[lamford]

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The Junior Camrose. West leads the queen of spades, and East encourages. West continues spades and East plays the king and ace while West follows low. You ruff high, while West discards a club Over to you.

[pescetom]

Off to play a tournament and no time to think it through, but I imagine that if we run all the hearts and lose a diamond East will now be in trouble if he held the high clubs plus the remaining spades.

[Cyberyeti]

pescetom, on 2024-February-19, 13:36, said:

Off to play a tournament and no time to think it through, but I imagine that if we run all the hearts and lose a diamond East will now be in trouble if he held the high clubs plus the remaining spades.

From the title guard of honour, it's a guard squeeze so you are squeezing him down to a stiff diamond honour.

The problem is that E has ♠AKJ and if he has the ♣K and a diamond honour, he's not passing.

[mikeh]

Too busy to take the time to think deeply, but my immediate reaction is that west has the club King and one but not both diamond cards. Qx is a dangerous lead on the auction, compared to QJx(x)(x).

This complicates matters but all’s well if we decide that east has only 2 diamonds. That’s as far as I got on a quick look.

[mikeh]

Well, nobody has added to the thread and I’ve had a couple of minutes to look at this again.

I suspect that the contract is ‘cold’, in that the defence has no chance if….and this is a big ‘if’….we can accurately read west’s shape.

We cross in trump, ruff a spade high. I’m assuming for now that trump aren’t 4-0 but only to save some typing.

Run the trump

The position just before we play dummy’s last trump is void K A63 97 opposite void void K109 AQ3. On our last trump we throw the club 3.

West, marked with the club King, has to come down to Kx in that suit. If he started with 5 diamonds, he’s done like dinner…if we read the situation.

If we think he’s kept Hxx Kx (or HHx Kx) minors, we play three rounds of diamonds and he’s endplayed.

If we think he’s kept only 2 diamonds….well, if he started with 5 then we can simply cash three diamonds.

What if decide west only had three or four diamonds? Now if we decide he’s come down to 3=2 minors, we play A and a club. Trying to throw him in in diamonds can be foiled….west can unblock the queen on the second round (if he has it) and east can win, unless west has both Q and J, which I doubt due to the opening lead choice. So AQ of clubs if we think he’s come down to Kx. Then we play for split diamond honours.

The problem is that I don’t see how we can ever be sure about the position.

Btw, I think east made a natural but extremely lazy play at trick three. Given dummy’s trump, the third round of spades was an error. I can’t construct a hand (admittedly I didn’t spend much time on this) where a club shift ever costs and it’s obvious that it could gain.

I’ve a feeling I’ve missed something (not about the misdefence). But I’ve spent much more time typing than analyzing and I’m done for at least now.

[shyams]

Cyberyeti, on 2024-February-19, 13:48, said:

From the title guard of honour, it's a guard squeeze so you are squeezing him down to a stiff diamond honour.

The problem is that E has ♠AKJ and if he has the ♣K and a diamond honour, he's not passing.

The players are Juniors. I am guessing that a junior does not pass with ♠AKJ ♦QJ even missing the ♣K

[Cyberyeti]

shyams, on 2024-February-19, 20:59, said:

The players are Juniors. I am guessing that a junior does not pass with ♠AKJ ♦QJ even missing the ♣K

Junior opened 2♠ or 1♠ on virtually any hand with ♠AKJxx the exception would be where he has say ♦ Q but not J and felt he was too good for a 5 card 2♠ and not quite good enough for 1

[Lovera]

Yes, it's nice because you have to manage and the squeeze works in a combined planning.

[lamford]

Lovera, on 2024-February-20, 08:30, said:

Yes, it's nice because you have to manage and the squeeze works in a combined planning.

Yes the king of clubs is wrong, and ruffing a spade in hand before running the trumps does squeeze East who has Qxx in diamonds and the king of clubs. You pitch a club from dummy of course.

[Lovera]

lamford, on 2024-February-23, 08:16, said:

Yes the king of clubs is wrong, and ruffing a spade in hand before running the trumps does squeeze East who has Qxx in diamonds and the king of clubs. You pitch a club from dummy of course.

The only one that works.

[mikeh]

lamford, on 2024-February-23, 08:16, said:

Yes the king of clubs is wrong, and ruffing a spade in hand before running the trumps does squeeze East who has Qxx in diamonds and the king of clubs. You pitch a club from dummy of course.

I think you mistyped. Presumably west has the club king, and he’s the one being squeezed. One still needs to guess the position. If east has Jxx in diamonds, west can come down to Qx Kxx in the minors. But he can only do that if east started with at least three diamonds and kept at least Jxx in the end position. Declarer can still make it…diamond to the ace and duck a diamond into west….but good luck reading that position if the opps card well.

I hate going down on these kinds of hands since, as I noted earlier, the hand is ‘cold’ double dummy and we’re going to be within one spot card of playing double dummy from trick three onwards.

[Lovera]

I also believe that W has the King of Clubs. But when I said combined play I meant the "dummy reversal" and then the squeeze on E. Everything is fine if E has QJ on Diamond suit because we would end up having the last winning trick in Diamonds after playing A and K. But if instead the honors in Diamonds are divided here too we have a combined game - technically this endgame would be called "game of forcing a two-way grip[=throw in/elimination play], preceded by a squeeze" (from the beautiful book by A. Giannuzzi Elimination and Hits in the Bridge) which I hadn't thought of. It would then be convenient to also keep A and Q of Clubs in S because with the taking of W there would be an obligatory return to Clubs. I think it is more useful to show the four hands.

[lamford]

 Lovera, on 2024-February-26, 02:19, said:

I also believe that W has the King of Clubs. But when I said combined play I meant the "dummy reversal" and then the squeeze on E. Everything is fine if E has QJ on Diamond suit because we would end up having the last winning trick in Diamonds after playing A and K. But if instead the honors in Diamonds are divided here too we have a combined game - technically this endgame would be called "game of forcing a two-way grip[=throw in/elimination play], preceded by a squeeze" (from the beautiful book by A. Giannuzzi Elimination and Hits in the Bridge) which I hadn't thought of. It would then be convenient to also keep A and Q of Clubs in S because with the taking of W there would be an obligatory return to Clubs. I think it is more useful to show the four hands.

Yes East had AKJxx xx Jxx Jxx.