Extra Point

In football, it’s good to score a touchdown, but you also want the extra point. In bridge, when you’re headed for a good score, you still want to see if you can get an even better score. Especially at matchpoints.

We are playing in the open pairs at a regional tournament. The vulnerability is favorable and I pick up:

A96 / KQ / Q6 / Q87432

I am the dealer and I open 1. Partner bids 2, which I alert. That's an “inverted minor raise” – it shows 10 or more points, club support, and no four-card major. Now we need to see if we can play 3NT. I bid 2, which shows a spade stopper and more than a minimum opening. Partner responds 3 to show a diamond stopper. Now I can bid 3NT, but I’m a little worried about hearts – KQ doubleton is not the best holding if they start with a heart lead. But wait! East doubles 3. That’s good – now West will probably lead a diamond, which will help with the tempo and might establish the Q. So I bid 3NT with pretty fair confidence.

West leads a diamond as expected (the seven), and partner goes down with:

	K J 7 J 3 A 10 9 8 A K J 6

	A 9 6 K Q Q 6 Q 8 7 4 3 2


W	N	E	S
			1
P	2	P	2
P	3	X	3NT
AP

Excellent. On this lead I will make at least eleven tricks: six clubs, two spades, two diamonds, and a heart. A heart lead would have held me to ten, so I’m already ahead.

I play low from dummy, and East wins the K and returns the 2. I put up the K, which holds. So East probably has the A, unless West is ducking for some reason.

Now I could just cash my eleven tricks, but this is the moment to see if there is a play for twelve. Obviously I could finesse in spades, but I can’t afford to lose a trick now that I have no heart stopper left. I could play my winners in diamonds and clubs and see if that helps me count the hand. If the count is sufficiently lopsided perhaps I’ll take the finesse.

And wait a minute – there’s also a possible squeeze. Let's check the key elements:

I have all the remaining tricks but one.
I have the possibility of an extra trick in two suits – hearts and spades. I have a one-card threat in hearts (the J or Q) and a long threat in spades (the defender with the Q needs to guard it with two other spades, or I can drop it and score my J).
"The squeeze card is opposite the long threat" – that's my mantra for the simpler squeezes. Here, I’ll squeeze the opponents by playing the clubs in my hand, and the long threat is in dummy’s spades.

And indeed, since the heart threat can be the Q in my hand (the same hand as the squeeze card), the squeeze will be “automatic” – that is, it can work against either opponent. If I play off my eight winners in the minor suits, neither opponent will be able to keep the A and three spades to the Queen. And even if there’s no squeeze, I’ll count the suits carefully and see if I learn anything about the spade layout.

So I cash my Q, cross to the A, cash the A (throwing a spade from my hand), and run off the clubs. These are the last four cards:

K J 7

–

A 9

–

When I lead the 7 and throw the J from dummy, East thinks for a while and finally discards the A! That allows me to claim the last three tricks with the Q and the AK.

East was squeezed. He was down to Q84 A. If he threw a spade instead I could have dropped his Q with my AK and made the last three tricks in spades. The spade finesse, on the other hand, would not have worked.

+490 was worth 22 out of 23 matchpoints. +460 would have been worth 16.5, so the extra trick gained five and a half.

The full deal was:

	K J 7 J 3 A 10 9 8 A K J 6
10 5 2 10 9 7 6 5 7 4 3 10 9		Q 8 4 3 A 8 4 2 K J 5 2 5
	A 9 6 K Q Q 6 Q 8 7 4 3 2

P.S.: East, who is a very good player, presumably threw the A hoping for his partner to have the Q. But as it happened, if he had instead thrown the 4 as though he didn’t have a care in the world, it's just possible that I would have cashed the A and finessed the J into his bare Queen, allowing him to take not only that card but the A as well. That’s something to remember when you’re on the defending side of a squeeze – it may be better to bare your guard in the long suit than to throw your guard against declarer’s one-card threat. But be sure to do it nonchalantly!

[Bethesda Regional, Open Pairs, 7-7-2012]