rainbow@ihuxe.UUCP (05/08/84)
S:652 H:AJ8 D:AQJ C:AT63 S:K83 H:KQT7 D:T64 C:Q74 CONTRACT:3NT dbl LEAD:9S east overtakes with the ten of spades. east opened the auction with a call of 1S. Whats your best line of play? Hint:Its clear where the key honor cards are residing on this deal. Is there a distribution which will allow you to make the hand anyway? The obvious possibility is a stiff KC. Very unlikely though. Are there any other holdings that suffice and are a little more likely? Yes there is. Give East five spades and a stiff heart. Prospects arent exciting but you do have a chance. How do you now proceed?
halle1@houxz.UUCP (J.HALLE) (05/09/84)
If you cash all your hearts before throwing in east, you will squeeze dummy. (Actually, east will squeeze dummy.) So you cash enough to run east out of hearts. Now throw him in. He cashes his spades and leads a minor. Now you have the necessary entry in hearts to squeeze east. You take 4 hearts, 1 spade, the minor aces, one more trick in the returned suit, and one as a result of the squeeze. (Diamond return: win, cash club (Vienna coup), run hearts; club return: win two clubs, run hearts, squeeze working if east has the club jack.) Suppose east does not cash all his winners. The squeeze still works, although a little differently. Assume he leaves one uncashed (it makes no difference). On a diamond return, run hearts coming down to two each clubs and diamonds in each hand. If east keeps the spade, cash the ace of the suit he unguarded. It should be easy to tell. If east throws the spade, he is no danger. Since he will be 2-2 in the minors, throw him in with either one for an extra trick in the other. There are some problems with this line. If east is good enough not to cash his winners, he is probably good enough to discard deceptively enough to fool you. If east cashes all his winners, this line fails if he does not have the club jack or any four to the king. East must have no more than two hearts or the squeeze-throwin fails. (East cashes out and exits with the heart, keeping 2-2 in the minors. If south cashes three hearts, he doesn't have the reentry. If south cashes four hearts, dummy is squeezed.) Although a stiff club (which will be the king) is less likely than a stiff or doubleton heart, the requirement that the club jack be OK makes these lines closer. Adding in the deceptive possibilities for the defense and the likelihood that declarer will misguess makes the line I previously suggested, i.e. cashing the club ace, at least equivalent, and possibly better. Besides, everyone knows the club king is always either offsides or singleton.