[inquiry]

Scoring: Chicago

In a modest money game, you respond to partner's 1♣ opening bid with a natural 2NT (11-12). Partner then places the contract, leans back, and tells you to make him some money.

Bidding
1♣-P-2NT-P
6NT-All Pass

The opening lead: ♠Q, east tanks, then plays the encouraging ♠7.

You win the ♠K of course. HINT Hearts are not 3-3, obviously.

What do you play for in this position?

---

[pooltuna]

looks like you come down to
9
KQ53
K4
-

-
A76
AT86
-

and hope you manage to squeeze RHO out of all his black cards and can read the situation

[inquiry]

pooltuna, on Sep 7 2010, 10:11 AM, said:

looks like you come down to
9
KQ53
K4
-

-
A76
AT86
-

and hope you manage to squeeze RHO out of all his black cards and can read the situation

In your seven card ending, you have two losers (you only had 11 winners since for ever). You have imagined an endling that I think Clyde Love would call a "CLE" squeenze (companion, lead, entry). David Stevenson once called thse "CLEM" squeeze, because the entry had to be the "master" in the suit.

1) which hand are you in now (I assume north after running Clubs)
2) So you have EAST at 4♥ and 3♦? If he is long in HEARTS, his only need to keep three diamonds is if WEST had a doubleton diamond or he had QJx of diamonds to start with.

A typical ending might be...

Now you just play 3 rounds of diamonds and win the forced ♥ return and claim.

Here the run of clubs squeezed the spade from EAST and you companion was south's fourth diamond, your lead was South's 3rd diamond, and your entry is the heart ACE. A CLE type squeeze is hard to see... so well done, BUT... this is not the solution, at least, not the correct solution.

---

While your line works on your hoped for ending, a couple of things. First, you never REALLY discovered if hearts were 3-3 or not, and this would fail if it was, since they would have another winner in there somewhere.

Second, it give up on some other lines that work, which you can test for (I am not suggesting you can not play for an ending like the show one, I am saying you need to consider lines that allow you to play for multiple endings that might work).

[inquiry]

Scoring: Chicago

I guess this was only interesting to me and pooltuna.

I thought it was very interesting, maybe I should move it out of this thread. We can move along now as nothing is happening here......

---

Scoring: Chicago

I guess this was only interesting to me and pooltuna.

I thought it was very interesting, maybe I should move it out of this thread. We can move along now as nothing is happening here......

---

[Fluffy]

ok, if west has ♦QJx and ♠J10 its easy, he has to throw ♠J10 on the next 3 clubs and ♠8 is good.

But there is a better line when diamond guard is divided

[lmilne]

inquiry, on Sep 8 2010, 12:59 PM, said:

Scoring: Chicago

But before I give up on this one. This is a reasonable line. After winning the spade King, you might be unable to stop yourself from exploring hearts with Queen then ACE, if 3-3 you can claim.... East shows out, discarding a small spade. Next cash two clubs, West had a singleton club, and he discarded a small spade.

T1. SQ--->south king
T2. HK --> all follow
T3. AH --> east throws a small spade
T4. CA --> All follow
T5. CK --> West throws a small spade.

Eight card ending, six top tricks (3♣+1♥+2♦). Only WEST guards hearts, both quard spades, diamonds unclear.

---

Very cool hand!

East is unlikely to pitch his last small spade (which would let us rectify the count), so he started with at least 4 spades. Similarly, West is unlikely to have led from anything other than QJT(+), and he has pitched a small spade, so he has least 4 spades. Thus spades are 4-4.

So, we can play almost double dummy now:

---

Diamonds are 4-3 (4 with East), the only thing we don't know is where the Q/J are.

Say they are divided, we play off two rounds of clubs. East follows, we follow once and pitch our heart, West pitches a heart then a diamond.

The interesting thing is West can't pitch a spade, otherwise we can rectify the count (spades are blocked)!

In the 6-card ending, on the lead of the last club, East can't pitch a small spade either (same reason) and if he pitches the ace then West is squeezed without the count out of either his second spade guard, his heart guard or his small diamond (which lets us pick up the diamonds, he is down to bare honour). So East pitches a small diamond. So do we.

Now West is squeezed without the count as before. Assume he pitches a spade (the only "non-material" pitch), now we lead a spade, West wins his bare honour, and we have simple squeeze on East regardless of West's return.

If East has both ♦QJxx, we can't make on best defence. As before, West can't pitch a spade, but he can throw small diamonds. We come down to this ending

---

and we have no recourse.

On the other hand, if West has ♦QJx, we can play two rounds of clubs as before. Now he has to keep all his diamonds and 2 hearts, so has to pitch a spade, and we can rectify the count before squeezing him automatically, or just squeeze him without the count as before.

Hope I didn't make any mistakes

[inquiry]

lmilne, on Sep 9 2010, 12:56 AM, said:

Very cool hand!

I thought so too, but nobody else seemed to find it interesting. Glad you took the time.

Your line is perfect, and works great. What actually happened at the table was away the ♠J on the last club (he was under a lot of pressure), and the spade throwin and subsequent simple squeeze (show up in diamonds in case west had QJ doubleton remainng and exited high diamond) finished the hand (in other words, doesn't matter where the ♦ honors are hidding).

Well done. I thought this was very interesting position.

[lmilne]

I wonder what it's called. Good thing you had the 8 of spades! I assume you would have passed as dealer otherwise

edit: or responded 2nt, whatever