Welcome to Basement Bridge

Weekly updates from Kit Jackson offering hints and tips for the modern Bridge player. Enjoy!

Friday 3 February 2012

BASIC SQUEEZES


There is a general tendency among teachers of the game not to mention too soon in the careers of people learning Bridge the all important and fascinating world of the Squeeze. There are just too many snares, pitfalls and technicalities. Well stuff that. Here goes. The Simple Squeeze. I'm not going to get technical about menaces, threats and entries but there is one guiding principle you do need to attend to before even contemplating the positions. It is called "Rectifying the Count." You can only apply a simple squeeze to the defenders when you are in the position where you are going to win all but ONE of the remaining tricks (n-1). Here's a single positional squeeze. It's a 3 card ending with both menaces in one hand (North) so only West can be squeezed. The JS & KH are the menaces and AD is the squeeze card while the AS is the entry card. You are certain to win 2 tricks but look as if you have one to lose. Aha but no...
                   AJ
                   K
                   ---
                   ---
KQ
A                              Immaterial
---
---
                  x
                  x
                  A
                  ---
When the AD is led, West has to find a discard before the North hand and cannot get it right whatever they do. The squeeze is inexorable. West discards the AH - now the KH is good and North discards the JS. If West discards  a Spade honour, north lets go the KH, making A & J Spades.  The squeeze works just as well if one of the menaces (KH) is in the South hand:
                   AJ
                   x
                   ---
                   ---
KQ
A                              Immaterial
---
---
                  x
                  K
                  A
                  ---
I'm not going any further into this but if you want you can immerse yourselves in the romantic world of Double, Automatic, Triple and Repeating Squeezes to your heart's content!
Enjoy

No comments:

Post a Comment