Playing SAYC, sitting South (hands rotated) you open 2C and LHO bids 2S. You end up in 6C and dummy tables:
LHO leads a top spade and shifts to a trump. You can count 11 tricks off the top. The two best options available to you for the twelfth trick are:
Double Squeeze #1:
If east alone holds the diamond guard, you can run trumps (pitching a spade, a diamond and two hearts), cash DA and DK arriving at this position with the lead in dummy:
West has to hang on to the high spade, and east has to hang on to a diamond honour, so neither can hold three hearts. Cash the AK of hearts and watch the lowly 3 of hearts fetch your twelfth trick.Double Squeeze #2:
If east holds a five card or longer heart suit, you can pull trumps, cash the ace of diamonds and the top two hearts, and run the trumps (pitching a spade, a diamond and a heart) arriving at this position on the play of the last trump:
West has to hang on to his top spade, so you pitch the SQ. Watch for east's discard. I hope you have been counting the hearts, for either the H3 has to cash, else east still has a heart. In that case, you can cross to the DK and the small diamond has to win.Which double squeeze to choose? You have seven cards outstanding in either red suit, but the presence of good intermediates in diamonds makes Squeeze #1 look more attractive; it will work when east holds any five card or longer diamond, as well as QJx or QJxx.
If west had shifted to a heart at trick 2, though, you can only play for Squeeze #2.
In reality the actual layout was quite boring. East turned up with BOTH a five card heart suit AND QJxx in diamonds, so not only did either squeeze work, even a simple automatic squeeze on diamonds and hearts is enough to secure the slam.
Worse still, at our table, Guthi settled for a conservative 3NT, so his squeeze skills were not tested; I became declarer and after the opponents cashed their top two spades I claimed. How boring.
Cheers
Prashanth.
2 comments:
Referring to the first possibility, the one-card menaces are slightly wrong. You need one sitting over each defender; here they're in the same hand. The reason the squeeze works is that the third suit has a "recessed menace", meaning two winners + one loser, opposite a singleton for entry.
I am not convinced that the stated line is the best. If either red suit is breaking 5-2 or worse, the suit is length-controlled (let's say), meaning that the partner of the defender guarding the suit is void, as opposed to holding a card lower-ranking than the menace. The probability of finding either red suit length-controlled is the same (and it's nearly certain that East controls it). However, if diamonds are "honour"-controlled, I think it more likely that West controls them (since he bid).
By taking the first line, you give yourself the quantum of chance of length-controlledness in one suit (diamonds) plus the chance that East honour-controls diamonds. In the second one, one quantum of chance corresponding to 5-2 hearts plus the chance that West honour-controls diamonds. So #2 is superior, I think.
I don't think the presence or absence of diamond honours would affect the 2S bid holding AKJxxx of spades, and the spade length is indicative of likely shortness in the other suits. So I still think Squeeze #1 is slightly better... but you are right, Squeeze #2 works both when hearts are 5-2 and as a simple positional squeeze against west when he has both diamond honours.
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