Two for the price of one

[Finch]

English premier league. RHO is a very good player who has won international events, although is not quite at the Meckwell/Zia type level.

 

[hv=pc=n&s=skj7h73dkj63ca842&n=sahakjt95da98ckj6&d=e&v=n&b=2&a=2d(Multi%20%5Bweak%20two%20in%20a%20major%5D)p2h(pass-or-correct)d(T/O%20or%20any%20very%20strong%20hand)2s3np6nppp]266|200[/hv]

 

West leads a medium-to-low spade (they lead middle from 3 low, bottom from 3 to an honour)

You win in dummy, and play a club to the ace and a heart to the jack.

 

Problem 1: The jack of hearts holds. Now what?

 

Problem 2: The jack of hearts loses to the queen, and RHO plays a heart back (LHO follows). RHO turns up with a doubleton heart. Plan the rest of the play.

 

(notes:

(i) once RHO has turned up with (assumed to be) Qxxxxx in spades, he can have between 0 and 3 of the missing queens from a point count perspective.

(ii) south denied a decent balanced 13-count by passing over 2D, and denied any interest in doubling 2S for penalties, so north assumed the king of spades, rather than soft stuff, and insufficient strength for a grand.)

[wyman]

P2:

 

I'll come to an end position (edit: in dummy) of

--

AK

98

KJ

 

KJ

--

KJ

xx

 

What have we seen so far?

[karlson]

1. I think it's quite possible to duck the ♥q, but I haven't seen many people bid 2♥ on ♠xxx ♥Qxxx. Maybe we should.

 

2. This seems easy enough if ♠Q is on my right. On the first 3 hearts, pitch ♣♣♦. Presumably righty pitches 3 spades. On the next one, if he pitches a ♦ we basically have a claim by cashing ♦AK (either marked ♣ hook or double squeeze around clubs). If he pitches a club, pitch a club also and cash ♣K pitching ♦J. Either there will be a double squeeze around diamonds or if righty is 6214, we'll have to hope the stiff ♦ is the T or Q.

 

If it looks like lefty has ♠Qxx, I will probably have to guess well, haven't thought about it fully.

[pooltuna]

English premier league. RHO is a very good player who has won international events, although is not quite at the Meckwell/Zia type level.

 

 

 

West leads a medium-to-low spade (they lead middle from 3 low, bottom from 3 to an honour)

You win in dummy, and play a club to the ace and a heart to the jack.

 

Problem 1: The jack of hearts holds. Now what?

 

Problem 2: The jack of hearts loses to the queen, and RHO plays a heart back (LHO follows). RHO turns up with a doubleton heart. Plan the rest of the play.

 

(notes:

(i) once RHO has turned up with (assumed to be) Qxxxxx in spades, he can have between 0 and 3 of the missing queens from a point count perspective.

(ii) south denied a decent balanced 13-count by passing over 2D, and denied any interest in doubling 2S for penalties, so north assumed the king of spades, rather than soft stuff, and insufficient strength for a grand.)

 

Aren't west's actions over the presumably Multi 2♦ most consistent with 3♠ which we know he has and 1 or 2♥ rather than 3 or more ♥? Consequently it appears RHO has 3 or 4 ♥ and 6 ♠ so play the hand on that assumption.

[OleBerg]

I'd feel somewhat smug, if I had thougth of this at the table:

 

I cash a heart honour at trick two.

 

This will prevent RHO from making that ducking-trick. And even though it is a good play, it is not that unimagineable. RHO might easily have a hand, where he can see the game is over if he takes the trick.

 

This way to play hearts loses when LHO has Qxxx of hearts, but how likely is that in wiew of the 2♥ bid? Probably depends on the opponents. (And even thoughg less likely, it wins immidiately, when RHO has the single ♥Q.)

 

After the heart honour I return to hand in diamonds, not clubs. This will place me better, no matter who wins the ♥Q, and what that person returns. (At least thats what I think before coffee.)

[Finch]

It is quite possible that LHO would have responded 2H on xxx Qxxx ?xx ?xx or similar. Although I agree there is a greater chance of a 2S response on that hand.

 

As a side note, if you have a very weak hand responding to the multi (as known to be the case here), there is some merit to responding 2H rather than 2S if you think it likely that partner has spades, because opponents are likely to be more comfortable in their methods if they can double for take-out, and there's always the chance that a good hand with hearts might pass, hoping to bid over 2S, and partner psyches a pass of 2H.

[Finch]

Aren't west's actions over the presumably Multi 2♦ most consistent with 3♠ which we know he has and 1 or 2♥ rather than 3 or more ♥? Consequently it appears RHO has 3 or 4 ♥ and 6 ♠ so play the hand on that assumption.

 

No. With equal length in the majors responding to a multi you usually bid 2H, or 3H if you want to pre-empt.

[karlson]

Hm, I don't know why in my previous reply I consistently thought we would get to see one more card than we actually will. We may still have a guess in the 2-card ending. Well, I think I would play this way anyway and hope to get it right, I don't see any 100% solution. If I really have nothing to go on, I will play righty for (32) in the minors as opposed to (41).

 

For similar reasons, if the ♥J held, I would not cross to hand and hook again. I would rather give myself some chance to still read the position later than to take the extra chance in hearts and basically have no play left if it loses. Even against Meckwell. This is probably ridiculously overconfident and I need to be put in my place.

[Fluffy]

If I win ♥J I am playing a diamond to the jack next

[mfa1010]

If the ♥J holds I would assume that the finesse works. Ducking is a very tough defense to find, because RHO knows he can't necessarily rely on partner's count in the suit. Also he has to quickly visualize the problem that ducking poses on declarer. It looks very silly if declarer continues with hearts from the top.

 

I play ♦ to the J now and finesse in hearts again later. I don't mind paying off to a great play.

 

Responding 2♥ sometimes with heart fit is excellent tactics. Some do it routinely but I concede that many don't.

[mfa1010]

2. Hearts (unblocking ♦J), ♣K, ♦K, ♠K. Many squeeze chances.

[rhm]

English premier league. RHO is a very good player who has won international events, although is not quite at the Meckwell/Zia type level.

Apparently declarer is not and does not look worthy of playing in a premier league

 

West leads a medium-to-low spade (they lead middle from 3 low, bottom from 3 to an honour)

You win in dummy, and play a club to the ace and a heart to the jack.

With 11 tricks it would not occur to me to butcher my communications by coming to hand. The hand should always make on the simple assumption that RHO has the ♠ queen.

Playing ♥s from the top solves all your problems immediately if the queen drops. LHO is quite unlikely to bid that way at favorable vulnerability with ♥Qxxx and 3 cards in ♠. If LHO comes in after 3 rounds of ♥ and has only 3 cards in ♥, he will have a very difficult return and is likely to give you your 12th trick immediately. Even if LHO finds the return of a ♣ or (unlikely) can return a fourth ♥ there is a compound squeeze available, since East will have to keep ♠ and will have to relinquish control in one of the minors on the run of the ♥.

 

Problem 1: The jack of hearts holds. Now what?

Cash the ♥s. What you should have done at trick 2.

However, by coming to hand with the ♣ ace, if LHO does have Qxxx in ♥ and returns a ♣, you will have destroyed your compound squeeze. (RHO relinquishes ♦ on the run of the ♥)

 

Problem 2: The jack of hearts loses to the queen, and RHO plays a heart back (LHO follows). RHO turns up with a doubleton heart. Plan the rest of the play.

 

Play for the compound squeeze. Since this is a compound squeeze of the unrestricted type you can run all the ♥s before assessing the situation. RHO will already be squeezed on the penultimate ♥ and will have given up control of a minor. It should not be very difficult for declarer to judge which one after RHO has made another discard after the squeeze occurred.

Cash the tops of this minor, ending with the ♦ king in hand. Now cash the ♠ king to execute the double squeeze.

 

If you are unfamiliar with compound squeeze technique, this is a basic example to understand it. A compound squeeze culminates always in one of two different double squeezes, depending on what an opponent discards. Among others you must have a basic threat lying over this opponent, in this case it is RHO and the threat is the ♠jack.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Finch]

Apparently declarer is not and does not look worthy of playing in a premier league

 

Is this sort of comment really necessary?

As it happens Declarer has won both European and World championships.

 

I think you don't play enough against the multi if you think it is certain that RHO has the queen of spades, or that LHO doesn't have long hearts.

[WellSpyder]

If LHO comes in after 3 rounds of ♥ and has only 3 cards in ♥, he will have a very difficult return and is likely to give you your 12th trick immediately. Even if LHO finds the return of a ♣ or (unlikely) can return a fourth ♥ there is a compound squeeze available, since East will have to keep ♠ and will have to relinquish control in one of the minors on the run of the ♥.

I agree this line is well worth considering, especially given the possibility of being given the 12th trick on LHO's return. But I am having difficulty seeing exactly how the compound squeeze will work on a ♣ return. It looks OK if LHO can return a 4th ♥, but if he returns a ♣ then you need to use one of dummy's top cards in the minors to get to the remaining ♥s (either now or after winning ♣A in hand), and that looks to me to destroy the entries you need if RHO abandons the minor in which you still have an entry to dummy.

[rhm]

double entry

[rhm]

I agree this line is well worth considering, especially given the possibility of being given the 12th trick on LHO's return. But I am having difficulty seeing exactly how the compound squeeze will work on a ♣ return. It looks OK if LHO can return a 4th ♥, but if he returns a ♣ then you need to use one of dummy's top cards in the minors to get to the remaining ♥s (either now or after winning ♣A in hand), and that looks to me to destroy the entries you need if RHO abandons the minor in which you still have an entry to dummy.

 

Up to a point you are right. That's why it is so bad to give up entries yourself at trick 2.

Really brilliant might be to play the ♥jack at trick 2. Now when either opponent switches to a minor you can reach dummy with a ♥ and the compound squeeze works.

 

However let's assume 3 rounds of ♥ and a ♣ return from LHO.

You do not put in the ♣jack but win with the ace.

Now go to the ace of ♦ and run hearts.

On the penultimate ♥ RHO has to give up a minor.

Up to the last ♥ you have discarded 2 ♣s and one ♦ from hand

Regardless you run the last ♥ to get another discard from RHO.

 

Case 1:

 

RHO has given up ♦ (which is likely given that he probably had the ♣ queen)

Discard the ♦ jack on the sixth ♥ come to the ♦ king and cash the ♠ king to execute the double squeeze. Nobody can hold ♣.

 

Case 2:

 

RHO has given up ♣.

Now you are right, but we still are in good shape.

We discard the ♠ jack on the last ♥.

come to king of diamond and cash the ♠ king and take the marked finesse in clubs.

 

 

Rainer Herrmann

[gnasher]

However let's assume 3 rounds of ♥ and a ♣ return from LHO.

 

We can still play a compound squeeze. We win ♣K and cash hearts, coming down to:

[hv=pc=n&s=skjhdkj6ca8&w=s43hdxxxcxx&n=sh95da98cj6&e=sq2hdxxxcxx]399|300[/hv]

If West unguards clubs, we throw a club, cross to ♣A, cash ♠K throwing a diamond, and cross back to ♦A.

If West unguards diamonds, we throw a diamond, cross to ♦K, cash ♠K throwing a club, and cross back to ♦A.

[phil_20686]

dunno about the compound squeeze. I always seem to go wrong in these endings anyway. But cashing hearts from the top sems like a big winner, particularly if lho has Qxx - then he cannot but give you a free finesse on the way out. If he has Qxxx or Qxx seems like i can always arrange for a squeeze.

 

Imagine i play AK hearts, and assuming the q hearts doesnt drop, and a heart comes back (anything else doenst really chance anything, i decide to tighten the position by cashing ak diamonds and the k of spades and play out my hearts. Say i reach this position:

 

-

x

x

KJx

 

 

J

-

J

Ax

 

Assuming east holds the Q of spades, i have an excellent line. On the last heart rho has to come down to two minor suit cards. If he holds Q of diamonds the club finesse is 100%, if lho holds the Q of diamonds they must both come down to 2 clubs. There will be some reading to do, but it shouldn't be too hard. Maybe it would have been best to change the timing, eg, i might not cash the k of spades before I play the last heart. To consider the timing i would have to know how many hearts rho had. This line seems 100% double dummy, and close to that in practice.

 

EDIT: I always try to arrange endings that avoid too much card reading, as I'm no good at it. This seems to make whenever Qx hearts, or Qx diamonds, or Q & q spades on the right, or singleton diamond on right. If all that fails, its still on a club hook. ANd that is just the lines that require next to no card reading. It will also make double dummy whenever Q of clubs and q od spades on your right.

[rhm]

We can still play a compound squeeze. We win ♣K and cash hearts, coming down to:

[hv=pc=n&s=skjhdkj6ca8&w=s43hdxxxcxx&n=sh95da98cj6&e=sq2hdxxxcxx]399|300[/hv]

If West unguards clubs, we throw a club, cross to ♣A, cash ♠K throwing a diamond, and cross back to ♦A.

If West unguards diamonds, we throw a diamond, cross to ♦K, cash ♠K throwing a club, and cross back to ♦A.

 

True, I wanted to make this point as well, but the compound squeeze is admittedly of the restricted variety, where you have to make your decision after playing the penultimate ♥.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[rhm]

Is this sort of comment really necessary?

As it happens Declarer has won both European and World championships.

 

I think you don't play enough against the multi if you think it is certain that RHO has the queen of spades, or that LHO doesn't have long hearts.

 

Sorry, maybe my critic is too harsh. The comment was not necessary. But I still think the way the first tricks went is not world class.

 

I said a compound squeeze is available for 12 tricks under the assumption that RHO has the queen of ♠, provided you do not mess up your entries. I know well enough that nothing is certain except taxes and death, but do you really want to tell me, when you are missing only queens and nothing else and somebody opens multi first in hand showing ♠, that you should not credit this opponent with the ♠queen?

 

Then you might just as well give up drawing inferences at this game.

Whether LHO would bid 2♥ over 2♦ or not, white against red, with ♥qxxx is moot. I consider playing ♥ from the top the right play even if LHO may hold ♥Qxxx.

 

Admittedly in a compound squeeze there is always an element of uncertainty at the decision point, where the play diverges, and you can go wrong. Give RHO a singleton or void in ♦ and I may see only ♠ and ♣ discards from him on the ♥. If LHO is clever and does not discard ♦, I may then well deduce wrongly that RHO has relinquished control in ♣.

But good defense against compound squeeze is even more of a nightmare than executing one.

 

Nevertheless this line is superior than taking a couple of finesses and I at least do not see any better line.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[mfa1010]

If West unguards clubs, we throw a club, cross to ♣A, cash ♠K throwing a diamond, and cross back to ♦A.

If West unguards diamonds, we throw a diamond, cross to ♦K, cash ♠K throwing a club, and cross back to ♦A.

I assume you mean east?! West discards spades.

 

True, I wanted to make this point as well, but the compound squeeze is admittedly of the restricted variety, where you have to make your decision after playing the penultimate ♥.

Is that not always the drawback of a compound squeeze that we have to guess what suit he abandoned? Since we need to cash the winners in that suit before playing the squeeze card.

[WellSpyder]

Is that not always the drawback of a compound squeeze that we have to guess what suit he abandoned? Since we need to cash the winners in that suit before playing the squeeze card.

True, but if you compare the compound squeeze originally suggested by rhm (eg when LHO returns a 4th ♥) with the one suggested by gnasher (on a ♣ return) there is a significant difference. In the first case, you only have to decide which suit has been abandoned after LHO has had to make a further discard after the first part of the squeeze has already operated. In this case, the likelihood of being able to read what is going on is significantly higher than in the second case when you have to make the decision a trick earlier.

[mfa1010]

True, but if you compare the compound squeeze originally suggested by rhm (eg when LHO returns a 4th ♥) with the one suggested by gnasher (on a ♣ return) there is a significant difference. In the first case, you only have to decide which suit has been abandoned after LHO has had to make a further discard after the first part of the squeeze has already operated. In this case, the likelihood of being able to read what is going on is significantly higher than in the second case when you have to make the decision a trick earlier.

Maybe you are right, but I don't see it.

 

East eventually discards exactly one minor card in both instances on the penultimate heart. If we assume that he has then abandoned the minor he discards, we are in deep trouble if east shows up with a 6-4.

 

The contract has so great chance to make overall that uncertainty about card reading is a big issue in my opinion.

 

(Did you mean LHO=west or RHO=east where I have bolded the text? I'm confused).

[WellSpyder]

Sorry - I did indeed mean RHO.

 

The difference is that for the first compound squeeze, your discard on the penultimate ♥ does not have to vary according to what RHO discards. And indeed, neither does your discard on the last ♥, which you can play next, since you can come down to a doubleton in each minor. It is only after the last ♥ trick has been completed that you need to decide which minor to cash, and this depends on which has been unguarded. In the second case, the final ♥ has to come later, and the discard on the penultimate ♥ depends on which suit RHO abandons, so the ambiguity is more likely to cause a problem.

 

I do agre with your general point, though, that the problem of ambiguity is important when choosing between a line with a good chance of sucess anyway compared with one with 100% chance if you read the cards right but much worse if you don't - particularly since in the second case you can't try the "free" club finesse and still keep the entries sufficently fluid.

[mfa1010]

The difference is that for the first compound squeeze, your discard on the penultimate ♥ does not have to vary according to what RHO discards. And indeed, neither does your discard on the last ♥, which you can play next, since you can come down to a doubleton in each minor. It is only after the last ♥ trick has been completed that you need to decide which minor to cash, and this depends on which has been unguarded. In the second case, the final ♥ has to come later, and the discard on the penultimate ♥ depends on which suit RHO abandons, so the ambiguity is more likely to cause a problem.

 

You are right, but perhaps the difference is not so great after all.

 

Take the "ideal" compound situation, where hearts are Qxxx to x. West wins Q and returns hearts and we roll the rest of the suit. On all those hearts, east will discard 1 club and 1 diamond, what else? West will discard spades only.

 

If east now guards clubs (6124) we must now play ♦A-K.

If east instead guards diamonds (6142), we must now play ♣K-A to win. Alternatively, if we play ♦A-K we can still make by guessing to take a club finesse. But that would suddenly lose to east's 6133 with ♣Qxx.

 

I think this looks like a very nasty guess.