[Siegmund]

When you admit to 2 keys plus the queen and the ♣K, partner pushes to a less-than-laydown contract, but one with lots of chances: spade hook, spade drop, finding the club queen, or various squeeze possibilities.

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West opens the ♦Q. You win, and (your first good news) the trumps break 2W-3E.

Question #1: What's your plan from here?

There may be a followup, if a position that came up at my table comes up at yours.

[655321]

A compound squeeze, two more rounds of hearts (pitching 2 diamonds and a spade) and West has to give up a black suit. If you guess which one he no longer guards, play off the top diamond and the top cards in your hand in the suit he gives up, cross to the ♣A and play the last trump to squeeze RHO.

[manudude03]

I'll go for the double squeeze (well simple played as a double). Draw trumps throwing a diamond, cash the other diamond, play ♠AK and ruff a spade then draw the remaining trumps throwing a diamond on the penultimate trump. Last trump will hopefully pull off the double squeeze.

[phil_20686]

There is also the trump squeeze. Cash 4 hearts pitching two diamonds then AK clubs ruff a club. If west has the Qxx(x) spades to go with the diamond guard they are forced to give it up.

65532's line is basically just a guess early. I hate those! Wayne's line is obviously the best % imo.

[gnasher]

 phil_20686, on 2012-March-30, 04:51, said:

There is also the trump squeeze. Cash 4 hearts pitching two diamonds then AK clubs ruff a club. If west has the Qxx(x) spades to go with the diamond guard they are forced to give it up.

If I wanted to squeeze West in diamonds and spades, I would just unblock ♦AK and play a simple automatic squeeze.

Quote

65532's line is basically just a guess early. I hate those! Wayne's line is obviously the best % imo.

There's no need to decide yet. You can cash a fourth trump and see what they do. That will tell you quite a lot - they can't see your hand, so they don't know which four-card black suit you have.

[phil_20686]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-30, 05:01, said:

If I wanted to squeeze West in diamonds and spades, I would just unblock ♦AK and play a simple automatic squeeze.

Yes, but its not as pretty.

 gnasher, on 2012-March-30, 05:01, said:

There's no need to decide yet. You can cash a fourth trump and see what they do. That will tell you quite a lot - they can't see your hand, so they don't know which four-card black suit you have.

While what you say is correct, west will get several rounds of count signals from his partner, and there are lots of hands where he has no choice about how to discard. Compare xx xxx QJxx Qxxx west will play 3 hearts one diamond and one spade, with Qxxx xxx QJxx xx, which will also pitch three hearts one diamond and one spade (after the fourth spade comes from dummy). I am sure I can produce other pairs that will normally discard the same even without false carding.

[gnasher]

 phil_20686, on 2012-March-30, 06:28, said:

While what you say is correct, west will get several rounds of count signals from his partner, and there are lots of hands where he has no choice about how to discard. Compare xx xxx QJxx Qxxx west will play 3 hearts one diamond and one spade, with Qxxx xxx QJxx xx, which will also pitch three hearts one diamond and one spade (after the fourth spade comes from dummy). I am sure I can produce other pairs that will normally discard the same even without false carding.

According to the original post, West has only two hearts. so if he has only four diamonds he will have to make a black-suit discard before he sees any black cards from me.

Even in the scenario you discuss, I don't believe that East will discard the same way with 5224 and with 3226.

[phil_20686]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-30, 06:46, said:

According to the original post, West has only two hearts. so if he has only four diamonds he will have to make a black-suit discard before he sees any black cards from me.

That makes no difference? If I have a matched pair with three hearts, and I change a heart to a club in both of the pair, the discards remain matched? I am reasonably confident that it never makes a difference, partner will get count on at least one black suit from partners discard, and he will have already count in the diamond suit, so he should discard well.

[gnasher]

 phil_20686, on 2012-March-30, 06:50, said:

That makes no difference? If I have a matched pair with three hearts, and I change a heart to a club in both of the pair, the discards remain matched? I am reasonably confident that it never makes a difference, partner will get count on at least one black suit from partners discard, and he will have already count in the diamond suit, so he should discard well.

Why don't you give us two pairs of hands of similar frequency, consistent with the original post, where you think that both East and West will discard the same way, in the same tempo, leaving declarer with one line that will fail and one that will succeed?

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-March-30, 07:30

[phil_20686]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-30, 07:00, said:

Why don't you give us two pairs of hands of similar frequency, consistent with the original post, where you think that both East and West will discard the same way, in the same tempo, leaving declarer with one line that will fail and one that will succeed?

What's wrong with xx xx QJxx Qxxxx and Qxxx xx QJxx xxx? (for west. That gives east 5323 and 3325).

I appreciate that 2245 is slightly less likely than 4243, but that is not germane, the questionis whether you will get the compound squeeze guess more often than wayne's line will make.

The discards will be one diamond and then one club, and then a spade or a club after dummy pitches a spade? I think choosing your third discard randomly from a black suit is probably best, as it gives declarer a true guess. In both cases east can select a diamond for his first discard, and a low spade for his second.

I can do even better I think, if wests discard depends on easts discard, so if east discards a spade west discards a club, and if east discards a club west discards a spade.

[gnasher]

Phil, I've just noticed that you keep mentioning a spade pitch "from dummy". You do know that South is declarer, don't you?

[phil_20686]

 gnasher, on 2012-March-30, 09:31, said:

Phil, I've just noticed that you keep mentioning a spade pitch "from dummy". You do know that South is declarer, don't you?

Yeah sorry, just a typo.

I mean it seems to me that playing the compound squeeze is assuming that you are going to be able to read the position, but I am just not that convinced. It seems obvious to me that if the the defence discards optimally you will have a pure guess.

Obviously the defence will probably not defend optimally, but in that case you will have to guess in what way they are going wrong in order to improve your chances above a guess.

Waynes line works when its Qxx spade, or when east has the spade Q and the club Q, or when west has the diamond and the club. Those seem like pretty good odds to stack up against reading the black suit position.

[Siegmund]

It wasn't 100% clear to me which of several lines to take. What I actually did was start with three rounds of spades, everybody following low. Then my plan was to cash the red-suit winners (I am still not 100% clear whether I should cash DA or hearts first) and see what developed.

Now, Question #2.

When you cash the DA, *West* is going to pitch a small club. the DQ opening lead was a singleton.

If you've run spades you now know West is 4216 or 3217 and East is 3352 or 4351. Playing West for the CQ is now a very high percentage play, but I didn't find out until after I had burnt all my entries that would have let me take advantage of it.

Which of your lines -- most of them based on assuming West alone guards diamonds -- will survive that news?

[gnasher]

 phil_20686, on 2012-March-30, 13:11, said:

I mean it seems to me that playing the compound squeeze is assuming that you are going to be able to read the position, but I am just not that convinced. It seems obvious to me that if the the defence discards optimally you will have a pure guess.

Obviously the defence will probably not defend optimally, but in that case you will have to guess in what way they are going wrong in order to improve your chances above a guess.

Waynes line works when its Qxx spade, or when east has the spade Q and the club Q, or when west has the diamond and the club. Those seem like pretty good odds to stack up against reading the black suit position.

I used to think like this. I'd assume that the defenders would work out what my problem was, then cunningly conspire to conceal their hands from me. I'd think that someone with 5-3 in two suits would work out that he could afford either of them, and make a random selection between the two without giving anything away. If someone made their first discard without much sign of thought, I'd assume that they'd just planned it all in advance. If someone's first discard turned out to be from a 3-card suit, I'd worry that he might have done it from Qxx to fool me. I'd assume that they could do all of this without signalling to each other. Then I'd pick a line where I didn't have any scope for card-reading, because it also meant I didn't have any scope for messing it up.

Anyway, I've got over that now. Early in the hand, it's hard for a defender to work out what the exact layout is. Most people, even top-class players, make the easy discards first, so that they can delay the difficult decisions until they have more information. Most people make easy discards quickly and happily, but difficult discards more slowly. Most people signal to each other. And, most of all, outthinking the opponents is more fun than mechanically playing a routine double squeeze

So, as I said, I'd cash an extra trump and see what happened. By that stage I'd hope to have some idea of the layout. If I did, I'd play for the compound squeeze; otherwise I'd play for the double squeeze.