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Backwash Squeeze


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I could probably dig out the whole hand if required but the Backwash Squeeze was discovered at the table by Tim Seres in 1965.

 

Declaring 6C, the 3 card ending was:

 

[hv=d=i&v=i&n=sq7hdck&w=shjdjc3&e=skhd97c&s=sh9d10ca]399|300|Scoring: irrelev.[/hv]

 

At trick 11, the lead was in dummy, and declarer ruffed the S7 with the Club Ace. West was squeezed in 3 suits.

 

nick

Sydney

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OK.

 

Declarer ruffs the spade, setting up the Spade Queen.

If West discards a red suit, declarer plays the same suit. If West ruffs this, declarer overruffs and Spade Queen is trick 3. If West discards, so does declarer, and Trick 13 is taken by the Club King.

If West discards a trump, declarer ruffs and claims.

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We all read the book.

 

1) Has anyone made one at the table or BBO?

2) Do we all wish we could once?

3) Can anyone xplain it in a very simple description?

1) I have never made one at the table. I suspect I am not good enough to recognize the position in advance if it arose

 

2) I would love to make one. For a start it would demonstrate that I am good enough to recognize the position at the table!

 

3) Look at the links psoted by sceptic (although there are a few typos I have spotted). I don't think there is a simple description which covers all types of Backwash squeezes but doesn't include other, related, squeezes. What they have in common is that South trumps one of dummy's plain cards and West is squeezed in 3 suits, one of which is the trump suit. His cards in the outside suits are genuine guards, but the small trump usually serves some subtler purpose.

 

As an aside, the squeezes I have made at the table are Simple squeeze, Double squeeze, Triple Squeeze, Show-up squeeze, and strip squeeze. I have also made a pseudo-progressive squeeze on BBO (i.e. West, squeezed in 3 suits, discarded incorrectly on the squeeze card and so got squeezed again). So next on my list to get are a genuine Progressive squeeze, a Criss-Cross squeeze and a Trump squeeze

 

Eric

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Never had one myself, although I've only been familiar with the form for about 4 years. Knockout squeezes, which are cousins of the backwash, occur (slightly) more frequently.

 

I did have a triple jettison squeeze in 1985. One of these days I'm going under hypnosis to see if I can retrieve it from my 'files' ;)

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Backwash squeezes are "really" not that hard to find if you are into pattern recongnition. Here is the situation. It gets it's name, because it works when THERE IS NO THREAT in the upper hand (remember, squeezes "require" a threat in the upper hand). This working without a card in the upper hand is what suggested the name backwash. There also doesn't have to be an entry in either threat suit (boy is the basic squeeze position REALLY violated).

 

The basic requirement is that the opponent has a trump, which prevents you from cross-ruffing the hand. And that same opponent guards both threat suits. So it is a squeeze in three suits, one of which is trumps. It turns out, that there Really is a threat in the dummy (in the example given above by nickf, it is the spade queen which becomes good if a trump is "discarded" by West).

 

To find backwash, all you have to remember is it is a way to deal with a squeeze where you can't pull all the trumps and there is no "squeeze threat" in the upper hand. This is one of the only ways to deal with the lack of "u" in a hand.

 

Ben

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I could probably dig out the whole hand if required but the Backwash Squeeze was discovered at the table by Tim Seres in 1965.

 

Declaring 6C, the 3 card ending was:

 

[hv=d=i&v=i&n=sq7hdck&w=shjdjc3&e=skhd97c&s=sh9d10ca]399|300|Scoring: irrelev.[/hv]

 

At trick 11, the lead was in dummy, and declarer ruffed the S7 with the Club Ace. West was squeezed in 3 suits.

 

nick

Sydney

OOOOOOOOOOOH how sweet!!!!! ;)

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