Easy Squeeze?

One of the things that may motivate me to count more consistently is the idea of pulling off a few squeezes.

Red vs white, MPs, we bid to an unopposed 3NT via 4sf.



A spade lead drew the jack from RHO, and the king from my hand.

I saw no harm in trying the club finesse. All the suits are stopped, and the contract is already secure, even on a 5-0 diamond split. Plus, if the finesse loses, RHO might decide that I'm trying to set up some winning clubs, and switch suits. This could give me a trick.

Alas, the finesse failed, and RHO returned the jack of clubs. Interesting.

Seeing no reason to duck, I won, and led a low diamond towards dummy, trying to maximize my chances of picking up a 5-0 diamond split. Both followed, but when I continued the queen, LHO discarded a small spade.

With 8 tricks remaining, I have 6 winners. This shouldn't be squeeze territory, but it turns out the Jack of spades on trick 1 was from a QJ doubleton. Ergo, my ten of spades is the 7th trick, but I don't know that yet.

What I do know is that RHO has the ten of clubs, which is boss. I also know that hearts are going to be interesting, so I make a point of watching LHO's discards carefully.

LHO throws 2 hearts as I run the diamonds. I throw one myself off the board. RHO throws the queen of spades on my final diamond. Yay!

Sadly, I didn't give it too much more thought at the table, but I probably should have. RHO held, before discarding:



At first glance I would have said that that 4 of clubs is the clearly correct discard, but on reflection, I can see why that would be bad. If east discards the small club, I can cash a spade then endplay him in clubs, making him lose his heart trick. (Assuming, of course, that I know what's going on.)

With the queen of spade tabled, I take my 2 spades. RHO discarded the a small heart on the ace, and the ten of clubs under the ten of spades (which I completely overlooked - oops!). Even if it had been the 4, the end result would still have been the same, as LHO was down to a small spade and 2 small hearts. A small heart to the ace, then back to the king will clear the heart suit, dropping the queen and promoting the jack, for the 12th trick.

I wish I could say that I counted it out just like that, but I didn't. I did know, though, that there was still a club out against me, and I knew that RHO was out of spades and diamonds. Once west had followed under both the ace and king of hearts, the finesse was never going to be right.

In the post-mortem, the squeeze was extremely easy to read. Hopefully, as time goes on, that understanding will creep into the pre-mortem.