Squeezing the Dummy

Squeeze plays are fun.

But why should declarers have all the fun?

I have read about defenders squeezing the dummy (easier to do than squeezing the declarer, as you can see all the cards!), for example this NYTimes article and this post by the Korbels. But for once, I was in the middle of it. Well, nearly all the current readers of this blog were, but I'm putting this up for posterity's sake anyway :)


After a modern preempt by Prajwal and a balancing double by Guthi, we ended up defending 3CX and I led a low heart. Guthi won and shifted to a trump. Prajwal inserted the jack, I won and returned my lone spade.

Prajwal read me for a three carder spade and hoped to pull trumps and cash the (hypothetical) thirteenth spade in his hand, so he won and played two rounds of trumps, leaving me with the master trump and then exited with a spade. Guthi won as I signaled a diamond, and as he cashed two more spades I sat back and waited for the diamond through for -3.

But wait! Guthi played his fifth spade instead of the diamond, landing me in trouble. If I overruffed this one, I would be endplayed for sure at this position:

I would have a choice of underleading the HK or the DK, both options leading to the loss of a trick. So, with the instinct of seeing a punch being aimed at my face, I ducked and threw a heart. Dummy naturally threw a heart as well.

Now Prajwal led a trump to endplay me but ran into a little snag: what could he discard from dummy? If he threw a heart, I could safely exit with my HK. If he threw a diamond, I could exit with a low diamond. Dummy was squeezed!

He saw it an instant before I did, and drew the unhappy face in the chat window to collect -3.

Cheers!
SP.

P.S. Read the two squeezing-the-dummy articles I linked above, they are quite entertaining!

Think Ahead!

I was playing a team match on BBO when the following hand came up:

2D: Strange idea of a vulnerable weak 2, even for a 3rd hand opening
3H: Transfer
4S: I expect partner to have some points on this bidding, and I have a great hand in support of spades.

A club lead and a club continuation on winning the spade ace easily beats the contract, but the lead at my table was the spade ace followed by the spade jack.

What you should be thinking as declarer:
We appear to be a trick short. The only hope seems to be to eliminate the diamonds and throw an opp in with the third heart, hoping that whoever wins has to underlead the CA or give a ruff-sluff.

What you should be thinking as defender:
If I win the third heart I am going to be endplayed... unblock! unblock!

Declarer has to make it as hard as possible for the defender to find the unblock. When playing the hearts, play low to the Ace first and then low to the King. Since defender doesn't know what's in the closed hand, it may not occur to him to play second hand high to unblock. It's all too easy for him to figure it out if you play King then Ace of hearts.

Is that all? No, there is something else you can do. Play the top hearts first (in the mentioned order) before eliminating the diamonds! Not so easy for the defender to see what's coming at trick 4 itself. A decent defender will think 2-3 tricks in advance, but it takes a pretty good defender to think several tricks ahead.

For the record, I eliminated the diamonds, cashed Ace then King of hearts and the defender forgot to unblock his HQ. Game made. Funnily enough, game was made at the other table as well, with a similar lack of unblock (on a different auction and a diamond lead). Both guilty defenders called themselves experts.

Cheers,
SP.

The best claim I've heard of

I was reading Terence Reese's book Play these hands with me, and I highly recommend it. The book helps you to get inside an expert declarer's head and think the way he does. This makes all the difference between simply reading about expert plays and figuring out all 52 cards in order to make those plays correctly.

The following hand had me smiling and shaking my head for a full minute after I read it.
The contract is 7NT and the 10 of diamonds is led. Reese won in dummy and led a club to his ace and east showed out. At this point Reese claimed all.

Can you figure out the line?

Here is his explanation: first test the spades by cashing AKQ.

If the spades break 3-3, then the marked club finesse provides the thirteenth trick.

If west has the long spades, then cash all the red suit winners, squeezing him in the black suits for the thirteenth trick.

If east has the long spades, then cash the king of clubs and the diamond winners, arriving at this position:
At this point, west has to hang on to three clubs so he can have at most one heart. Now pitch the club, take the club finesse and cash the CQ, squeezing east in the majors.

From reading Kelsey I can put a name to this squeeze: it is a positional double squeeze in the inverted form (yeah yeah I know all the theory :P).

Quite a claim! It would probably have been faster to just play the hand. But you must admit it makes for a highly entertaining read.

Cheers,
SP.

Junior teams for Beijing announced

The U-26 and U-28 teams for the World Mind Games at Beijing later this year have been announced.

U-28: Aniket, Sapan, Prashanth, Guthi, Sandip, Pravin. 7th man: Prasenjit.

U-26: Anurag, Ayan, Dashu, Rishabh, Vinoth, Karan.

The U-28 team looks in decent shape; although we have only two world-class players in Sapan and Aniket, there are three pairs, not six players, which is good. Compare that to the U-26 team in which apart from Ayan and Dashu, nobody has played with anyone else. Add to that the fact that Karan is fourteen years old and needs plenty of training.

The Bridge Federation of India, though, has reason to be concerned about the teams given the quality (or rather, the lack of it) of play at the trials. None of us played to our potential; we are all far better players than how it must have appeared that weekend. The defense in particular looked very shoddy, even from the relatively better players.

Consider the following two deals from a set Guthi and I played against Aniket and Sandip. Keep in mind that all of us are supposed to be among the top six junior players in India.

(I don't remember the exact bidding or spots, but they are not relevant to the moral of the story)

I started with three top spades, Guthi pitching the D6 and the C2 in that order. We were playing upside down carding with odd/even first discard, so this sequence discourages diamonds and encourages clubs. Obediently I shifted to a club.

Declarer won with the ace, cashed DA and ran trumps. Placing partner with Qxxx of clubs and declarer with DQ, I discarded all my clubs, hanging on to a top spade (over the 9 in dummy) and a top diamond (over the imagined Q in hand). Declarer now made all his clubs for the contract. Note that even if I had read the diamond position correctly, I was caught in a positional spade-club squeeze and there was no defense.

The organizers and I were both quick to criticize Guthi, but it was Aniket who pointed out that I could have solved all problems by leading a fourth spade and killing the menace in dummy. Now no true squeeze can develop, and by the time I come down to JT9 of clubs and K of diamonds partner would have found a way to undo his mistake and make the position clear to me (by pitching the queen of clubs or queen of diamonds or both).

On the following hand I was declarer and the misdefense was from them. (Hands rotated, EW hands approximate)


Needing little more than a spade honour from partner, I bid the vulnerable game but dummy came up with all the wrong honours. West led the D8 and I won with dummy's queen. Hoping that east will have a stiff spade honour, I led a trump but east played low and west won. Now a return through any of dummy's honours will ensure an immediate one-trick set but Aniket returned a trump, doubtless to prevent diamond ruffs. This works, too, as if I ruff a diamond with the third trump in dummy I will be stuck in the wrong hand. Sandip won with SK and returned the DT. I won, and with nothing better to do, ran the trumps and willed east to discard a diamond. Sandip obliged and I ran all the trumps and diamonds to catch him in a strip-squeeze.

Dummy: - / K 9 / - / Q 8
Declarer: - / 3 / 7 / A 5

The D7 is led and the H9 pitched. What does Sandip do on this trick? If he bares his ace of hearts, I can throw him in with the heart and force him to lead away from his CK. If he bares his CK, I can cash two club tricks. His hesitation on this trick was telling, and when he pitched a club I cashed the ace of clubs dropping his king.

I am not sure if Aniket's trump return was a mistake, but Sandip definitely made two errors. He must not pitch any diamonds (they lead low from three small cards in a suit bid by partner so he had the count) on the run of the trumps. Having made the mistake of pitching a diamond, he can see the strip-squeeze coming and must do his thinking early, baring the king of clubs well before the ninth trick. Since I can't be sure of the count in clubs and hearts I may play to throw him in with the ace of hearts.

Hopefully we will all get into shape before Beijing. The World Mind Games begin on October 3rd.

Cheers,
SP.

Put On Your Simulation Specs

It's your call after your partner bid 2NT (20–21 HCP) as dealer and your RHO passed. What do you do with ♠ 98 ♥ T6 ♦ AT962 ♣ 8743? (That was the Level 1 bidding question on BridgeClues on 14 June.)

Let's say your choices are limited to raising to 3NT and passing. What is the expectation gain (in IMPs) for bidding 3NT over passing, assuming whatever you do will end the auction? Estimate the two numbers, one for each vulnerability, before seeing the answer in the next paragraph. Let me make the question precise now. Your agreement is to open 2NT if and only if the hand has 20 or 21 high-card points, is balanced, and has no 5-card major. Play, starting with the opening lead, should be assumed to be double-dummy perfect. Put on your simulation specs and guess two numbers.

When vulnerable, bidding 3NT is two point two six IMPs better than passing, and when not vulnerable, bidding 3NT is zero point eight five better than passing. Now a different question. How useful are the diamond intermediates? What're the two numbers if you change ♦ T9 to ♦ 87?

When vulnerable, 3NT is zero point six nine better than passing; not vulnerable, 3NT is zero point two worse than passing (figures based on 500 random hands). Drastic change, don't you think?