Team trials bidding problem

My partner held this hand in the team trials, favorable 4th seat:

♠	Q J 6
♥	Q 8
♦	J 8 7 4 2
♣	A 10 4

South	West	North	East
			1♠
2♣	4♠	Pass	Pass
Dbl	Pass	?

What's your call?


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More on squeezes

Yesterday I talked a lot about a couple of triple squeezes, winding up with some thoughts on working out squeezes through a process of compensating for flaws.

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.


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Progressive squeezes made "easy"

You may have noticed I like squeezes. Recently there have been 2 unusual progressive squeezes, here and [add link].

The end positions are repeated here with slight modifications (in both cases, East's hand is immaterial except where noted):

		♠	A 10 8
		♥	2
		♦	7 4
		♣	2
♠	K J 9
♥	J 9 8
♦	10 9
♣
		♠	Q 2
		♥	K 10 7
		♦	A
		♣	K

In this position, West has already come under pressure and still needs to discard. Declarer has 4 top winners, but can emerge with 6 of the last 7 tricks.

If you switched the SK and SQ, this could be played as an ordinary repeating squeeze: 3 threats, 2 of them over the defender, and enough entries that whatever is unguarded can be cashed to effect another squeeze (ignoring, for the moment, that there are immediate 2-trick threats in both majors). Just cash DA (optionally can be delayed) and CK: if hearts are unguarded, HK, HT effects a diamond-spade squeeze. If spades are unguarded, SK, SA, ST effects a red suit squeeze. If diamonds are unguarded, SK, SA, D7 effects a major suit squeeze.

This might also work if you could duck a heart and a diamond came back -- now the count would be rectified and all the necessary entries are in place. But, a savvy West knows that the key to progressive squeeze defense is to give up the trick that doesn't allow a subsequent squeeze. In this case, if in with H8, West can exit SK, giving up a spade trick, but preventing the red suit squeeze.

This is similar to the reason why a normal progressive squeeze needs 2 menaces over the defender. If there's only one, they can normally unguard that menace and then there's no 2nd squeeze since both remaining threats are under the defender.

If that's the key to progressive squeeze defense, then the key to setting up more complex progressive squeezes is to find enough compensation to prevent defender from breaking up the 2nd squeeze. One standard technique is a 2 trick menace, such as the heart suit above. This is "commonly" used when there are 2 menaces under the defender, a 2-trick squeeze will still succeed if the sole "over" menace is a 2-trick threat. The defense may prevent a 2nd squeeze by unguarding that menace, but it's small consolation when that immediately costs 2 tricks.

In the position above there's all sorts of compensation that's necessary:

a) the heart tenace: if West unguards diamonds, DA, SA, D7 effects a major suit strip squeeze. This would not work if the HT and H9 were switched.

b) the heart establishment threat: if West comes down to 2 hearts, we can duck a heart to set up 1 extra trick, then win the (forced, see below) red suit return for a diamond-spade squeeze. Without the H7, the squeeze fails.

c) the split tenace in spades: this is necessary to prevent a spade return in (b), this breaks up the 2nd squeeze but at the expense of conceding an extra spade trick.

d) the 2-trick threat in spades: this is not strictly necessary, but it does mean that if West errs by blanking his SK he won't take any tricks (DA, 3 spades for a red suit squeeze). The 2-trick threat in hearts is similar.

More recently I posted this club grand slam:

		♠	Q
		♥	K
		♦	A Q 7 4 2
		♣
♠	A
♥	Q J
♦	K 10 8 6			♦	J 9 5
♣
		♠
		♥	10 9 8 7
		♦	3
		♣	5 2

(Note East has 3 diamonds here.)

Declarer has 5 tricks (including the diamond finesse), but by cashing a club can again emerge with 2 extra tricks.

Here, declarer appears to have a useful entry in the diamond suit, but needs to ruff a diamond to isolate the menace against West, so that's somewhat of an illusion. There's an entry in hearts, but it's blocked, and there's no entry in spades. But, the ruffing threat in diamonds and the blocked heart position looks like a trump squeeze. In fact, if West pitches the SA on the next club, then DQ, SQ does subject him to a red suit ruffing squeeze (if heart, HK, ruff, hand good; if diamond, ruff diamond, HK, dummy good).

So, a spade pitch is out. What about a heart? Declarer can unblock the HK, get back to hand with a ruff, but then will lack either an entry or a menace for the spade-diamond squeeze. But the 2-trick heart menace bails him out, and is in fact necessary.

What about a diamond pitch? There's no major suit ruffing squeeze since the spade length for a ruffing threat isn't present. Even if it were (e.g. make a diamond a spade), establishing a diamond requires a ruff, and then only the HK is left for an entry to cash the established diamond, but using the HK would break the intended major suit ruffing squeeze. Luckily (for declarer) there's a 2-trick threat in diamonds, too. (Earlier in the play, declarer had to be careful to pitch a spade and keep all 5 diamonds.)

Note that if East didn't have a 3rd round diamond guard, then declarer could have won the opening heart lead in dummy (preserving HA in hand) and would again have a more typical progressive squeeze:

		♠	Q
		♥	3
		♦	A Q 7 4 2
		♣
♠	A
♥	Q J
♦	K 10 8 6			♦	J 9
♣
		♠
		♥	A 10 9 8
		♦	3
		♣	5 2

The red suit length looks nice, but isn't really necessary: cash 2 clubs and then whatever winner LHO unguards for a repeating squeeze. So that 3rd diamond with East really messed things up and required 2 2-trick menaces and a trump squeeze to compensate.

The general point I wanted to make here (not sure if I was really successful) is that I find most squeeze books misguided. Perhaps BLUE or whatever is useful when first learning a simple squeeze (B = Both guards in one hand, L = right number of Losers, U = at least one threat in the Upper hand, what I call "over", E = Entry to established winner available), but in the long run enumerating requirements without motivations is not helpful.

For example, to me, the requirements for, say, a compound squeeze are just: a triple squeeze against one opponent such that whatever they do you can effect a double squeeze -- reading some crazy list of possible entry configurations that amounts to the same thing does not do much to provide insight. If there's some defense, or lack of entry, or whatever, that wouldn't allow a double squeeze to develop, then you need some compensation that prohibits that defense. In the first deal above, you can't rectify the count, LHO might attack your entries, and so forth, but once you start bringing the HT, SQ, and long heart into play you have a counter for all these things. It would be impossible to memorize something like "3 losers, a split tenace, a tenace and establishment threat under the defender, control but not necessarily a useful entry in the 3rd threat over the defender, etc" and have that be useful. (Not that any of this is that useful, of course.) I find it much more productive to start imagining it as a "normal" squeeze, then as flaws are identified look for compensation.

That said, enumerating squeezes can be very useful as an exercise -- I think I have a very firm grasp of double squeezes (and how to defend against them) as a result of enumerating all the compound squeezes, but I haven't bothered to memorize my list of compounds.

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Inferences from declarer's play

Matchpoints. South opens 4♥ and buys it.

♠	A J 8 3
♥	8 3
♦	Q 10 9 8
♣	K Q 10
		♠	K 10 4 2
		♥	K 3
		♦	K 10 7
		♣	A 8 5 2

Partner leads a 3rd/low ♠7, possibly consistent with Q-9-7, Q-9-7-x, or 7-x. Declarer wins ♠A and plays ♣K, how do you defend?



A friend sent me this hand, this was his analysis (which I agree with):

At the table, my reaction was to play the ♣A, since declarer could easily have a singleton or even a void. I won and played ♠K, which was not a success as declarer ruffed, overtook the ♣J with the ♣Q, and pitched a diamond loser on the ♣10.

In retrospect, I think there is a clear inference that suggests ducking the club. It's certainly not impossible for declaer to play the club suit on its own this way holding a singleton. However, you are looking at Kx in hearts. It is extremely likely that if declarer had no further entries to dummy he would take a heart finesse while he could.

If declarer were 2=8=2=1, he might have ducked the first trick. With 1=8=3=1, he might fear a diamond ruff if he didn't draw trumps. He still could possibly have x/AJTxxxxx/Axx/x though and play this way.

Winning the club is still ok if you cash your two diamond tricks immediately thereafter, but that seems like a big play.

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More fun with K-10 doubleton

A while back I read this post by Jonathan (don't miss the story about Kantar in the comments). So when this hand rolled around (LM Pairs Fri eve #5), I was ready:

		♠	8 7 2
		♥	A 10
		♦	A K 5
		♣	A Q 9 7 2
♠	Q J 10 9 5
♥	Q 9 8 6
♦	7 4
♣	K 10

I led the ♠Q against 3NT. Partner won ♠A and continued the suit, declarer winning the 3rd round with the king. Hoping he had ♣J-8-x I was ready with the ♣K should he lead one. Sure enough he had that holding, and sure enough he led a club... the jack!

Later in the tournament in a team match our opponent found himself facing this club position against a high-level doubled contract:

	J x
A Q x x x x x		K 10
	x x

A club spot was led, he inserted the 10 and held the trick. Working out what happened, he found partner's void and it was automatic for another club to come back to the king for a 2nd ruff and 500.

This is only a small gain since a suit preference signal should solve the defenders' problem, but declarer could have made it harder by playing the jack from dummy at trick 1.

So if you're worried about K-10 doubleton, play the jack.




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Another bidding idea

Earlier I described a twist to unusual vs unusual that I like. I think this is a materially more useful idea:

In 2/1 auctions such as 1M-2C and 1S-2D, switch the meanings of opener's cheapest rebid and the rebid of his suit (which, in my style, is a catch-all that could be just a 5 card suit with no other suitable bid).

For example:

1S-2D

2S: shows 4 hearts
2H: catchall bid.

The point is that opener is much more likely to have a nebulous hand, so when he does you want to preserve space.

After that, we don't have or need any fancy agreements: responder's rebid of opener's suit is now available to be a catchall -- usually 2 card support, unwillingness to bid 2N or anything else. It might rarely be 3 card support on a hand that wants to emphasize keeping other strains in the picture (e.g. 3 small, or slammish if opener can summon a raise of your minor). With genuine support, opener makes the same 3 level raise they would have if the auction had gone standardly (e.g. after 1H-2C-2H, responder must raise to 3H, so just make the same bid after 1H-2C-2D(catchall)).

After 1S-2C, we have a slightly more detailed agreement:

a) 2D is the catchall, but might still include bad hands with 4D. 1S-2C-2S showing diamonds is a bit preemptive, so it has close to the same requirements as a high reverse like 1S-2D-3C.

b) Over 2D (which denies 4 hearts since otherwise just rebid 2H), we the switch 2H (shows diamonds) and 3D (shows hearts).

c) Over 2D we have an extra bid available: 1S-2C-2D-3H shows a 3 card raise with extras, and 3S shows a 4 card raise.

I think this is very simple, useful when it comes up, and that it comes up frequently enough to not pose a material memory strain.

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Failed beer squeeze, solution

From yesterday's post:

♠	A 10 8 5
♥	A 2
♦	7 4 3 2
♣	A J 3
♠	Q 2
♥	K 10 7 4
♦	A 6 5
♣	K Q 5 4

South	West	North	East
1 ♣	Dbl	Rdbl	Pass
Pass	1 ♦	1 ♠	Pass
1 NT	Pass	3 NT	All Pass

♦Q led, RHO plays the K and another diamond.
Say you duck twice and LHO shifts to ♥Q. How do you play? Clubs are 1=5.


Assuming LHO has KJ9x/QJxx/QJTx/x, you can guarantee 10 tricks by winning ♥A and running clubs to come down to:

♠	A 10 8
♥	2
♦	7 4
♣
♠	Q 2
♥	K 10 7
♦	A
♣

You have 5 in the bank and want 5 of the last 6 with only 3 tops. Luckily, the 3-loser progressive squeeze comes to the rescue.

LHO needs to pitch from KJ/J9x/Tx/- in this position. If he pitches:

a) A spade? This give up 2 spades immediately, and if you cash ♦A first you'll also have a red suit squeeze to take the rest. Ouch!

b) A heart? Play ♥10 to set up a trick there. LHO can't lead spades without giving up a 2nd trick, so must put you back in hand with a red card, now cashing all your red winners effects a spade-diamond squeeze.

c) A diamond? That gives you an extra diamond, then ♦A, ♠A, ♦7 spade exit end-plays LHO for an extra heart trick.

I guess this is my 2nd non-standard progressive squeeze in the last 2 weeks, so I'll try to write about some generalizations next week.

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