Tuesday, August 15, 2017

A cross-ruff squeeze

Truth, they say, is stranger than fiction. I was dealt the following hand in a challenge match. While I did not make the ambitious SIX SPADE contract despite negotiating trump for one loser, post-mortem analysis showed how I could make it. The slam is cold on any lead.

The lead was the Jack of hearts. I won in hand, and planned to take two spade finesses. It would be nice not to be missing the spade nine but I had to hope for the best. I advance the Q, covered King and ace. I returned to hand in diamonds and played a second spade up. I guessed to put in the 8 and breathed my first sigh of relief. RHO returned a diamond.

The rest is analysis. I now needed to tread a narrow path, Winning, I need to ruff a diamond and in the following diagrammed position, draw West's last trump. East is squeezed in three suits, (in clubs in a overtaking entry squeeze)

On the ten of spades, East cannot weaken a red suit. A diamond pitch sets up a twelfth trick at once. A heart pitch allows, HA Hruff, setting up long H with Club entry to enjoy the established heart. So East pitches a club. However, declarer now plays CK and CQ and noticing the fall of the J and the T which were made tight, declarer OVERTAKES the CQ with the Ace (see third diagram postion) and advances the now good C9 (this is not a extra 12th trick but a entry creating measure) throwing a heart and THEN playing the last free winner the trump simple squeezing East in the last diagrammed position

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Welcome to Ramesh's BRIDGE BLOG

In these pages, I comment on hands from Bridge Base Online ACBL tourneys. I play in these with a variety of partners with different degrees of skill. I might present a hand or two from my collection of bridge books, every now and then. I am more interested in play and defense than in complex bidding systems, but I do follow the cut and thrust of Vanderbilt and World Championship Vugraph and try to keep abreast of expert practice in the obstructive and constructive bidding system department. I may also feature, newspaper-style, famous hands from important matches that I saw on Vugraph.

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Bridge expert for 20 years. I started blogging about bridge only in 2009. Chess follower. Problem fan. Studied hundreds of composition themes in two-movers, fairy chess, the former from the Good Companion era to the modern style of virtual play. Big collector of chess and bridge rare books. My two game blogs bridge blog, and my chess problem themes blog chess expo

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

My alter ego, The Hideous Hog

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