[inquiry]

Keeping with the 6NT theme for a while, here is one that maybe could be placed in the beginner or expert category. Who knows? Explain your plan of play.

Opening lead is the ♠Queen (east as expected will follow suit regardless of which spade you play from dummy). You can click the alerts to see the meaning of the bids, yes South can't count to 22... but no problem, that was the alert. Who knows, would you upgrade this hand for all those controls to 22 hcp?

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[Fluffy]

There are 2 chances, west has 3 clubs and the reds or we have 4 diamond tricks and west is squeezed without the count.

First of all test hearts with ♥AK. If west pitches we will play him for 5521 with 2 diamond honors, so ♦A + ♦Q next and finesse back. If no diamond honnor drops play for diamonds 3-3.
If nobody discards on the AK of hearts play west for singleton diamond honor, so win ♦Q and finesse back.

If after ♦Q west hasn't drop a honor, only remaining chance is that west has some 1543 or the like. Play 3 rounds of clubs.

EDIT: seems I broke my squeeze comunication

[shyams]

This looks very hard (expert).

- I'd probably start by ducking the ♠Q.
- I'll play for West to hold both black suits and for diamonds to break kindly (either 3-3 or doubleton J10 J9 109 with West).
If all goes well, West will be squeezed in the black suits when we lead the 4th round of diamond from hand

It appears that ducking a ♣ (i.e. test for 3-3) won't work. Opps will destroy the timing of any subsequent squeeze by playing a second round of ♠.

[akwoo]

I did finally figure out that probably the only chance is to squeeze West in the blacks, and the only way to do that is to duck the first trick. (If you try to rectify the count by losing a club on a later trick, opps can kill your squeeze communication with a spade return.)

There is no way I would figure this out at the table. It must have taken me 10 minutes to actually figure it out while looking at it. At the table I would've taken the first spade and hoped the opps didn't figure to return a spade when they got in on a club.

[Vampyr]

Fluffy, on 2014-May-10, 14:46, said:

There are 2 chances, west has 3 clubs and the reds

If West has 3 clubs we don't need anything else.

[Fluffy]

This time I don't understand what you mean.

I am thinking akwoo is probably right, we cannot account for west having singleton spade queen, so we should duck the lead and aim for 4 diamond tricks directly.

[Antrax]

Fluffy, on 2014-May-11, 03:02, said:

This time I don't understand what you mean.

This is the novice line, if clubs are 3-3 then you win 4 clubs to go with your other 8 top tricks.

[Fluffy]

yes, but if clubs are 3-3 that implies west has the red suits and a stiff queen of spades. It is not another thing you need, its a causality.

[nige1]

inquiry, on 2014-May-10, 10:09, said:

Keeping with the 6NT theme for a while, here is one that maybe could be placed in the beginner or expert category. Who knows? Explain your plan of play. Opening lead is the ♠Queen (east as expected will follow suit regardless of which spade you play from dummy). You can click the alerts to see the meaning of the bids, yes South can't count to 22... but no problem, that was the alert. Who knows, would you upgrade this hand for all those controls to 22 hcp?

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Thank you for a pretty problem, Inquiry. My guess is

Spoiler

A squeeze without the count: Hope that LHO started with 4+ ♣ and ♠QJT or 5+ ♠. Win ♠A (blocking suit). Cash 7 red winners, finessing ♦ if necessary. LHO must reduce to 6 cards. Now if you think that LHO has kept:

• Fewer than 2 ♠, then cash ♠ K, ♣ A K, ♠ 9 6.
• More than 1 ♠, then play ♣ K A and another: dummy is high.

This post has been edited by nige1: 2014-May-11, 08:51

[nige1]

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When I first looked at inquiry's problem I thought it was a 2-trick squeeze without the count. For example, here, South can make 6NT on a major lead.

[inquiry]

Everyone was on the right track, and I think everyone would make this one. There are a couple ways to go on this hand that will work. The duck the first trick to "rectify the count" works if South has spades and clubs but gives up on the simple 3-3 clubs, so I wouldn't go that way

The win the spade and cash heart AK is the way I actually played it West showed out on the second round of hearts. Fluffy thought the squeeze was broken if you do this, but you have an easy solution, both of which work. The first is to duck a spade anytime before you use up the diamond entries to your hand. Or you can follow this line where you cash two top spades, and play a heart to the queen. Then use the beer card for an interesting squeeze position which is a Companion, lead, entry squeeze (CLE) we were talking about a few weeks ago. If West throws a club in this ending (click through the next to you get to the ending), you claim 13 tricks. If he discards a spade, you duck a spade to him, win the club AK and the 13trh spade at the end.

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While the CLE squeeze is cute, it could suffer if West had four spades and five clubs as East might be able to in the third round of spades, which would be very bad.... So of course you shouldn't play that way.

A better option is to win the first spade, test hearts in two rounds. When West shows up with a singleton, simply duck a spade (after testing hearts, you could then test two rounds of diamonds if West followed to both rounds of hearts). Here is how I played the hand. This leads to a routine and fairly mundane black suit squeeze on West.

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[akwoo]

I definitely put this problem in the expert category.

Barring freak exceptions who are fascinated by squeezes and are far more advanced with squeezes compared with the rest of their game, anyone who can think about a squeeze from trick 2 or 3 should be able to place high in area tournaments on a regular basis.

I would guess more than half of the new Life Masters in ACBL land can't deliberately pull off a squeeze (at least at the table) from more than 4 or 5 tricks out.

[Fluffy]

I got lost on the hand because I was always trying to finesse diamonds, and didn't know if LHO would hold stiff honnor (2 entries needed to finesse), or 2 honnors doubleton (depending on how you play it, 1 more entry perhaps). If this problem is tougher than you expect I suggest you add ♦J or 10 to south, or maybe better, remove ♦8

[rhm]

deleted

[Cyberyeti]

rhm, on 2014-May-12, 02:40, said:

Nonsense.
I am fairly proficient in squeeze technique and it does little for my results. One problem is, once you get hooked on squeeze technique, you like to show of what a clever guy you are.
The whole squeeze suggestion play is fairly rubbish.
Among others it requires diamonds to break.
If you play for diamonds to break you might as well play for clubs to break, because clubs breaking requires nothing in addition.
For example even when West shows out on the second heart, both minors could be breaking, West being 6♠-1♥-3♦-3♣.
Playing for the squeeze you are down!
This is indeed an easy hand for an intermediate player.
It is difficult for an expert, because he needs to realize that the alternate squeeze play is an inferior line.

Rainer Herrmann

If the diamonds break, the simple duck a spade and black suit squeeze is also guaranteed, W has shown both blacks if diamonds are 3-3 so 6133 is not possible. You also have a nasty decision if W follows with 2 of ♦J109, and he only has one heart.