Squeezing Yourself: Good News, Bad News

	3
	K 8
	K Q 10 8 7 5 2
	9 7 2
A J 7 6		9 5 4 2
Q 10 6		A 9 7 4 3
J 9		4 3
A 10 6 3		J 5
	K Q 10 8
	J 5 2
	A 6
	K Q 8 4

The contract was three no and my partner was a novice in a mentoring relationship. Afterwards, I thought I should have said, "I have good news and bad news. The good news it that you just executed your first squeeze. The bad news is that the hand you squeezed was your own."

The hand cannot be made on a heart lead. Or at least, a declarer wouldn't suppose it could be. If hearts are split 4-4, the defense has the capability of picking up 3 hearts and two aces. And if the split is uneven, they might pick up even more. Declarer would then have little choice but to run eight top tricks and hope for faulty discarding, or at least holding the damage to down one.

(Actually, the more I look at the defensive hands, the more I'm convinced that not many people would beat the hand even on a heart lead. It's going to take skillful defenders to avoid blocking the heart suit. That plus both outstanding aces lying with the short hearts makes a successful contract even on a heart lead very likely. The defense can avoid blocking the suit. West must lead the ten of hearts, East ducking. Declarer has no choice but to win with the jack, lest the defense pick up 3 heart tricks plus the 2 aces. West can then unblock the queen on the second round, making that a dangerous heart suit, giving the defense the capability of running it. I believe that's the only way the heart suit is dangerous. Note what happens if West leads the queen. Declarer covers and . . . If East wins, declarer can hold up the now high jack of hearts till the third round, nullifying East's hearts. And if East doesn't win, declarer has one heart winner in the bank and a guarded jack behind the only higher honor! What if West leads a low heart? Declarer ducks, and whether East wins and continues the suit to the king, or ducks, letting the jack win, West can't unblock and East's length is again nullified. Of course, declarer could hardly have known this at the time.)

However, this declarer, my partner, got a spade opening lead, and indeed, won the first trick with the 10 -- and now ran diamonds. She was not the only one to do it, as I found in going over the hand, and indeed, she discarded better than the only other declarer whose play I went over. Nevertheless, her zeal for running diamonds began to falter at about the 5th diamond, judging by the time it took for each play. For in running diamonds, what does she discard? Well, the first three are easy: three black spot cards. Next went a low heart. As the cards lie the defense can't run the suit, but . . . and on the last diamond, the closed hand was squeezed. Or is it? The second heart clearly gives the defense the capabiltiy of running three hearts and two aces -- provided West has discarded wisely. He must discard the 10 of hearts, or the suit will be blocked. Further, West is going to have a tough time discarding if declarer doesn't sluff a second heart. Say it's a club. West can now discard a heart, keeping . . well, what? If he has saved 3 clubs and a stiff ace of spades, he's in clover. But how could he be so prescient?

I thought it was a wise decision at that point. After all, you can't afford to blank a king in either black suit, or the defense can run it. With king doubleton of hearts in dummy, there was at least the chance that the ace is situated right and you don't need guards to the jack. As it turned out, though the ace wasn't situated right, the defense didn't find that lead, and my partner made an overtrick. Still, she had squeezed her own closed hand, one of the most unambiguous instances of this I have seen.

What should she have done? Well, count winners after the opening lead. The hearts are such that the defense cannot run more than two quick tricks. A king doubleton opposite a jack doubleton can be dangerous, but if you've got at least 3 cards in one hand or the other, the defense cannot run the suit on one lead. Now she won the first trick, and has 7 diamonds to run (barring a very unfortunate distribution), which adds up to 8. Since there wasn't the slightest danger in losing the lead once at that point, she should hit either a high spade or high club honor. Now you have 9 winners, and an entry whatever the return.

With two winners outside of the diamonds in the bank, you can afford to run diamonds and discard anything you danged well like.

Yikes! On coming back to this hand a year later, I see that since West is going to have trouble discarding also, it's awfully hard to work out a situation where declarer can't get a ninth trick by guessing West's discards right. So let it suffice to say that declarer played squeezed and return to the principal point here as indicated by the category. After that favorable spade lead riding to the 10, declarer had 8 top tricks, could not have been hurt badly in hearts, needed only one more winner and would have been completely safe with the lead of either black king to establish a 9th.