In the Torquay Swiss Pairs, Ann and I finished 22nd out of 114, almost exactly the same position as last year, although we did manage big wins against the two strongest pairs we met. There were several hands where squeeze play would have been useful - here are two that we got wrong.
South declared 6NT against a club lead. You have 11 top tricks, and the problem is to find the best way to combine your chances in the red suits. At the table declarer tried a low heart towards the Queen, and although this was successful when West went in with the King, making 12 tricks was a below average score.
The best line is to win the lead in dummy and take a diamond finesse. If this loses, win the return, unblock the ♥A and cash all the black suit winners, discarding two hearts from hand. If the diamonds do not break 3-3, you will still succeed if the long diamonds and ♥K are in the same hand. If the diamond finesse wins, you have the same play to make an overtrick.
On the actual deal East had ♦Qxx, so many declarers were making an overtrick.
I opened a dubious 1♠ as South, and we ended up too high in 5♠. West started with the King and queen of hearts, then switched to a trump. I drew a second round of trumps (East started with a singleton) and cashed the Ace and King of diamonds, as I could avoid the club finesse if the Queen was doubleton, but both followed with small cards. The club finesse held, but the King did not fall when I cashed the Ace so I took the ruffing diamond finesse. When West produced the Queen I was one down.
After the club finesse has worked, the best line is to ruff a diamond and run the trumps. If West has ♦Q he will be squeezed on the last trump and forced to unguard ♣K. This line wins whenever West has ♦Q, but also when East has ♦Qxx, a significant improvement on the 50% chance of the ruffing finesse.
It was not all bad. This hand was a good example of the downside of intervention on weak distributional hands. South dealt at love all.
As South I opened 1♣, North responded 1♦ and East bid 2♦ to show at least 5-5 in the majors. I doubled to show extra values and interest in a penalty, West bid 2♥ and I ended in 3NT.
West led the ♥6 to East's Ace and a heart was returned. I tried the Jack which won as West followed with the 8 to show three cards. Now I cashed the Ace of clubs and both followed. With East holding at least 10 cards in the majors, I felt that West was a strong favourite to hold the Jack of clubs, so I played a small club to the 10 and was pleased to see East discard a spade. Now there was an obvious strip squeeze against East - I cashed ♣Q, came to hand with a spade and cashed the club winners. East came down to three spades and two hearts, so I played ♥K and another heart to endplay East. She led a spade and, with dummy holding KQ10, we all put our cards back in the board and scored up 3NT+2.
It was only at the end of the session when I looked at the hand records and saw that West had Jx of spades so the squeeze was unnecessary! Tant pis.
Was that the right play in clubs? According to my calculations, if West has 3 hearts and East has at least 5-5 in the majors, the chances of the different breaks in the club suit are
5-0 20%
4-1 49%
3-2 28%
2-3 3%
After East has played a small club on the first round, the finesse wins 80% of the time and playing for the drop only 45%.
