[EricK]

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South to play needs 5 more tricks and cashes the ♣A. If East discards a ♥ declarer makes 3 ♥ tricks, if he discards a ♦, A and another ♦ sets up a ♦ trick without letting East in, and if he discards a ♠, A and another ♦ throws him in to lead away from the ♥Q.

I've not seen anything quite like it before. Does it have a name?

Eric

[TheoKole]

I think it is called a "Strip Squeeze".

Cheers,
Theo

[GaryFisch]

Yes, but a strip squeeze in 3 suits, with a different wrinkle on each choice of discards as to why it loses. That is truly amazing, and brutal!!!

I say, whoever declared this should submit it for publication. Of course, I don't know the rest of the deal.

[Echognome]

EricK, on Aug 27 2005, 03:58 PM, said:

...and if he discards a ♠, A and another ♦ throws him in to lead away from the ♥Q.

What does declarer do when East discards a spade and unblocks the ♦K under the Ace?

[han]

Matt, declarer just plays another diamond.

[Winstonm]

It is similar to a guard squeeze in that East much retain the Kx of diamonds to prevent a diamond trick by force. It's basically a triple strip squeeze as it forces a winner to be discarded in order to guard both hearts and diamonds.

This position is also interesting:

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Playing a NT contract and needing 6 more tricks: The Ace of clubs and a diamond pitch from dummy cacthces East in a true strip-guard squeeze.

[kfgauss]

Quite a pretty hand. There might be a better term/description, but this seems to be what happens when you combine a three suit (vulnerable stopper) strip squeeze with a winkle.

"Vulnerable stopper" is just a fancy name for the heart setup here: East has a heart stopper, but it goes away if it's led from (hence "vulnerable").

A winkle would be the following setup: (I've cashed the DA and altered the hand somewhat, including swapping E/W)

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South cashes the CA, tossing H2 from dummy. West is squeezed: a heart obviously fails, a low diamond allows an endplay, and tossing the DK allows declarer to setup the DJ in dummy.

This combined name "three suit (vulnerable stopper) strip squeeze winkle" (which is a bit odd, because a winkle really already is a weird form of a strip squeeze itself) isn't quite a perfect description, though, as (after we've cashed DA) East has "already" come down to the stiff DK or stiff Dx (East gets to choose which) and has no chance to keep DKx, but it still seems to be appropriate, especially given the fact that East still has this sort of choice. Adding CK to south and a low diamond to East (and cashing the DA) might fit the above terminology very slightly better.

Andy

[luis]

Why don't you ask him his name?

[kfgauss]

kfgauss, on Aug 27 2005, 05:43 PM, said:

[snip] Adding CK to south and a low diamond to East (and cashing the DA) might fit the above terminology very slightly better.

Oops. Then I don't have a squeeze -- East just tosses both spades and I have to lose 3 tricks. That just means my terminology can only apply to the actual squeeze .

As for the jokes which hint at the view that terminology is silly nonsense, I agree except that terminology helps with memory and with thinking about squeezes in a structured way (but surely you agree and were just having fun).

Andy

[Echognome]

Hannie, on Aug 27 2005, 06:10 PM, said:

Matt, declarer just plays another diamond.

Yes. Missed the whole guard aspect of a 2nd diamond at silly o'clock in the morning.

[EricK]

GaryFisch, on Aug 27 2005, 04:29 PM, said:

Yes, but a strip squeeze in 3 suits, with a different wrinkle on each choice of discards as to why it loses. That is truly amazing, and brutal!!!

I say, whoever declared this should submit it for publication. Of course, I don't know the rest of the deal.

Well, it was I who played it - although to be honest, I didn't really know what I was doing!

The full hand was something like:

Bidding went 1NT 3NT
East led ♠K

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I took third round of ♠ (discarding ♦) and ran 4 club tricks. In the end position East threw a ♥ after a bit of thought. When I cashed a top ♥ and the T fell, I guessed what had happened, but I can't honestly say I had a clear picture of the distribution when I cashed the 4th ♣!

But this hand adds a bit more confirmation to the adage "Good things can happen if you run a long suit".

Eric

[inquiry]

This is multi-loser squeeze (more than two). The squeeze that works in this situation is a delayed duck (aka vunerable stopper squeeze). This is not a classical strip squeeze, because you are not squeezing exit cards out of EAST. He has no safe exit cards. You are squeezing out his quard in diamonds, which protects his partner from a delayed duck in diamonds (lead Diamond x, entry !HA or high diamond).

So it is a triple squeeze, where one of the triple squeeze threats is a guard to protect his partner against the delayed duck. Add to it, the complication of a vulnerable stopper (the heart queen). So the club squeezes out an excess winner, and then a diamond to the ace squeezes east in usual way.. keep diamond king, the vulnerable stopper squeeze works, unblock the king of diamonds, then the delayed duck on his partner works.

So to give it a name, a guess it we could name extended 3 loser vulnerable stopper/delayed duck squeeze or something like that.

Note; while a delayed duck squeeze works with any number of losers, a strip squeeze has to have exactly two losers. Here, the strip squeeze would not work if diamonds were differen.. East could safely discard a diamond. It is the added complication that the diamond discard exposes his partner to the delayed duck which makes this squeeze work with three losers instead of the standard, two losers.

Once you study strip squeezes, and realize the importance of the two loser rule, you will be able to identify ones like this... since the strip squeeze can't work with three losers, the remedy (if available) is to make the third suit play a role in the squeeze threat. Generally this is the form of a guard squeeze, in third suit, but here, teh delayed duck threat works just as well.