Help
I have been posting easy problems from my hand records to get novices and beginners to think about a plan of play, essentially as a trick one issue. Now, for one somewhat more challenging. Everyone invited to try.
IMPS
VUL N-S
DEALER: SOUTH
QJ8
A93
J54
KQJT
7
KT4
AKQT9
A432
Contract = 6 Diamonds by South
Opening LEAD SPADE TEN.
The bidding will not be given (EW Quiet), becuase of course, 6 CLUBS would be a better contract than 6 DIAMONDS... so you had best make this one. Plan your play. If you play a top Spade, East wins the Spade King and switches to a Club. If you play low, the Ten wins and another spade is played. When you play trumps you find EAST with 3 diamonds, West with 2. Good luck.
Page 1 of 1
problem for better players....
#1
- Group: Admin
- Posts: 14,566
- Joined: 2003-February-13
- Gender:Male
- Location:Amelia Island, FL
- Interests:Bridge, what else?
Posted 2003-March-21, 05:16
--Ben--
#2
- Group: Full Members
- Posts: 345
- Joined: 2003-February-13
- Location:San Jose, CA
- Interests:bridge, poker, literature, boardgames, computers, classical music, baseball, history
Posted 2003-March-21, 17:16
Looks like a simultaneous double trump squeeze with both side threats in the same suit. We assume that East has the Ace of spades and West has the nine from the opening lead. (If not, we will have to play for a simple major-suit squeeze.) At trick one, cover the ten with the jack. Win the club return, cash four diamonds throwing a heart from dummy, and finish the clubs ending in dummy :
Q8
A9
---
K
---
KT4
9
2
On the lead of the final club, both opponents are squeezed in the majors. If East pitches a spade, baring his ace, South will ruff the eight of spades with his final trump, bringing down the ace; cash the king of hearts, and then lead a heart to the high dummy. So East must keep at least Ax of spades and therefore at most two hearts.
Meanwhile West must also keep two spades to the nine. If he bares his nine, South will lead the spade queen from dummy next. East must cover with the ace (or South will run the queen, pitching a heart), South ruffs, and the nine is squashed underneath the queen and ace, making the spade eight high. So West must also keep at least 9x of spades and therefore come down to at most two hearts.
Since both defenders have kept at least two spades, they will both have at most two hearts. Then, ace of hearts, king of hearts will draw the remaining hearts and the third heart (the four of hearts for maximum aesthetic value) will be a winner. Making 6. Note this line, in addition to requiring East holding the spade ace and West holding the spade nine, also requires declarer to carefully watch the spade discards and guess when a defender has bared his ace and/or nine.
One note: the squeeze fails on a heart return by East at trick 2. However, such a heart return would expose the defensive heart honors to a potential finesse, when declarer guesses correctly. Of course, an expert East should return hearts in a game-theoretic manner so as to give declarer the greatest problems in guessing (he is forced to lead an honor from QJx(x) but he should also lead an unsupported honor some of the time to disguise this holding). But that is a topic that I am sure hrothgar knows more about than me.
Eugene Hung
Q8
A9
---
K
---
KT4
9
2
On the lead of the final club, both opponents are squeezed in the majors. If East pitches a spade, baring his ace, South will ruff the eight of spades with his final trump, bringing down the ace; cash the king of hearts, and then lead a heart to the high dummy. So East must keep at least Ax of spades and therefore at most two hearts.
Meanwhile West must also keep two spades to the nine. If he bares his nine, South will lead the spade queen from dummy next. East must cover with the ace (or South will run the queen, pitching a heart), South ruffs, and the nine is squashed underneath the queen and ace, making the spade eight high. So West must also keep at least 9x of spades and therefore come down to at most two hearts.
Since both defenders have kept at least two spades, they will both have at most two hearts. Then, ace of hearts, king of hearts will draw the remaining hearts and the third heart (the four of hearts for maximum aesthetic value) will be a winner. Making 6. Note this line, in addition to requiring East holding the spade ace and West holding the spade nine, also requires declarer to carefully watch the spade discards and guess when a defender has bared his ace and/or nine.
One note: the squeeze fails on a heart return by East at trick 2. However, such a heart return would expose the defensive heart honors to a potential finesse, when declarer guesses correctly. Of course, an expert East should return hearts in a game-theoretic manner so as to give declarer the greatest problems in guessing (he is forced to lead an honor from QJx(x) but he should also lead an unsupported honor some of the time to disguise this holding). But that is a topic that I am sure hrothgar knows more about than me.
Eugene Hung
Eugene Hung
#3
- Group: Admin
- Posts: 14,566
- Joined: 2003-February-13
- Gender:Male
- Location:Amelia Island, FL
- Interests:Bridge, what else?
Posted 2003-March-21, 17:32
Congradulations to eyhung for solving the problem. My detailed solution that examines other lines before ending up with the same simultaneous double trump squeeze is shown below.
DETAILED SOLUTION
I think how you planned your play on this hand will say a lot about your level of expertise.
IMPS
VUL N-S
DEALER: SOUTH
QJ5
A93
J54
KQJT
7
KT4
AKQT9
A432
Contract = 6 Diamonds by South
Opening LEAD SPADE TEN.
Too bad you are not in the easy 6 CLUB contract (ruff one SPADE in your hand, and win 5D+4C+2H+ the spade ruff. But then if you played the EASY contract, you wouldn't get the chance to show your skillful play.
This is definately not a beginner/intermediate level problem, for surely, they would try to cash the H-Ace and H-King hoping against hope that the someone has HEART QJ doubleton. The odds of finding a doubleton QJ when missing seven cards are not very good at all (just below 1.5%), and failing that, try to drop the doubleton SPADE-ACE by ruffing a little spade. The odds of finding doubleton AK when missing 9 cards in a suit is really infintestimal (less than 0.3%) Perhaps, a fair intermediate player will try to combine these chances, or might try to discover which opponent, if either, could hold a singleton H-Q or H-J, and arrange to cash the high heart honor from the opposite hand and then, when the high honor is played, hook the other partner. The chance of finding a singleton High honor is also very poor.
Fortunately, advanced players are familar with squeeze books written by Clyde Love's, Fook Eng, Terrence Reese, or Kelsey. So they can imagine that EAST still holds the SPADE ACE (from the opening lead) and they will be thinking squeeze. First, there are 11 tricks (5D+4C+2H) so the count is right. There is entry to both hands in hearts, so Entry is right. The heart and spade threats are split so U has to be right. The squeeze they would envision would be on EAST (since he has the Spade ACE). For their squeeze to work, they will need East to have both the HEART-QuEEN and JACK, or five or more hearts to one heart honor. The ending these advanced players visualize would be:
S-Q
H-A9x
D-
C- S-A
H-QJx
D-
S- C-
H-KTx
D-A
C-
When they lead the DIAMOND ACE, they plan on throwing a Heart from dummy, and what is East to do? If he throws the Spade, South wins 2H + 1S. If he throws a Heart, South leads a heart to the ACe, then a heart back to his Ace and the heart ten wins the last trick. These advanced players have roughly 33% chance to make this contract on this line of play, a tremendous increase in the chance to make over playing for a drop.
However, the EXPERT player wants even better odds (of course they are in 6 Clubs not 6 Diamonds but lets ignore that 8) ), and their skill goes a deeper than that of the rest of us. They know the odds of EAST having both top hearts is not real good, and if West has both hearts or long enough to drop WEST doubleton honor(S) is not very good (32.96% I think ignoring other distribution clues). They will actually think they are going to make the hand no matter how the heart honors are split (both with East, both with West, or honors split). That is, they can squeeze both opponents at the same time, in both majors, by bringing full value to the power of dummy's SPADE EIGHT. They will cash only 4 trumps, then run clubs ending up with an ending something like this when heart honors were split between the opponents hands.
S-Q8
H-K9
D void
C-K
S 9x S Ax
H Qxx H Jxx
D void D void
C void C void
S-void
H ATx
D A
C x
The EXPERT throws a heart away on the fourth diamond, then runs clubs. When the CLUB King is cashed, East is squeezed in an odd way. If he throws a little spade, the spade eight is ruffed, and dummy is good. So East has to come down to two hearts (and if he had held H-QJx obviously both honors fall). South follows suit of course, and now the pressure swings around to west. If he throws a SPADE, Dummy's spade QUEEN can be lead to force the ACE, which south ruffs, and when the 9 falls (remember the SPADE-TEN opening lead?) the dummy's Spade EIGHT is high. But if West throws a heart, the AK picks up the entire heart suit (even if West had both top hearts), and the HEART Ten wins the last trick. So their chances after the opening lead is certainly almost surely 100%
So, rate your play based upon your solution......
Novice/Beginner = Played heart AK hoping for doubleton QJ
Intermediate = ruff second spade, then cash HAK
Advanced/local expert = play EAST for SPADE-ACE, and HQJx(x) simple squeeze
True Expert = play double trump squeeze, squeezing both opponents in both majors
World Class = you would have wasted time with this problem, and if you did, you would have played in 6 CLUBS anyway.
I hope you had/will have fun thinking about this one.
Ben
DETAILED SOLUTION
I think how you planned your play on this hand will say a lot about your level of expertise.
IMPS
VUL N-S
DEALER: SOUTH
QJ5
A93
J54
KQJT
7
KT4
AKQT9
A432
Contract = 6 Diamonds by South
Opening LEAD SPADE TEN.
Too bad you are not in the easy 6 CLUB contract (ruff one SPADE in your hand, and win 5D+4C+2H+ the spade ruff. But then if you played the EASY contract, you wouldn't get the chance to show your skillful play.
This is definately not a beginner/intermediate level problem, for surely, they would try to cash the H-Ace and H-King hoping against hope that the someone has HEART QJ doubleton. The odds of finding a doubleton QJ when missing seven cards are not very good at all (just below 1.5%), and failing that, try to drop the doubleton SPADE-ACE by ruffing a little spade. The odds of finding doubleton AK when missing 9 cards in a suit is really infintestimal (less than 0.3%) Perhaps, a fair intermediate player will try to combine these chances, or might try to discover which opponent, if either, could hold a singleton H-Q or H-J, and arrange to cash the high heart honor from the opposite hand and then, when the high honor is played, hook the other partner. The chance of finding a singleton High honor is also very poor.
Fortunately, advanced players are familar with squeeze books written by Clyde Love's, Fook Eng, Terrence Reese, or Kelsey. So they can imagine that EAST still holds the SPADE ACE (from the opening lead) and they will be thinking squeeze. First, there are 11 tricks (5D+4C+2H) so the count is right. There is entry to both hands in hearts, so Entry is right. The heart and spade threats are split so U has to be right. The squeeze they would envision would be on EAST (since he has the Spade ACE). For their squeeze to work, they will need East to have both the HEART-QuEEN and JACK, or five or more hearts to one heart honor. The ending these advanced players visualize would be:
S-Q
H-A9x
D-
C- S-A
H-QJx
D-
S- C-
H-KTx
D-A
C-
When they lead the DIAMOND ACE, they plan on throwing a Heart from dummy, and what is East to do? If he throws the Spade, South wins 2H + 1S. If he throws a Heart, South leads a heart to the ACe, then a heart back to his Ace and the heart ten wins the last trick. These advanced players have roughly 33% chance to make this contract on this line of play, a tremendous increase in the chance to make over playing for a drop.
However, the EXPERT player wants even better odds (of course they are in 6 Clubs not 6 Diamonds but lets ignore that 8) ), and their skill goes a deeper than that of the rest of us. They know the odds of EAST having both top hearts is not real good, and if West has both hearts or long enough to drop WEST doubleton honor(S) is not very good (32.96% I think ignoring other distribution clues). They will actually think they are going to make the hand no matter how the heart honors are split (both with East, both with West, or honors split). That is, they can squeeze both opponents at the same time, in both majors, by bringing full value to the power of dummy's SPADE EIGHT. They will cash only 4 trumps, then run clubs ending up with an ending something like this when heart honors were split between the opponents hands.
S-Q8
H-K9
D void
C-K
S 9x S Ax
H Qxx H Jxx
D void D void
C void C void
S-void
H ATx
D A
C x
The EXPERT throws a heart away on the fourth diamond, then runs clubs. When the CLUB King is cashed, East is squeezed in an odd way. If he throws a little spade, the spade eight is ruffed, and dummy is good. So East has to come down to two hearts (and if he had held H-QJx obviously both honors fall). South follows suit of course, and now the pressure swings around to west. If he throws a SPADE, Dummy's spade QUEEN can be lead to force the ACE, which south ruffs, and when the 9 falls (remember the SPADE-TEN opening lead?) the dummy's Spade EIGHT is high. But if West throws a heart, the AK picks up the entire heart suit (even if West had both top hearts), and the HEART Ten wins the last trick. So their chances after the opening lead is certainly almost surely 100%
So, rate your play based upon your solution......
Novice/Beginner = Played heart AK hoping for doubleton QJ
Intermediate = ruff second spade, then cash HAK
Advanced/local expert = play EAST for SPADE-ACE, and HQJx(x) simple squeeze
True Expert = play double trump squeeze, squeezing both opponents in both majors
World Class = you would have wasted time with this problem, and if you did, you would have played in 6 CLUBS anyway.
I hope you had/will have fun thinking about this one.
Ben
--Ben--
#4
- Group: FD TEAM
- Posts: 2,735
- Joined: 2003-February-13
- Gender:Male
- Location:Nashville, TN
- Interests:Motorsports, cricket, disc golf, and of course - bridge. :-)
Posted 2003-March-22, 16:51
I must admit something here...the squeeze is a little novel compared to the norm. 
"Champions aren't made in gyms, champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. " - M. Ali
Page 1 of 1