REALBRIDGE 

Hand of the Month is the 7NT Bid and Made on December 4th by Di &Chris. It is a classic example of the squeeze-with Nick & Neil on the receiving end!

A Squeeze is an end position when one defender (in this case West) holds the sole guard on two of your suits. In the end game by leading a winner in another suit, you force him to release one of his guards giving you an extra trick It also demonstrates the only use of Gerber I approve of viz. Bidding NT slams!

Why not deal out the cards and have a go yourself?

Di Ball writes:
North has a balanced 21 points so opens 2NT. When South, holding 16 points, has picked himself up off the floor, he bids 4C (Gerber, which, when used on the  first round of bidding at the 4-level, should be alerted), to which North replies 4S, showing two Aces.

South now knows that North either must hold three kings or two kings and two queens as East/West have a maximum of 4 points between them, so there should be a decent chance of 7NT making without further enquiries.

East lead was 5S and Declarer can see 12 top tricks with the thirteenth coming from one of the red suits. North played off 3 spade winners and 4 club winners, on which West had to find 3 discards while trying to protect QT64 in hearts and J8752 in diamonds. West threw two hearts and a diamond, carefully noted by North, who played three rounds of diamonds, hoping the suit divided 4-3 so that the final small diamond becomes the 13th trick.

No joy, but West is now known to hold Jack Diamonds and two hearts as his last three cards. 

                                                                                                                                
North plays AH and then a second heart from hand and East shows out on the second round (having discarded a heart earlier); West must hold exactly JD and Q10 of Hearts, allowing dummy to score KH, dropping the Q and then plays Jack of Hearts  to beat Jack Diamonds for 13 tricks.

An interesting hand for declarer - the grand slam only succeeds because  West holds both the diamond & heart honours and can be squeezed.

Analysis by Les Baker

(Note within play detail, suits are simply referred to a N,S,E or W)

An Interesting hand from Wed 9^th Aug 2023 (with Kind Permission of Rob and Frances to publish)

The final contract on this hand was 3♦  by N

Lead: ♣ A
Made 4 — +130

After 2 passes W opens a natural 1C. North overcalls with a NT showing 15 -17 and at least a Club stop (or 2)

What would you now do with the South hand.

Playing Stayman and Transfers over a 1NT overcall, the first question to ask yourself is whether this is a hand you want to be in game or a part score?

Since you have a void opposite your partners presumed values, it is so unlikely that game will be possible. If you know partners values were in H, S and D, there are some miracle fits where you would want to be in game. So consider passing 1NT?

These type of weak distributional hands generally play better in one of the suits, the smallest trump can beat any Ace.

At the table Rob transferred to 2H and then bid 2S over the transfer, giving Frances a choice of Contracts. Frances bid 3D not liking H or S and Rob passed. A reasonable contract making 10 tricks for + 130.

Another possibility was for Rob to just transfer to H and leave it there. On the actual layout this should make 9 tricks, losing 3 H and a D, so long as declarer plays trumps at every opportunity. 9 Tricks in H is + 140, note how the major suit score beats the minor suit score, even with a trick less.

My choice on this hand would be to bid STAYMAN after the 1NT overcall. If Partner shows 4 of either major, you can safely PASS knowing you have a good fit. And if partner responds 2D (likely) you can simply bid 2H showing 5 x H and 4 Spades. You have to agree with your partner that this would be non-forcing though.

Hand of the week is undoubtedly Hand 9, where everyone went overboard  in 6xx but the conputer analysis showed onlythe original Weak 3 bid (whichever one was allowed to be played !) succeeded. How would you have played it Chris?

Fred writes:

S          W        N         E

1NT      2S      4C       No

4S         x        6H        No

No        x         xx         No

No        No      No

The opening lead was taken with the Ace of Spades, discarding the 2 of Diamonds by North.

There are 11 tricks with a reasonable Heart distribution so one more trick was required.

There were  2 options I could see one was to take the Diamond finesse this is risky as you could lose a Diamond and 3 Clubs

I decided to run the Hearts and squeeze the opposition in Diamonds this forced West to unguard his Queen of diamonds.

I didn't discard all the Clubs from dummy hoping that West who doubled would think I was interested in making Club tricks, this was successful.

Once the Queen of Diamonds was unguarded I made 3 Diamond tricks

These hands, boards 10 & 14, illustrate a technique called Sacrifice Bidding excellently carried out by Richard & Richard.

Sacrifice Bidding is frowned on by all the bridge writer gurus -who will however admit it has it's uses!

The boards brilliantly demonstrate when it can be used -and what you need to do to counter it.

I have illustrated the points using the travellers, the boards themselves can be found beside the Scoresheets.

On both boards the stuation was a fight out between two unequal pointed but long suited hands.

Each hand had the same shape, lots of trumps in E-W suits but very little in the N-S suits, in these cases voids or singletons, and vice -versa.

Inevitably one side pushed the contract, but then had it stolen by the higher ranked suit.

Correctly, and probably smugly, the losers  doubled,  knowing they would get the stealers down

But the stakes are higher than you think. 

For the lower ranked doubler it is serious because they (and everyone else) can make the contract easily, (actually clocking 680).

This means they have to get the stealers down by 680 points on Board 10, and 420 on board 14.

The situation in both case needs some really serious and intelligent defence.

On board 10 doublers must first double then keep stealers score down to 8 tricks to make a score of 800 for you and a top.

On board 14 doublers again need to keep stealers score down to 8 tricks to score 500, and a top

Neither suceeded and the "Stealers" managed  to take two very well deserved tops.

So the lessons are obvious. 

Both sides need to count how many tricks they and their opponents will make. If stealers think that even doubled they can make enough tricks to prevent your opponents coming top, press on.

Defenders, when stolen from, you must double and then concentrate very hard to get them down by the same margin  you would have scored if you had played  the contract.

This is even more important if your estimate of your contract was that everyone else in the room would get it!

For the stealers one final word. In your estimate of whether sacrificing and being  doubled will profit you, watch the vulnerabilty!