BRIDGE
Foul play
Andrew Robson
WHETHER you refer to the technique as 'applying the pressure', 'turning the screw', 'squeezing' or whatever, the declarer of this week's hand made sure that East found his final discard to be an unpleasant business. Throughout the defence East had been confident that North-South had stretched too far in the bidding — until he realised that there were four cards that he needed to keep in his hand, but that every- body else was down to three cards. It was his turn to discard ...
Dealer East North-South Vulnerable K 8 7 IP A K 2 • Q 3 2 4 10 9 V 9 7 • 8 7 5 4 5 4 3 0 10 7 3 4 A Q 6 2 V Q 6 5 4 3 • 10 6 WE +842 # A 5 • J ✓ 1 10 8 • A K J 9 4 • K.1- 96 The Bidding South West 2* pass pass pass North East 1V 5* pass North's decision to go for the minor suit game was rather eccentric — a 3NT bid would have been more usual holding such a balanced hand with Vs, East's suit, well stopped. 3NT would have succeeded easily unless East led 4A or +0 — unlikely. West led V9 against 5* and declarer rose with dummy's VK. He drew trumps in three rounds, then led +6 to +Q. East won +A and correctly returned +5, his only safe exit card. Declarer won +9, cashed +KJ, led his penultimate trump forcing East down to 4AQ and VQ6, and then tabled his last trump. Dummy's last three cards were 4K and VA2. What could East discard? Needing to keep a guard for his VQ, he discarded 40. But declarer was now able to exit with to dummy's 4K and East's 4A, and watt for East to lead from VQ6 at trick 12. His V6 return was taken by declarer's VJ and dummy's VA took the last trick.
The technical term for declarer's coup was a 'Strip Squeeze and endplay'. Painful.
Previous page
