[Ant590]

Hi everyone,

Two quick questions based on the following hand from a competition at the weekend:

Scoring: IMP

1♦ – 2♥
3♥ – 3♠
4♣ – 4♦
5♦ – 6♣
7♥

---

We were rather pleased with our auction, and even more pleased that West lead a spade!

1) On a heart lead it seems (d.dummy)

Spoiler

that when you reduce West to four cards you have to throw a master club on the last heart to keep a diamond menace and spade to get back to your AQ, is this the best line, and what is the squeeze called?

(hidden in case someone wants to have a bash first).

2) Is this line legitimate single-dummy?

[FrancesHinden]

Unless you know the SK is wrong, any line involving a spade/diamond squeeze is generally going to be worse than just taking the spade finesse. (Unless you find out something about the layout in due course which changes your mind).

Single dummy you are going to try and set diamonds up; if that doesn't work you plan the take the spade finesse.

So the normal single dummy line is:
- win the heart on table
- diamond ruff
- two top rounds of trumps, ouch can't set up the diamonds now
- finish drawing trumps discarding a spade and a diamond from dummy
- club to dummy
- ace of diamonds (discarding a spade)
- diamond ruff

Dummy is now 1-0-1-3. Hand is 3-0-0-2

You cash the rest of the clubs discarding a spade from hand and are down to a spade and a diamond in dummy and two spades in hand. You know that one opponent has two spades and the other has a spade and a diamond. You won't actually know which on the given layout.

If you decide to play West to have started with 5 diamonds and the SK it is a simple squeeze.

[655321]

(1) You don't need to pitch any clubs. You ruff 2 diamonds, using the ♥T and ♣J as entries, and run all the trumps pitching 1 diamond and 1 spade.
In the 2 card ending, you need to decide if West, holding 5 diamonds and the spade king has been squeezed, or if a simple spade finesse would work instead.

Edit: Like Frances said.

This post has been edited by 655321: 2008-March-04, 07:12

[Fluffy]

The chances that a spade hasn't been led should increase the % of the ♠K being wrong, ut of course this is impossible to calculate.

Anyway with this opponents this seems completelly wrong

[FrancesHinden]

Jlall, on Mar 4 2008, 02:59 PM, said:

It will be percentage to play for the squeeze since LHO started with 4 spades to RHO's 3 (you must assume the diamond is on your left else you are down).

Yes, it will (just) be percentage, but you won't know for certain it is working.

[pclayton]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 4 2008, 07:22 AM, said:

Jlall, on Mar 4 2008, 02:59 PM, said:

It will be percentage to play for the squeeze since LHO started with 4 spades to RHO's 3 (you must assume the diamond is on your left else you are down).

Yes, it will (just) be percentage, but you won't know for certain it is working.

If I owned a casino I'd love to be getting a 57:43 spread on a game.

[dkenward]

Could you not find a route to 7♣ ? I guess locating the ♥T is a bit tricky

[nige1]

[Simplicity]

I should say playing for the sqeeuze would look a little btter than 4:3 when LHO has already pitched the ♠JT8, is known to hold one more and didn't lead one

[pclayton]

Simplicity, on Mar 5 2008, 08:08 AM, said:

I should say playing for the sqeeuze would look a little btter than 4:3 when LHO has already pitched the ♠JT8, is known to hold one more and didn't lead one

Remember that when you hold J-T-8-7 as a defender.