Of all the fascinating aspects of bridge, nothing can beat the thrill and satisfaction of executing a squeeze on the opponents, watching them squirm under pressure and finally seeing them succumb to the inevitable. That is the ultimate triumph for a bridge player as a declarer. For squeeze play is considered more as an expert's forte than an average player's arsenal.
For even for a simple squeeze, there are some laid down boundaries and rules which can steer the declarer's ship out of the rough seas wherein he is threatened by inevitable losers.
Before I venture to give the problem hand for today, let us get familiar with some technique and technicalities that are an essential part of squeeze, which cannot work unless we are familiar with the terminology of squeeze play.
To put it simply, some cards in bridge are worthless cards which are called idle cards while others have a useful role as prospective winners, stoppers or guards - these are called busy cards. The squeeze play forces defender to discard forcibly a busy card after all his idle cards have been extinguished. A simple example shall suffice. Suppose, north south hands contain the following:
On the 10 club lead, in a contract of NT, if north discards his idle card 9H, east is squeezed. If east throws 10H, south's 5H becomes a winner. Obviously a diamond discard would yield north 3 tricks in diamonds. South is thus making all 4 tricks despite having only 3 winners.
The other squeeze terminology to remember is what constitutes the upper or lower hand. Of declarer's 2 hands, the one that lies at the left of the victim is called the upper hand and vice versa. Thus in the above example south is the upper hand. The most important condition for every squeeze is that one defender must hold busy cards in at least two suits called the threat suits, as against free suits.
For a simple squeeze to work, being a two suit squeeze, declarer must holds threat in 2 suits and one defender faces the burden. With both threats impossible to lie in the same hand with the squeeze card, the following 4 conditions need to be memorised for a squeeze to work known as B.L.U.E B for, where one defender is busy in 2 suits; L for when declarer has only one loser remaining before squeeze card; U for at least one threat remaining in the upper hand and E for entry needed to the established threat.
Let us now approach the problem for today with the following NS hands along with the bidding:
The bidding goes as under:
The opening lead is the QS. Take is from there, placing yourself in the south seat. How do you view your prospects in the making of the contract of 4H?
Let us count our apparent losers first. We have one is spades and possibly 3 in clubs with east having bid clubs showing minimum 5.
On trick one, you win the KS and when you encash trumps, east discards KC on the second round. Well how do you go about curtailing your losers? You have fortunately a lot of bidding clues to help you if you have been alert with presence of mind.
One inference that is obvious is that west could not be holding even a singleton club for otherwise he would have led it aiming for club ruffs. With only a suit headed by QJ and nothing in hearts, west is bound to hold the AD. If so B.L.U.E. is in force, with threats cards 4S, KD in one hand. Your know east holds a singleton spade and is now out of spades and trumps following blanks to 4 trumps the winning play now is AC and to lead a club to east.
If east takes his 3 club tricks, let him, and on the fourth club, west is squeezed on the final trump, unable to hold to 2 spades and AD. If east, after 2 clubs, leads a diamond, you discard a club and your KD is bound to make. Squeeze was bound to succeed with B.L.U.E. in full cry concluding that squeeze is nothing but B.L.U.E.
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North South
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AK42 865
75 AKQJ64
K742 -
763 A842
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North East South
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- - 5
9 10 -
AK10 QJ5 5
- - 87
10
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South West North East
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1H 1S Db1 2C
4H P P P
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