[dellache]

Hi all,

I was wondering if there were many cases where a criss/cross was the practical play at the table.
Say we have this classical position :

---

We play 6NT on the ♥J lead after a 2NT opening by South.
We cash 4 clubs, 3 Hearts, and ♠AK and this is what we see :
- spades are not 5-1 ;
- Hearts are 4-3 ;
- West discards the 13th Heart and Diamonds ;
- East discards Diamonds.

Oppos are expert and they discard "aequo animo".

---

Now the choices are :
Choice 1- Cash the ♣Ace discarding the ♦3 and guess if somebody was squeezed (criss/cross option) ;
Choice 2- Cash the ♠Queen checking first the Spades, and fall back on the imperfect squeeze if West holds 4 Spades.

Double dummy, the criss/cross is of course the right play.
Single dummy however, if nothing very interesting has appeared before trick 9, I'm really wondering if the normal line is not to play for choice 2 (you win when spades were 3-3 all the time, or when West has 4(♠)+♦K)

Any opinions about this ?
Actually, can someone provide an example + explanation where the criss-cross is the right practical line against experts when you have no deterministic ways of locating one of the menaces ?

[gnasher]

I'd only give up the criss-cross chance if I had no idea what the layout was, or if I was planning to play LHO for the spade guard anyway. On this hand, I'd expect to have some idea of the opponents' shape - even world-class players aren't demigods, and they have to signal to each other so that they know what to keep. For example, I'll almost certainly know what the heart layout is, because the hand with three will have to tell his partner that.

By the way, you should play the club suit in such a way that if they're 3-1 you lead the fourth round through the short hand, so that he has to discard three times before his partner discards at all. Something like ♣K, ♣J, then:
- If West has a singleton club, cash ♣10 followed by ♣A
- If East has a singleton club, cash ♣K followed by a low club from dummy.

[dellache]

 gnasher, on 2011-January-01, 05:34, said:

I'd only give up the criss-cross chance if I had no idea what the layout was, or if I was planning to play LHO for the spade guard anyway. On this hand, I'd expect to have some idea of the opponents' shape - even world-class players aren't demigods, and they have to signal to each other so that they know what to keep. For example, I'll almost certainly know what the heart layout is, because the hand with three will have to tell his partner that.

I agree with that, and in the OP I specified that West discards the 13th Heart to simplify matters.

So let's suppose that East has a stiff Club, so that only the respective ♠/♦ count matters (Diamonds are unknown in the following diags) :

Case 3-3 :

---

Case 2-4 :

---

Case 4-2 :

---

It seems to me that in all the 3 cases :
- West will just discard his Heart ;
- Even if you play the 4th Club through East (good play), he probably WON'T discard any spades, in any of the 3 cases (BTW if he does, the problem will be solved before trick 9, so that there's no more choice at the end !)

Now clearly, if East has discarded 3 Diamonds what do we do at trick 9 ?
Do we assume that he doesn't have exactly 3 Spades because he didnot discard One ?
Do we really think that if we cash the ♣Ace at trick 9, somebody may discard a Spade now ? (situation is clear for the defense or not ?)
In other words, don't we overestimate our ability to read the end position if EW didnot make any mistake before trick 9 ?

What am I missing ?

[JLOGIC]

I think that trump squeezes and criss cross squeezes are generally very UNDERused against bad players. Their downside vs the technical line is often that you will have to guess the shape. If you are not a mouth-breather and are playing vs mouth-breathers, then you will always guess the shape. With that, the only downside, gone, you often can go from a 70 % line to a 100 % line! (or whatever). But a lot of it just comes down to your confidence in reading the endgame.

Your technique in these situations matters a lot. For instance I think you will have a great chance of getting spade count vs many opps if you win the heart in dummy and lead a spade to the king (I think the king is much better than the queen), cross to dummy and lead a spade (to your ace obv). Combine that with the fact that if spades are 4-2 you will be able to read who has 4 and who has 2 almost always, you should pick the criss cross squeeze against most people IMO.

This reminded me of an old thread I started as PhantomSac:

http://www.bridgebas...__1#entry441702

[wank]

what's a mouth breather in this context? for whatever reason i've always breathed through my mouth and can only breath through my nose if i concentrate on it.

[dake50]

Always Criss-Cross!
If it wins, great in post-martem.
And CxC is rare, you want to catch one when you can.
I know, not much help to the technical decision
at the point you must decide.
Nor much Best% info as this is so unreliable.
Except if opponents play give away --
did they? I assume you were there.

Facetious! Obvious composed.

[gnasher]

 dellache, on 2011-January-01, 06:29, said:

I agree with that, and in the OP I specified that West discards the 13th Heart to simplify matters.

Sorry, I missed that.

Quote

So let's suppose that East has a stiff Club, so that only the respective ♠/♦ count matters

If we really can't infer anything useful, you're right that it's better odds to play the line where you don't have to guess - even allowing for vacant places, it's more likely that spades are 3-3 than that RHO has four spades and ♦K.

In real life, I'd probably cash the last club and then decide what to do. Regardless of who they are, I would still expect to know something about the hand from their tempo, the sequence of discards, and the actual cards discarded. Even if I then play for spades 3-3, I haven't lost very much - for the squeeze against West to work, it needs diamonds 2=7 with the king in the short hand.

[awm]

One thing to remember is that even world class players are not infallibly perfect.

It's extremely common for opponents to give true count in spades on a hand like this. After all, for every legitimate squeeze (especially a somewhat unusual one like a criss-cross squeeze) there are many hands where there's simply a possibility for the defense to discard incorrectly on the run of some winners. Avoiding discarding problems on non-squeeze hands (i.e. by giving true count) comes up a lot more often than trying to force a guess position in a criss-cross squeeze.

Another "mistake" I see fairly often even from strong players is discarding a spade from xxx on the run of the clubs. After all, these little spades can never take a trick and discarding them cannot cost double dummy. But obviously on the actual layout it solves a guess for declarer in the end position. Nonetheless, good players often try to maintain tempo and holding onto a holding of three little might be sufficiently non-obvious for a mistake to be made.