Guard squeeze
This weekend I had a bad day in competition. Half the match I was asleep, got a game handed over to me but didn't accept their offer, and left lots of overtricks to opponents. We still managed to win 15-15 (0-3 in imps) but that no consolation price... Anyway, I still had some good moments now and then: a suicide criss-cross squeeze for -1, and here a guard squeeze, also for -1:
|
| |||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||
|
I end up in 3NT by South. LHO leads a ♥ so I like it pretty much if ♣ behave. I take the first trick with ♥Q and immediately play a small ♣, but RHO shows out! Quite a disappointment, since I don't see an immediate way to 9 tricks now. 3♣ + 1-2♦ + 3♥ + 1♠ = 8-9 tricks, but losing 2♣, 2♦ and at least one in another suit will get their trick total to 5 more quickly...
I play the Queen to keep control which LHO takes the ♣K, and he continues ♥T. Now I'm in my hand and decide to make it a bit hard on LHO: I play a small ♣. GIB says I can make only 7 tricks if he takes the J, so here's a little mistake from LHO: he plays small! He didn't have much information and it looked like I needed 3♣ tricks at that time so he wanted to block my suit. Now however he has to guard the ♣Jx... I switch to ♦ to the Ten and Ace. LHO again plays a high ♥. So I continue ♦ to RHO's King (LHO discarding a ♠) who plays a small ♠. I already know everything I need to know: LHO has a 3-5-1-4 distribution, discarded a ♠ after asking them, so he has the ♠K. I can easily squeeze or endplay him, so I take ♠A and now it's time for some magic: the 3rd ♦ squeezes LHO. He has:
♠ K
♥ 73
♦ -
♣ J8
Here are his options:
- If he parts with a ♥, I'll endplay him in ♠ to bring me the final 2 ♣s.
- If he parts with a ♣ I can take my ♣ tricks.
- So the only alternative left is discarding ♠K and hoping his partner has ♠QT behind the J.
On one of the ♣s RHO discarded a ♦, so after I play ♣A and small ♠ to his Q, he still had to bring a last ♠.
3NT-1 still won us some imps, unlucky my squeezes were for -1 every time...
No comments:
Post a Comment