Solution to Quiz 1.5

Quiz 1.5

MP	♠ AKT9762 ♥ 5 ♦ T 9 ♣ AQ5		WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH 1 ♣ 1 ♠ Pass 1NT Pass 2 ♣ Pass 3 NT Pass Pas Pass
Lead ♥ K	♠ Q ♥ A T 9 7 ♦ A 6 3 ♣ J9763

Your partner’s 2♣ cue-bid was at least game invitational, so with sound values you leap to game. Looking at dummy, you wonder why your partner didn’t correct the contract to 4♠.

This is matchpoints, so you have to worry about how many tricks people in spades will win. At trick one, you can see that if ♠s split 3-2, people playing in spades are likely to win 12 tricks. North would win the expected ♣ lead with the Queen, cross to the ♠Q, play ♥A and ruff a ♥, then pull trumps. Then play ♣A and a club. The ♦A serving as an entry to the long ♣’s for a ♦ discard. So now you have to figure out a way to win 12 tricks in notrump if you want to assure a good matchpoint score.

Assuming ♠’s split 3-2, what is the best line to try and win 12 tricks so you can get a good matchpoint score? Can you find a squeeze? What will be the squeeze card? What will be the primary entry? What will be the two threats against West? Evaluate BLUE.

When ♠’s split 3-2, you have 7♠ + 1♥ + 1♦ + 2♣ (assuming on the bidding that the ♣ hook wins). So currenlty your loser count is two. From the bidding and opening lead, you assume that only West can guard against the ♣J and with the opening lead, it looks like WEST has ♥KQJ so only he guards against the ♥10. However, for a squeeze, BLUE is currently violated. For one thing, “L” is two, for another, both the ♥10 and the ♣J are in the South hand, so the “U” requirement is violated.

If you think about it, you can fix the “L” count by simply ducking the first trick. It turns out that a ♦ switch will destroy your entry condition, and you WANT to encourage West to continue ♥’s, so you drop the ♥9. If he does, that will correct your Loser position. what about the problem with Upper (U) requirement?

Wait a minute, in light of West’s opening club bid, you expect he has at least 3 clubs, so East has at most two. This means that instead of the ♣J as a threat, you can use the ♣5 in dummy as the threat, so Upper is correct after all. After you duck the first ♥, West continues with the ♥Q. Win the ace, unblock the ♠Q, take the winning hook of West's ♣King, and run ♠s. The ending you should have envisioned at trick one when you tried to encourage West to continue ♥’s is the one below, where the primary entry is the ♣A, the threats are the ♣5 and ♥10, and the squeeze card is surprising one: the ♦A, not one of your long spades.

Q1.5.1	♠ ♥ ♦ 9 ♣ A 5
♠ ♥ J ♦ ♣ K T		♠ ♥ ♦ Q J 7 ♣
	♠ ♥ T ♦ A ♣ J

For his opening bid, West held originally ♠852 ♥KQJ8 ♦K5 ♣K1084. If you saw the squeeze at trick one, you also should have seen that if West switched to a ♦ it would destroy your entry situation. It is unlikely that West would find the ♦ switch, but it is worth noting that you could realize the danger and play a high ♥ at trick one to make it easier for him to continue the suit.

Full credit to anyone who, on their own saw the diamond ACE as squeeze card, the club five as the threat club threat and the need to try to encourage WEST to continue hearts. Finding this squeeze was worth 12 out of 12 possible matchpoints, as an unexpected diamond lead beat the two pairs in six spades. We will return to this hand and play it in 6♠ with a diamond queen lead. Turns out this should not beat 6♠ either. But you have to win the diamond ACE (else heart switch will beat you). The squeeze that you ahve to play is one with loser count = 2, so we are not yet ready to look at that one (see chapter ). But after we cover those kind of squeezes, you should be able to identify this one as well (it is a vulnerable stopper squeeze). We will return to this hand as one of the quizes in that chapter.