Hi,
Terrence Reese once said that squeezes are a different from many aspects of bridge in that a player would only pick it up very slowly unless he is taught. That's true, but there can be some parts of squeeze play that make sense without a lot of technical phrasing, hence this post. Feedback is welcome.
It's always a good idea to count absolutely sure tricks. You can look at your hand and say "I don't care how the cards are located, there are, let's say, 11 tricks that are certain to cash. Maybe you need, or at least you would like, 12. While you are taking your 11 tricks, the opponents have to discard. On the first few tricks, this might be easy.It will get tougher by the time you get to taking your 10th or 11th trick. If they have not yet won any tricks, then after 10 tricks each opponent has to come down to three cards. But if they have already won a trick themselves, then after you take ten winners, that's 11 cards played, they will have to come down to two cards and it just makes sense that this might be a tougher choice than if they had to come down to three cards. And then when you lead the 11th winner it might get very tough. Ducking an early trick to force them to take a winner is called "rectifying the count" but it is simply a way of making discarding tough for them. This sometimes pays off even if there is no actual squeeze, the opponents might just make the wrong choice.
When a squeeze is present, then your opponent has no right choice. I will illustrate with a simple hand that I played in a recent DARE, and perhaps add in some more complicated examples later. Not everyone succeeded with this hand, so it seems reasonable to start with it.
http://tinyurl.com/y5m5xqupThe opening lead was the
J, and then a
continuation that I ruffed. So let's count winners: six tricks in diamonds, three in spades, two in clubs. That's 11. Someone is holding 3+ clubs and if he holds onto them, you won't make this hand. Why would he pitch a
? Maybe he makes a mistake, but also maybe he has the
K and has no choice. Play off all of the
and then the three
ending on the board.Everyone is down to 3 cards. If the guy with the
K was also dealt three
, as he was, what is he to do? If he discards the
K, your Q is good, if he holds on to the
Q then, since he is down to 3 cards, he has to have discarded a
. Cash the clubs.
You don't need to think about much here. You just think: I will cash all of my winners ending on the board, the guy with the !K will have to toss something else, and after that I will see if the clubs run. in a true squeeze the !c will have to run because the opponent had no good choice.
Now the lead of the
J was stipulate, but the
continuation was not. And in one case there was a
switch at T2:
So same hand, same lead of the
J, but then a switch to the
J.
This makes it tougher, but with some thought you will still land on your feet. You still have exactly 11 sure tricks, you still need a !c trick to get to 12, you still plan to end on the board after you cash the
and
. So win the !c switch on the board, this is the key play, and cash winners, ending on the board. Now, because of the !c switch, everyone comes down to 2 cards. The guy with the
K still has to hold on to it, so he still has to toss a
, and then the
still run. The only complication is that you did have to win on the board at T2. Of course you had to, since you want to keep the
Q in dummy, you don't want to clutter up the dummy with also holding on to the
K. So play it at T2, then there is room.
Clyde Love had an acronym, BLUE, and I will explain it. Others have other ways of phrasing it. This can be useful in tough cases, but I think it is useful to also just think it through without any theory or acronyms .
So what's BLUE and how does it apply here?
Busy in two suits: On this hand, W is "busy" in
and
.
Loser: After the first
wins, there are 12 tricks to go and we can win all but one of them. The count is rectified.
Upper hand: W is the victim, N is the upper hand wrt W, and one of the
in the N hand is the source of problems for W.
Entry: After W tosses a
, we have to be able to cash the
. Or, if W tosses the
K, we have to be able to "get to" the Q. We solve that problem by ending on the board.
This can be useful, but I have always thought it best to start by avoiding a lot of jargon. This hand is very simple, you have 11 tricks, you need a 12th, there is no way to get a 12th unless the guy with long clubs pitches clubs, and why would he do that? The reasons can be that he makes a mistake or else that he has the
K and so he has to pitch a
, so you go from there.
Squeezes do get more complicated, BLUE can be useful, and they can get more complicated so yet more is needed, but I think starting without the terminology, instead trying to just see how it works, is a good idea.
