[FrancesHinden]

Here's a nice one from the weekend

---

You open 1D on weak NTs with 4 diamonds and fewer than 5 clubs, unless you have a (sub-)minimum 3343 that isn't interested in partner competing in diamonds. LHO (your screenmate) understands your methods.

LHO leads the 10 of clubs. You win in hand with the Jack.
You play a trump from hand, queen, ace, low
You cash the king of trumps* and LHO discards an encouraging diamond
You play a club to the ace, and then the king of clubs discarding a diamond, which RHO ruffs
RHO cashes the jack of spades on which LHO discards a club
RHO now plays the ace of diamonds, then the queen of diamonds on which LHO plays the king and you ruff.

Now what?

p.s. if you are wondering why RHO didn't double 2D, either he was expecting to be on lead against 3NT or he was asleep, or both.

*Perhaps you would have done better not to do this, but you would have looked silly if LHO had been 2-2 in the blacks...

[cnszsun]

So west is 1=4=3=5 or 1=3=4=5, the former seems more likely. Anyway, i play him for ♥Q, cash last trump and squeeze west when he has 4 hearts.

[MrAce]

cnszsun, on 2011-November-14, 00:44, said:

So west is 1=4=3=5 or 1=3=4=5, the former seems more likely. Anyway, i play him for ♥Q, cash last trump and squeeze west when he has 4 hearts.

May i ask why West is likely to have 1435 ? Is it because Frances said her own opinions about why 2♦ was not doubled ? I mean normally what comes to my mind would be East could DBL with AQxxx ♦ and not with AQx(x) ♦. But she obviously wants us to ignore the lack of 2♦ DBL. But anyway it is not very important.

If we rule out 5-1 and 6-0 ♥;

3-3 ♥ evens out each other, with 4-2 2-4 When East has Q even if we guess correctly we need 9x with west to make 4 tricks, but when west has Q we can make even when he has 4 of them with the cost of paying when West holds original Qx ♥, because then we are down due to cashing last trump (we cant play small to K and small to AT8 anymore) So what u suggested looks very reasonable.

[Fluffy]

I also think LHO is either 1435 or 1345, Now we can play either a heart to jack wich covers ♥Q in RHO and goes only -100 if wrong, or play for LHO for the queen as cnzsun sugegst playing last trumps squeezing west. With the dissadvantage of going 2 or 3 down if wrong.


Now the other tiny bits: LHO discarded an encouraging diamond when he had an easy club discard, can't find much info there, perhaps he wanted to let partner know he might underlead ♦A for a heart across.

RHO advanced ♠J. This looks pretty much automatic, this might squezze his partner but if ♠J not played we simply ruff a heart in hand instead.

[gnasher]

How good/awake is RHO? If the squeeze works, he has misdefended - he could have underled the diamond so that LHO could play another club.

[whereagles]

huh... I don't think that's an argument.. just how many defenders, even at world class level, manage to see such a squeeze coming up?

[Fluffy]

gnasher, on 2011-November-14, 05:24, said:

How good/awake is RHO? If the squeeze works, he has misdefended - he could have underled the diamond so that LHO could play another club.

Damn I knew there was something like this, at the start I though it was east advancing ♠J who stablished the squeeze giving us a losing option, but then I realiced if ♠J is not cashed we can just ruff a heart in hand.

[gnasher]

whereagles, on 2011-November-14, 06:32, said:

huh... I don't think that's an argument.. just how many defenders, even at world class level, manage to see such a squeeze coming up?

It wasn't an argument, it was a question. Since Frances has just finished playing in an event which contained several world-class players, it was also a reasonable question.

By the way, if I had Jxxx xx AQJxx xx and defended as this East did, I would be a bit disappointed with myself.

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2011-November-14, 07:18, said:

By the way, if I had Jxxx xx AQJxx xx and defended as this East did, I would be a bit disappointed with myself.

Not that it matters but dummy had ♦J

[FrancesHinden]

gnasher, on 2011-November-14, 07:18, said:

It wasn't an argument, it was a question. Since Frances has just finished playing in an event which contained several world-class players, it was also a reasonable question.

By the way, if I had Jxxx xx AQJxx xx and defended as this East did, I would be a bit disappointed with myself.

Opponents are a pair who would probably not be considered quite world class but they have won a lot of major British events and played for England quite a few times. (that probably counts both as 'damning with faint praise' and is also probably enough for gnasher to identify them!)

[FrancesHinden]

Fluffy, on 2011-November-14, 04:37, said:

I also think LHO is either 1435 or 1345, Now we can play either a heart to jack wich covers ♥Q in RHO and goes only -100 if wrong, or play for LHO for the queen as cnzsun sugegst playing last trumps squeezing west. With the dissadvantage of going 2 or 3 down if wrong.


Now the other tiny bits: LHO discarded an encouraging diamond when he had an easy club discard, can't find much info there, perhaps he wanted to let partner know he might underlead ♦A for a heart across.

RHO advanced ♠J. This looks pretty much automatic, this might squezze his partner but if ♠J not played we simply ruff a heart in hand instead.

Did LHO have an easy club discard? On the second spade he's only seen one club from partner, perhaps he is concerned that we started with five clubs (after all, we opened 1C) and can now set them up with a ruff.

[mikeh]

The squeeze is attractive, if only because we all get that warm, tingly feeling whenever we make a hand on a squeeze....well, I do, anyway.

I had written a long post explaining what E knew or ought to have inferred about my hand after the spade j was cashed.....but realized that I was merely desribing, at length, the reasoning underlying Andy's point.

As it is, assuming East is not so far ahead of me that he is playing mind games, I place East with either 2 or 3 hearts and, crucially, if only two, then he has the Qx.

On 3-3 hearts, I don't think I have any reason to place the Q in either hand. 1=2=5=5 for west remains, I think, a possibility but I am inclined to place him with 1=3=4=5 or 1=4=3=5.

On that reasoning, East holds the heart Q half the time on the first and 100% of the time on the second. So I play a heart to the J after ruffing a diamond.

If East held xx, then he either deserves my congratulations for a truly deep read, or he should be embarrassed to accept the result.

[dave_w]

The diamonds must be Kxx opposite AQT9x or KT9x(x) opposite AQx(x) or else the play of the King doesn't make sense. The diamond discard is from either of these holdings also (with T9xxx in Clubs and Qxxx in Hearts West would want to pitch from diamonds even though it's his shortest suit).

So West is 1345, 1435, 1255. The first two shapes are much more likely than the third - don't play an opponent to hold ten cards in two suits unless they've bid (or unless it's the only layout that allows you to make). So I guess I'm cashing the last trump and playing West for the ♥Q.

I've read a few posts about this meaning that East has misdefendd (underlead the Diamond Ace to get partner to cash the Club). I wouldn't play for anyone to defend that well. If they do then I doubt it matters how I play this hand - I won't be winning the event!

[JLOGIC]

Sometimes people mess up. There are varying degrees but playing ace and a diamond seems like a mistake that's pretty easy to make. Agree with Andy that I'd be disappointed if I made that play, but I also think it's a play that I would definitely make some %age of the time. Part of bridge might be to save undertricks in this spot by giving them credit, but imo a bigger part of bridge is taking advantage when they mess up. I mean, honestly if I'm playing a team that is good enough to not mess up often enough for me to play for the squeeze, then I am probably going to lose anyways, since I will definitely be making more mistakes than them.

We are getting good odds to go for the squeeze, there is a vulnerable game in the balance when LHO has Q9xx of hearts compared to 1 or 2 extra vul undertricks (with 1 being more likely). Maybe I am wrong but I would play for basically anyone to misdefend in this manner enough to make it right.

I actually thought the real "poker" element of the hand was LHO's play of the DK. If he actually had Kx of diamonds left when he played it, then he should not have Qxx of hearts, since it makes us more likely to play him for heart length...he should have xxx of hearts. I think from a good player this is more plausible, but again without a read I'm not willing to make such big conclusions from it, and again not because of the possibility of a double cross, but just because people mindlessly play the card they're known to have pretty often. There are some people I'd have a good enough read on to draw an inference from something like that, but otherwise I'm not. Besides, maybe he just had stiff K left and followed suit and is about to be pissed that his partner got him squeezed with a careless play when he has Q9xx of hearts!

[gnasher]

I think I'd play the squeeze line. It seems more likely that East has misdefended with ♥xx than that he has done something clever with ♥Qx or ♥Qxx.

[y66]

I like the idea that RHO has not misdefended because there is no squeeze and has instead given LHO a chance to play the DK from Kx remaining to suggest he is 1435. Out of respect for my opponents' defense, I will play RHO for the heart queen.

[JLOGIC]

y66, on 2011-November-16, 04:49, said:

I like the idea that RHO has not misdefended because there is no squeeze and has instead given LHO a chance to play the DK from Kx remaining to suggest he is 1435. Out of respect for my opponents' defense, I will play RHO for the heart queen.

But then that wouldn't really be respect since they gave away the position and you are guessing the queen solely based on their defense in what would otherwise have been a guess. You are really just trying to guess in what way their play was exploitable. Yes we can go infinite levels up, but most likely they just made an error, they were not thinking deeply at all whether they had xx, xxx, Qxx, or Qx of hearts, and now we get a chance to maximize our probability to make a game based on the count we have plus the squeeze. It is extremely rare in bridge that people are going as deep as you are playing them to go for.

[rhm]

I do not really see why a world-class LHO needs to be 1=4=3=5 or 1=3=4=5.
At the moment when South ruffs the second ♦ the play of the ♦K costs nothing assuming LHO has the ♦T as well.
LHO first discarded a ♦. How sure could he be at that point that declarer did not have 5 ♣s ?
Why could that ♦ discard not be from 1=2=5=5?
Maybe RHO did not double 2♦ because he just held ♦AQx?

What you know is that West had 6 black cards and East had 6 black cards and both were not short in ♦.
♥Q looks like a guess to me but the ♦ play looks to me more consistent with LHO being long in ♦, which argues for playing RHO for the ♥Q.
Of course if RHO has 4 cards in ♥ you can only make if you guess whether LHO has ♥9x or ♥Qx.
But if LHO has ♥Qx the squeeze variant will fail, because the ♥s will be blocked.

Rainer Herrmann

[AlexJonson]

It seems that we cannot play the hearts as efficiently against RHO because we wont cash the last spade, so that the inferences on diamond length would have to outweigh losing to Q9xx with RHO, while making against Q9xx with LHO.

[whereagles]

JLOGIC, on 2011-November-16, 05:03, said:

It is extremely rare in bridge that people are going as deep as you are playing them to go for.

I've scored many tricks because of people crediting for being more clever than I was.

I'm sure it happened to you as well