Discussion:
What sort of squeeze is this?
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ais523
2020-06-09 23:07:09 UTC
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North cashes the 13th spade in a notrump contract.

North's hand also contains K of diamonds, low club.
West has Qx in diamonds, Q of clubs.
East has ATx in diamonds.
South has Jxx in diamonds.

East and South will obviously just discard a low diamond, but West is
squeezed; unguarding clubs means North just gets to cash the remaining
club, so West has to discard a diamond. Now when North plays the King,
West's Queen drops; East either has to duck and let North score the
King, or else take the Ace and let south score the last trick with the
Jack. So N/S get one more trick than they would if West were not forced
to discard, i.e. this is a squeeze.

It doesn't match up with any of the squeeze patterns I know the names
of, though (I haven't seen a squeeze before in which one player is
squeezed, and an endplay on their partner is used as an entry; and I
can't find it in lists of squeeze positions, surprising as it happens
on trick 11), but I don't know very much about squeeze nomenclature.
Thus, I'm hoping that someone here on Usenet will let me know what
it's called.

(This comes from hypothetical play in an actual hand; I could have
played for this ending, but didn't see it and took a much more boring
line. I spotted it when analysing the hand later on.)
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ais523
f***@googlemail.com
2020-06-11 09:36:07 UTC
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It's a form of stepping stone squeeze
ais523
2020-06-12 05:54:03 UTC
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Post by ais523
North cashes the 13th spade in a notrump contract.
North's hand also contains K of diamonds, low club.
West has Qx in diamonds, Q of clubs.
East has ATx in diamonds.
South has Jxx in diamonds.
It's a form of stepping stone squeeze
Ah right. In the examples of stepping-stone squeezes I was looking at,
the squeeze is used to make the squeezed player vulnerable to an
endplay, using it to reach a winner that was already established. In
this one, the squeeze is used to establish the winner and the endplay
happens on their partner, so I didn't notice the connection.

(The setup also reminds me somewhat of a guard squeeze, squeezing out
the protection on the diamond Q so that the AT form a tenace. It's
noticably different, though, because the tenace is formed in an
opponent's hand for an endplay, rather than in our own hand for a
finesse.)
--
ais523
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