Some plays in bridge are so rare that when they were first attempted, they became stamped with the identity of the declarer who successfully brought home the bridge contract that otherwise looked doomed for failure. Therefore, in bridge, it is time and again emphasised that of all the ingredients required to become a good bridge player, this ability to time his play is the most important.
For it is sheer timing that breaks the confidence of the opponents. This timing is also acquired through technique of card play that can make its success possible. Many a time when the dummy comes down and one sees very little chance of making his bid contract, he begins to explore the possibilities of putting the opponents under such severe pressure that they either succumb to it and misdefend the hand or are under the direct threat of a squeeze that works against them. But to bring about such pressure on the opponents, one must have a depth of understanding of what precisely are the distribution of the suits held by the opponents. A lot of bridge techniques in card play are in the offing to let players use them to their best advantage. It is only a matter of recognising these techniques and knowing when to use them with proper timing so as to exert the maximum pressure on the opponents.
Today's hand is a problematic one and one that requires proper timing and technique. See if you spot the winning line by placing yourself in the south seat in a contract of 4S on the following north south hands:
The bidding with both vulnerable was as under: The opening lead is the club king. Before you can breath easily, west is off to the AKQ of clubs booking you immediately. Looking at the remaining cards and contemplating how you can take them all with dummy poised to yield either 2 tricks in hearts or diamonds to rid you of your loser from the holding of 3 red cards, the 2H and J2 of diamonds. But the question is which red finesse is most likely to succeed? As south how do you tackle the problem after the play of the AS brings down the QS from west? The spades now are no more a threat with the QS falling allowing you to take the marked finesse in trump through east. But what about the red suit finesses? How do you tackle them to rid yourself of the red loser. Remember you have to take all the tricks.
Here you choice of plays would determine the level of your bridge standard. After the J of clubs from west is ruffed, a novice might even go straight for the second trump and those of us who take either the heart or the diamond finesse are no better either. Do you spot why no finesse of either diamonds or hearts will work? Yes - it is because west who was originally a passed hand has already come up with AKQJ of clubs and the QS which leaves him with no more points pointing clearly to both the red kings poised above dummy's aces. Therefore, you must know that no finesse will work.
Well next, what is your plan? Yes the squeeze comes in mind. But if your squeeze technique is not sound you might still not succeed. What is your next move from dummy? Running the trumps to squeeze east? No way. Just try it for yourself with trick 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 all but one trumps tricks taken in hand to leave 4 cards in dummy to be which ones? If you keep AH QH and AQ of diamonds east will also keep KD and KH doubleton and vice versa. If you keep AH singleton, east well hold on to his diamond king.
Keeping all hearts AQ9 with AD will also not help as then east is bound to hold on to his doubleton king of hearts and the squeeze will fail. The squeeze in this scenario is failing because of the positional factor with the dummy having to discard before east giving him easy time to adjust his discards. It is here that sound bridge technique works like a charm provided you know when to put it to action. The solution lies in the encashing of the AD first so as to unblock the dummy and name way for the squeeze now to work. With 4 clubs tricks played and the ace of diamonds and ace of spades, after trick 7, 8, 9, 10, in trumps will leave the following position.
When you now lead the squeeze card 3 of trumps. East is squeezed - if he throws KD, your jack becomes good; If he singles out the KH the dummy becomes good. This encashing of the AD before the run of trumps was a technique first applied by a gentleman from Vienna and therefore, is known as the Vienna Coup - a well known bridge technique.
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North South
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62 AKJ8453
AQ98 2
AQ9 J2
10987 654
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North West East South
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- Immateria Q97 3
AQ9 K9 2
- JD
- -
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West North East South
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P 1C P 1S
P 1NT P 4S
ALL PASS
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