aces on bridge

“Thus must I from the smoke into the smother;

From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother.”

— William Shakespeare

The following deal occurred in the first qualifying session of the Keohane North American Swiss Teams. It was reported by Daniel Korbel and Jonathan Steinberg, the victims of Richard Popper’s expert play.

There was nothing wrong with the auction, but the final contract left something to be desired; the moral is that with two balanced hands, 32 high-card points is not always enough for slam.

Korbel started with the club 10, taken by Popper with the king in hand. He guessed to play a heart to dummy’s king, and then cashed four rounds of diamonds. When the suit divided to his satisfaction, he was still in with a chance of success. It would appear that declarer still needed a 3-3 break in spades, but Popper had other ideas.

A spade to the king and another spade to the ace reduced everyone down to five cards. When declarer led the spade nine from hand, West had to come down to two hearts and thus only two clubs. (West was not guarding a club winner, but by retaining three clubs, he had been trying to prevent declarer from taking his club winners).

However, now a club to the king and a club to the queen caught East in an unusual squeeze. That player had to retain his master spade, so was forced to discard down to just one heart. Now Popper could lead dummy’s heart nine to the jack, queen and ace, and the heart seven took the 13th trick!

This type of play was identified as a Vise Squeeze by Terence Reese.

ANSWER: An idea much favored by the experts is to let fourth hand respond to the double of a weak two to show a weak hand either by bidding a suit at the twolevel, or (as in today’s deal) by bidding two no-trump as a puppet to three clubs. He then shows his suit or passes three clubs at his next turn. A direct bid of three clubs or three hearts here would be at least a king better than this hand.