ACES ON BRIDGE

“If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.”

— Felix Frankfurter

In the readers’ letters last month, I was asked about how to identify deals on which a squeeze might be relevant. I don’t want to get into Felix Frankfurter’s dictum that you will know it when you see it. Instead, I’ll be trying to show examples over the course of the next month or two.

Typically, the possibilities for a squeeze exist when declarer has top winners rather than top losers, and is one trick short of his target. Without being unusually devious, let’s take a hand that lends itself to a squeeze in six hearts. At teams, you wouldn’t really care about the overtrick; but at pairs, the question is how to avoid a diamond loser in six hearts.

The defenders lead a spade against six hearts. You win the ace, and after playing to ruff a club low in hand, you lead out the heart king and jack.

When the bad break comes to light, you cross to the diamond king to draw trumps, pitching two diamonds from hand.

The fourth trump puts West under pressure: In the five-card ending, dummy has two diamonds, a spade and a heart, while you have three spades and the bare diamond ace in hand. If West pitches a spade, the spades ruff out; if a diamond, then trick 13 will be won with dummy’s long diamond.

Note that if we change North’s spades to Q-J doubleton, we have a fast loser but no slow losers. So we change our approach: We drive out the spade ace, then ruff a club in hand and pitch dummy’s diamond on the spade winner.

ANSWER: While a club is as likely to cost a trick as a diamond, I can see good logic in trying to set up clubs fast (before they go on dummy’s spades) and possibly force dummy, in an attempt to build extra trump tricks for myself. So I would lead a low club, not a diamond.