One of the most powerful compensating techniques is a guard menace:
| ♠ | K | ||||
| ♥ | K | ||||
| ♦ | 2 | ||||
| ♣ | K 2 | ||||
| ♠ | A | ♠ | Q | ||
| ♥ | A | ♥ | Q | ||
| ♦ | 7 | ♦ | |||
| ♣ | Q J | ♣ | 10 8 3 | ||
| ♠ | |||||
| ♥ | |||||
| ♦ | A K | ||||
| ♣ | A 9 6 |
You've got two isolated menaces over West (in the majors) and 1 loser, but no entries (in Love's terminology, you have BLU but no E). But, the guard menace in clubs means West is squeezed sooner -- cash 2 diamonds and if West pitches a club, cash CK and hook the club on the way back for all the tricks. (This would also work if West had the CT, too, a 1-trick triple squeeze, another form of compensation for a simple squeeze lacking the normal entries.)
In fact, though, this is so powerful that you could compensate for missing Love's B and U, too: switch the major suit Ks and Qs, giving East protection of those suits, too. Now your major suit menaces are entry-less, not-isolated, and under one opponent, yet the guard menace still compensates. Cash 2 diamonds and as before pitching a club fails, so West must pitch a major. Pitch the other major from dummy and East is squeezed between clubs and the major West pitched.
Note that one key to this hand is that West not be able to guard the long club. I don't think it's possible to have a non-strip squeeze without at least one menace isolated against one opponent and over that opponent.
>I don't think it's possible to have a non-strip squeeze
ReplyDelete>without at least one menace isolated against one opponent
>and over that opponent.
There is a one-suited squeeze, though it really defies categorization and may not be a squeeze at all, e.g.
- A
AQJx 10xx
K
K9x
South leads the SK taken by East's ace and West has no good discard to prevent South making the last trick. This doesn't need dummy either though can also work if North wins and leads a heart.
I believe that is a squeeze -- my definition is roughly "at some point you need to inspect a discard (or underruff) in order to make the right play"
ReplyDeleteBut, it's also a strip squeeze, by which I mean "a squeeze where a trick is lost after the squeeze materializes". There are other one-suit squeezes that don't have that element, but then the menace is over the guard.
A backwash squeeze is trickier, but I think the argument still holds.