[nige1]

Charles Outred was intrigued by this difficult deal from a team-match. West leads ♥9 against your 5♠ contract won by dummy's ♥A as East follows with ♥K. You successfully finesse ♠Q and cash ♠A, West discarding ♣4 (odd or encouraging). When you exit in ♥, West discards ♣7 and East wins with ♥6. Plan the play if
1. East exits with ♦T
2. East exits with ♣K.

If you feel brave, please have a go, at single-dummy, but I'll post the full deal in a day or two, when you can try it at double-dummy. I found it difficult, even with sight of all 4 hands

[North hand corrected, in the light of CyberYeti's post]

---

This post has been edited by nige1: 2019-October-23, 19:05

[Cyberyeti]

N has 14 cards which is why nothing adds up when I try to work out the other hands

[nige1]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-23, 14:46, said:

N has 14 cards which is why nothing adds up when I try to work out the other hands

Sorry. Corrected. Thank you, Cyberyeti.

[Cyberyeti]

nige1, on 2019-October-23, 18:40, said:

Sorry. Corrected. Thank you, Cyberyeti.

Looks to me the other hands are something like:

Spoiler

---

In which case 5♥ is a pretty wild bid, so now to work out what to do with that.

[nige1]

Charles Outred discoveed the hidden depths of this beautiful deal.
Cyberyeti has correctly reconstructed the East-West hands.

West leads ♥9 against your 5♠ contract won by dummy's ♥A as East follows with ♥K. You successfully finesse ♠Q and cash ♠A, West discarding ♣4 (odd or encouraging). When you exit in ♥, West discards ♣7 and East wins with ♥6.

Plan the play if
1. East exits with ♦T
2. East exits with ♣K.

---

Thomas Gray said:

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

[Cyberyeti]

You may want to correct one of your posts, in the OP he exits with the diamond 10, in the last post the heart 10 for case 1.

[Cyberyeti]

Spoiler

If he plays 10♥ the hand is relatively simple, you essentially rumble the trumps and reach an end position of:

---

where the last trump fixes W.

If he removes your entry to dummy by returning the ♣K, you need a bit of careful timing, retaining 5♠ so you can overtake it later so you can ruff the clubs out and get down to an end position where W has ♦KQx and you have Jxx, Axx where small away from the ace does for W.

How you accomplish this is to come down to ♠105 ♦Axx in hand, ♠6 ♦Jxx, ♣10 in dummy and W with ♦KQx ♣QJ is now squeezed when you play 5♠ to the 6, if he pitches a diamond, you play on diamonds, if he pitches a club, you ruff a club and endplay him in diamonds

[nige1]

As CyberYeti correctly points out...

If East exits with ♦T, you reduce to the ending on the left, where the last trump fixes West.

This is a simple squeeze without the count

---

Again, CyberYeti points out the solution.

If East removes your entry to dummy by returning the ♣K, you come down to the ending on the left.

West is now squeezed when you play ♠5 to dummy's ♠6, if West pitches a ♦, you play on ♦s, if he pitches a ♣, you ruff out his remaining ♣ and end-play him in ♦s.

What we might call a shape-shifter squeeze

---

[nige1]

Cyberyeti, on 2019-October-25, 03:33, said:

You may want to correct one of your posts, in the OP he exits with the diamond 10, in the last post the heart 10 for case 1.

I like to simplify deals to high-light the key-points
e.g. I make South declarer and ♠s trumps.

But I often introduce errors when I try to do so. Sorry.

CyberYeti sussed it out, in spite of my mistakes.

I'm aware I could have simplified it more (as on the left).

West leads ♥9 against your 5♠ contract, won by dummy's ♥A as East follows with ♥K.
You successfully finesse ♠Q and cash ♠A, West discarding ♣6 (odd or encouraging).
When you exit in ♥, West discards ♣7 and East wins with ♥6.
Plan the play if1. East exits with ♦T2. East exits with ♣K.

---

[

[FelicityR]

It's a lovely hand. Thank you for posting, Nigel. Just out of interest you describe the first squeeze as a simple squeeze without the count. Not that I'm any expert on squeezes, but isn't this some form of stepping stone squeeze? And wasn't the count rectified when you gave up the ♥ trick?

Please advise me if I'm wrong (which probably I am).

[Cyberyeti]

FelicityR, on 2019-October-26, 03:44, said:

It's a lovely hand. Thank you for posting, Nigel. Just out of interest you describe the first squeeze as a simple squeeze without the count. Not that I'm any expert on squeezes, but isn't this some form of stepping stone squeeze? And wasn't the count rectified when you gave up the ♥ trick?

Please advise me if I'm wrong (which probably I am).

It's not a stepping stone, a stepping stone is where you force an opponent to give you access to a winner in a hand you can't get to yourself because you don't have a card in the suit.

[msjennifer]

Sirs.I am not an expert in NAMING squeezes.I did myself play and make a similar positioned hand and thought that it was a ' CRISS CROSS SIMPLE SQUEEZE ' Kindly correct me if not. Thanks.

[Cyberyeti]

msjennifer, on 2019-October-26, 11:00, said:

Sirs.I am not an expert in NAMING squeezes.I did myself play and make a similar positioned hand and thought that it was a ' CRISS CROSS SIMPLE SQUEEZE ' Kindly correct me if not. Thanks.

A criss cross is slightly different again in its standard form A, Qx in one hand Qx, A in the other, looking to catch the guy with Kx, Kx where which ace you cash next depends on what he discards, and it operates with no more tricks to lose.