Winkle Picking

The Expert Game is Terence Reese's classic book on card play, first published in 1958 and widely considered to be one of the best bridge books of all time. In the last chapter Reese describes three types of 'secondary' squeeze - so called because a trick must be lost in the end-game - and gives them descriptive names; the vice, the winkle and the stepping stone.

You might think that these obscure squeezes are only of academic interest, but one came up on this hand from last Friday's Allendale pairs. West led the two of clubs against Ann's 3NT. There only appear to be eleven tricks, but watch what happens...Can you believe that declarer might make two diamond tricks in the end game?

Declarer wins the first trick with the ace (an essential move to avoid blocking the suit) and runs eight winners in the major suits. West is forced to release a diamond, leaving this position. 

 

Now declarer plays a club to the ten and exits with a diamond, leaving the opponents to choose their poison. The defence can win the diamond in either hand, but must then concede the last two tricks.

It's a shame to spoil a good story, but honesty compels me to record that it wasn't quite like that in real life. Ann slipped at the final hurdle by cashing the king of clubs at trick eleven, although East returned the favour by playing the ace on the diamond lead from dummy.

When I dug out The Expert Game from an obscure corner of my bookshelf, I discovered that the play on this hand is a winkle, 'a rare squeeze in which a trick is offered to the defenders but whichever wins the trick is then endplayed'. Declarer winkles an extra trick from the diamond suit where both opponents hold top cards.

The Official Encylopedia of Bridge gives this remarkable hand as an example of a winkle. It also features a suit of Jxx facing 10xx where declarer makes two tricks. But the similarity ends there; this hand occurred in the US International Team Trials rather than a local duplicate, the players were Hall-of-Famers rather than honest hackers, and the winkle brought in a slam rather than an extra overtrick in a mundane 3NT.

 

 

The silly final contract was due to a bidding misunderstanding. North thought that 4♠ was a two-ace reply to Gerber (!) while South thought that 4♠ was natural and implied a singleton heart. 

West led a diamond; declarer finessed, threw a heart on the ace of diamonds and ruffed a diamond. He then crossed to the ace of clubs, ruffed another diamond to remove the king and cashed two trumps ending in dummy. The established queen of diamonds forced East to throw a heart and declarer now played the the queen of spades and a spade to the ten and king. He then exited with a heart - the defence could win in either hand but then had to concede the last two tricks.

 

County KO Final

In the Dorset County Knockut our cause was helped by the two favourites being eliminated before the final, and we ended with a comfortable win in the final against Mike Jackson's team. This hand gave us the largest swing of the match, though the swing would have gone the other way if the opponents had found the right play at both tables.

At our table declarer won my lead of the ten of clubs in dummy and played a diamond to the ten and  queen. I returned my remaining club which declarer won and he then cashed the ace and nine of diamonds. Now declarer crossed to the ace of hearts, cashed the king of diamonds and ran the jack of spades, so we took all the remaining tricks for down three.  

Maybe this was unlucky but the carding in clubs (and the lead-directing double on a queen high suit) suggest that the clubs are 6-2. In that case West has eight major suit cards to East's six and is more likely to hold the king of spades, so the better line is to lead a low spade from hand after cashing the nine of diamonds. 

At the other table the auction and opening lead were identical but Chris ducked the first club. This seems reasonable but Deep Finesse tells me that the contract can no longer be made against best defence.  Chris won the club continuation and ran the jack of spades which West ducked, but only after a hesitation that gave away the position of the king. Now he played a diamond to the ten and queen. The heart continuation was ducked to East's queen to give this position.

At the table East continued with a club and West threw an innocent looking small diamond, but now Chris could cash the diamonds ending in dummy and run the jack of spades to set up a ninth trick.

At first glance it looked as if the defence could prevail by continuing hearts in the diagrammed position but declarer can counter by ducking to set up an extra heart winner. If the defence continue hearts to take out dummy's entry while the diamonds are still blocked, declarer cashes the thirteenth heart, crosses to the ace of diamonds and cashes the king of clubs to squeeze West. 

To defeat the contract East must return a spade in the diagrammed position, and if declarer ducks West must win and return a heart. Declarer can no longer untangle his tricks and will have to lose a heart or diamond at the end. A tough defence to find.