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OLD CHESTNUTS.

There are a few sayings around about how to play bridge hands well. We lock them away and just have to remember which one applies to the problem deal we have. Maybe the key word is “just”. It is not so easy to do that.

 

2NT showed 18-19 and 3was a check-back for 4-card majors. The opening lead was 9.

Dummy was nice though South would have appreciated a couple of those small major cards transforming into clubs. Nevertheless, prosects seemed quite good with 9 top tricks outside clubs and two top ones in that suit.

If the club break is 3-3 or one defender hold  honour 8 doubleton, then 12 tricks will be easy. Were the QJ to be doubleton, there would be 13 tricks..or more! What, though, if a defender has a double stop in clubs, preventing you from getting a third club trick before the defence had taken two? The only chance then would be a squeeze. You could adopt one of two approaches, losing a club early await developments after regaining the lead, or simply try initially running your long suit.

Remembering what to do is part of the problem. The other problem is recognising the suit! Not clubs, of course, but diamonds! Let’s look at all four hands and see what happened.

 

The first two rounds of diamonds produced nothing of interest and on the third diamond, East had an easy club discard but the fourth diamond got a little trickier for East. Another club would allow South to set clubs up for one loser while a spade would give a desperate declarer four tricks in that suit.

So, a small heart it had to be. South discarded a club and then played a club to the ace and exited a low club throwing a heart from dummy. East won to exit a low spade. Once more in hand, South played K and was interested to see J appear from East. A low spade was then thrown from dummy on K and the moment of truth had arrived. South did not think East would throw a heart from QJx and therefore took a successful heart finesse for their 12^th trick.

A successful play because the long suit had been run early and squeezed one of the defenders. Some squeezes are hard to execute: others just happen by just knowing the right saying…and, of course, recognising which suit to run!

 

An annoying bid!

Not your partner’s but an opponent’s pre-emptive action. Take a look:

 

2 was game-forcing while 4NT was for the minors. 4 was just a nuisance! What now?

Richard Solomon

 

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