Squeeze and Pseudo-Squeeze

If you genuinely squeeze one defender while subjecting the other to a pseudo-squeeze that shouldn't fool anybody, do you still credit for a squeeze if the second defender lets the contract slip through? Absolutely!

My partner and I are having a bad session in which we made so many mistakes in the first half that we've set ourselves the goal of just climbing back up to average. The second half is going much better, and on the very last board I pick up:

64 / K852 / A96 / KQ94

I open 1 and West doubles. Partner redoubles, which according to our old-fashioned methods shows 10 or more points but does not deny a fit in clubs. After some thought East bids 2. I pass so that partner can have the opportunity to double for penalties, although that seems unlikely to happen. North passes as well, and after a long pause partner comes out with a somewhat unexpected 5. That's rarely the best contract at matchpoints, but I don't have any extras and my small doubleton in spades makes me wary of going to slam. So after East passes I pass as well. So does West, making 5 the final contract.

West leads the J and remarking that if he knew how to bid he would surely have done something else, my partner puts down:

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

W	N	E	S
			1
X	XX	2	P
P	5	AP

It's certainly good that I didn't continue to slam as it looks like we are one too high as it is, with a sure loser in trumps and spades and a third-round loser in hearts that I have no obvious way to get rid of. I win the opening lead in dummy and lead a trump to my King. East shows out and West wins the A. West takes his A and then leads the 9. I capture East's Queen with my King.

Now what? The 10, presumably in West's hand, is established, and I have no way to get rid of my hearts in either hand. Can I get an 11th trick via a squeeze? I don't see how. I can run all the trumps, but a positional squeeze against East seems unlikely to work given West's take-out double. And, I somewhat fuzzily think, the heart threat is in my hand, so there is no squeeze on West as he will discard after me.

So I don't see how this can work, but it can't hurt to try. I draw the last trump, ruff my remaining spade, and start to run the trumps. On the first trump led from dummy East and West both discard diamonds, then on the next East discards a spade and West a heart. That means there is only one heart left out. The good thing about that is that I don't have to count anything. I can just keep an eye out for that heart, and if it gets discarded my remaining heart is established, and if not I'll try the diamonds. They might be established and they might not, but I won't really need to know.

I run the trumps. Just before the last one, I am down to:

	– 7 K 10 6
	– 8 A 9 6 –

It suddenly occurs to me that I do have a chance of squeezing West. I had pictured the heart threat as being in my hand, because that's where I had more hearts, but now I realize that dummy's 7 is sufficent to serve as the heart threat by itself. I don't need to keep a heart in my hand at all. So the squeeze is automatic, not just positional.

I lead the last trump from dummy and discard the 8. I am pleased to see both defenders discard diamonds on this trick. The remaining heart has not appeared, so I play out the King and Ace of diamonds and sure enough, both defenders play diamond honors at trick twelve. My 9 wins the last trick.

West was genuinely squeezed -- he couldn't keep his 10 and three diamonds. East, however, made an error. Not wanting to discard the K, which she still had, East let go one too many diamonds. One might charitably say that she was pseudo-squeezed, but really, East should have known that I had no spades left. Her partner's take-out double implied at least three spades, and besides, he discarded one somewhere on the run of the clubs. East just lost count.

But sometimes defenders lose count! As declarer, you get credit if you create a situation that allows the defenders to err. And the squeeze against West was a real squeeze. Once again, we see that executing a squeeze is not that hard if you can just overcome your reluctance to cash the last trump.

We get 10.5 matchpoints out of 11. Most declarers were down one in 5, sometimes doubled. Only one other declarer made it.

To our great surprise, not only have we climbed back up to average, but we finish tied for third with 57%! It turns out that the first half wasn't as bad as we thought and we really stormed through the second half. So when things seem to be going badly, don't give up.

The full deal was:

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

[WBL Unit Game, open pairs, 5-10-2018]