I hope he's not clever enough to do that!

[655321]

Another club planning a double squeeze works West has 4 or more clubs unless West switches to a diamond, nobody can keep 3 diamonds.

[nigel_k]

If you win trick 3 and concede a club, you are just about cold on a double squeeze unless they switch to a diamond.

Otherwise you can win trick 3 in dummy, ruff a spade, play another trump to dummy then ♠Q pitching ♣J. This works if ♣Q was stiff and you have the diamond finesse in reserve.

I would choose one of those, probably the former against almost anyone. I don't know what your plan was after winning the trump in hand and playing another one.

[rhm]

JLOGIC, on Aug 30 2010, 06:58 PM, said:

It should be noted that LHO can break up the squeeze if he has 5/6 clubs by shifting to a diamond himself, I hope he's not clever enough to do that!

In which case your play against competent opponents is not much better than the simple ♦ finesse.

I do not know the level of the opponents when this occurred. The play in ♣ is strange, but I am inclined to assume that West has AK and length in ♣.
Maybe East foresaw, holding the queen of ♦, that a club continuation would lead to the double squeeze. The same might be true, why West refused to over take and continue ♣.
West can easily deduce that a second ♠ can not cash, when you duck out a third defensive trick in ♣. Consequently the setting trick can only come from ♦ and the (double) squeeze threat becomes rather obvious to anyone who has a rudimentary knowledge about squeezes.

What about running ♥ instead of ducking a ♣ at this stage?
When you play the last heart, dummy will have kept the queen of ♠ and all ♦ in the 4 card ending, while in hand you hold all ♦ and the jack of ♣

You can still play either opponent for the queen of ♦. If East has it and has kept 2 cards in ♦ the queen will drop and if East has kept 3 cards in ♦ go to the ace of ♦ and throw him in with a queen of ♠.

Initially I am inclined to give East 6=2=3=2 with the queen of ♦ for a number of reasons.

West did not over-call over 1♥. Few people pass with AK98xx in ♣ and a singleton heart and he gave only a single raise, dubious with a singleton heart if he held 3=1=4=5 with the queen of ♦ in addition to the AK of ♣. Also East might have continued to 4♠ with 6=2=4=1.

East is "marked" with 6 cards in ♠, a doubleton ♥, and West will likely tell you whether he held 6 or 5 ♣ on the run of the ♥, by discarding another ♣ from six early. (you will first discard the six of ♠ before starting to discard ♣ in dummy). Therefor you are likely to get a complete count.

Against most defenders the end position will be easy to read. Against top level players the double squeeze is a pipe dream anyway.

Rainer Herrmann

[gszeszycki]

backs of the cards are a tremendous asset to declarer and plans should be made
(when possible) that allow the defenders to gather as little information as possible.
the play of a trump at trick 4 was a small error since it was then you should have continued with a club. The play itself can never hurt you and since W (most likely winner of trick) has less information about trump suit it makes a dia shift less likely. If W finds the dia shift anyway play as below.

I would also continue with a club now at worst I will get a free dia finesse if W finds the dia shift and if that shift is the dia T (i play J and assuming E covers) I might still have a show up squeeze vs w after going back to dummy (via trumps) and ruffing a 3rd round of clubs and running trumps to bitter end (tossing my club from dummy at trick 11 if it is still not good)

[JLOGIC]

rhm, on Aug 31 2010, 08:54 AM, said:

In which case your play against competent opponents is not much better than the simple ♦ finesse.

Meh, I think you're giving people too much credit. I like my suggested line even with Helgemo or Meckstroth on my left, but that's just me. Maybe I give people too little credit, but I feel really confident against people less than that level (like myself) I think it's a good line.

[nigel_k]

JLOGIC, on Sep 1 2010, 07:39 AM, said:

rhm, on Aug 31 2010, 08:54 AM, said:

In which case your play against competent opponents is not much better than the simple ♦ finesse.

Meh, I think you're giving people too much credit. I like my suggested line even with Helgemo or Meckstroth on my left, but that's just me. Maybe I give people too little credit, but I feel really confident against people less than that level (like myself) I think it's a good line.

I agree. Even if the opponent is thoroughly familiar with squeeze technique they could easily get it wrong. It's much harder to see these things from the defender's point of view. And since you are increasing your chances from around 50% to nearly 100% if they don't play a diamond, the odds are pretty good.

[JLOGIC]

nigel_k, on Aug 31 2010, 03:08 PM, said:

JLOGIC, on Sep 1 2010, 07:39 AM, said:

rhm, on Aug 31 2010, 08:54 AM, said:

In which case your play against competent opponents is not much better than the simple ♦ finesse.

Meh, I think you're giving people too much credit. I like my suggested line even with Helgemo or Meckstroth on my left, but that's just me. Maybe I give people too little credit, but I feel really confident against people less than that level (like myself) I think it's a good line.

I agree. Even if the opponent is thoroughly familiar with squeeze technique they could easily get it wrong. It's much harder to see these things from the defender's point of view. And since you are increasing your chances from around 50% to nearly 100% if they don't play a diamond, the odds are pretty good.

Yeah and at the very least you also make when LHO has T9 of diamonds even if they do shift to a diamond, that's a pretty reasonable gain.

[inquiry]

Ok, here is the rest of the story. The fellow I was talking about is a very reasonable player, but not as good as justin. He choice the line the justin picked. And i justin is a better player than I am, marginally.

Anyway, i was thinking along the same lines as Rainer Herrmann (above). Let me answer question 2 first. Yes, I play EAST for six spades. The overcall, even playing OBAR bids is not based on much, so five the AK seems unlikely. The raise by WEST and the spot lead confirms the concept that it was six.

Queston 2: The club QUEEN is really bizarre. If west has AK, why not lead one? Why did EAST lead the club Queen missing the JACK (I am looking at it). Two thoughts. East is Qx doubleton, or East is has singleton Queen. I decided with Qx and a come-on signal from WEST, he would continue a club.

So it came down to three lines.
Line one. pull trumps, hook ♦Q with West
Line two, play EAST for ♦Q (several lines work)
Line three, play for double squeeze (described by Justin and others).

The straight up diamond hook of line 3 has to be worse than line three, because you can always fall back on that as a worse case scenario. If the determination that EAST has only one club is right, he is 6-2-4-1, making West 3-1-3-6. So if we are going to do simple math, ♦Q is 4/7th with EAST. I also agree with Rainer Herrmann that with ♠xxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣AKxxxx west would have bid one more (he misunderstood which E or W showed out on heart). So I am thinking the queen is even more likely with EAST. Thus, I adopted the throwin line, run hearts, cross ♦A, exit ♠Q in the three card ending.

Sure that worked, but I began questioning the logic, thus posting the hand here. The lead a club to set up double squeeze makes a lot of sense. First, they might not find the diamond lead (when you exit a club, and EAST shows out, the DANGER of double squeeze is EXTREMELY CLEAR, however). But the key, is if they do lead a club, you get two chances to make. Chance one, WEST has ♦ Q after all. Chance two, WEST had ♦T9x.

If the hand count was right, and ignoring whatever percentage you use for EAST HAVING to have diamond queen by WEST's simple raise, the odds of EAST having Qxxx (were x can = T or smaller), is 57.1% (4/7); Q with east 42.9% (3/7). But you have to add teh chance WEST has T9x of diamonds. This math is a little more complicated. There are 4 combinations where WEST can hold T9x of hearts (T93, T94, T95, T97), you will have to take my word for it that there are 35 total possible combinations so this is 11.43%.

So the odds -- again with a lot of assumptions -- 57.1% Queen with EAST, 54.3% Queen OR T9 is with WEST. This is very close. So this leaves the two harder things to quantitate. How likely is WEST to bid different with Qxx of diamonds, and how likely is west to find the diamond shift to break up the double squeeze when you thow him in with clubs. If he never finds it, throw him in. If he always finds it, go for the endplay on EAST instead.

There is also the possibility EAST has another club, and WEST has four diamonds. So I came around to thinking the line choosen by the semi-decent player and by justin and almost everyone above is the better line. The T9x of diamonds is what makes the mathematically inferior line better in the long run... after all, the difference is VERY SMALL (3%) and that is based soley on inferred count of stiff club with EAST.

[nigel_k]

inquiry, on Sep 2 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

If the determination that EAST has only one club is right, he is 6-2-4-1, making West 3-1-3-6. So if we are going to do simple math, ♦Q is 4/7th with EAST. I also agree with Rainer Herrmann that with ♠xxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣AKxxxx west would have bid one more (he misunderstood which E or W showed out on heart).  So I am thinking the queen is even more likely with EAST. Thus, I adopted the throwin line, run hearts, cross ♦A, exit ♠Q in the three card ending.

If not playing for the squeeze, I still prefer my alternative line: win trick 3 in dummy, ruff a spade, play another trump to dummy then ♠Q pitching ♣J. If the ♣Q was stiff (and that seems to be a key assumption in your analysis) you make regardless of the location of the ♦Q. If East produces another club you can still finesse in diamonds.

[inquiry]

nigel_k, on Sep 1 2010, 11:09 PM, said:

inquiry, on Sep 2 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

If the determination that EAST has only one club is right, he is 6-2-4-1, making West 3-1-3-6. So if we are going to do simple math, ♦Q is 4/7th with EAST. I also agree with Rainer Herrmann that with ♠xxx ♥x ♦Qxx ♣AKxxxx west would have bid one more (he misunderstood which E or W showed out on heart).  So I am thinking the queen is even more likely with EAST. Thus, I adopted the throwin line, run hearts, cross ♦A, exit ♠Q in the three card ending.

If not playing for the squeeze, I still prefer my alternative line: win trick 3 in dummy, ruff a spade, play another trump to dummy then ♠Q pitching ♣J. If the ♣Q was stiff (and that seems to be a key assumption in your analysis) you make regardless of the location of the ♦Q. If East produces another club you can still finesse in diamonds.

As I said, several lines work if east has the queen, and you are right, if he is 6-2-4-1, this ruff a spade, throw him in (while keeping a heart in dummy) doesn't really care where teh queen is...

[gnasher]

I don't believe that East has the singleton or doubleton queen of clubs. Who would lead a spade looking at ♣AKxxx(x)?

It seems more likely that East has ♣KQ or ♣AQ, whether it's systemic or not. That would explain West's pause too.