Nov 09 2008
Party at Laura’s
A fivesome gathered to play bridge at a friend’s house. The hostess, Laura, is actually not there, but has graciously encouraged us to use her fabulous home as a gathering place. We brought Nugent with us so he could have a playdate with Sophie, a small and rambunctious pug. They were underfoot all night.
With a fivesome, someone sits out for four deals. It’s a nice way to be able to have a break every so often, but the game keeps moving. For this deal, Malcolm was my partner, Henry was on my left, Lance was on my right.
I held KT9 KJTx A8xx xx. We play an 11-14 notrump, and i usually do not open this type of hand. If i have only 11 pts, i’d like to have a five card suit. However, my partner has been exhausting, and he’s drunk, and i have some tens and nines. So i open 1NT.
Partner bids Stayman, and i show my four hearts. He’s not interested, and leaps to 3NT. Henry leads the club five, and dummy tables:
AJxx A87 Tx KQT9
KT9 KJTx A8xx xx
I insert the K. Lance wins the A and shifts to a low diamond. I duck that to Henry’s J. Henry now plays the Q. I ponder whether to win this, and decide to duck. I’ve lost three tricks.
Ducking turns out to have worked out OK, b/c Henry appears to be out of diamonds. He thinks a moment and leads the club 3. Since he led the 6, this probably means he has 5 or 6 clubs. I hook the 9C and Lance follows.
I have a two-way guess for both major suit queens. Spades are more solid, and since i am already in the dummy (and since i think a diamond continuation would be annoying), i hook the spade 9. The hand would have been over if that had won, but Henry wins the spade Q and gets out passively with a spade and i win in hand. The hands are now:
AJ A87 - QT
9 KJTx A8 -
I start by cashing the spades. On the fourth round, Lance pitches a diamond, i pitch my low heart, and Henry throws a club. At this point, i’m pretty sure Lance’s hand is 3352 based on the play. So Henry must be 3325. I still don’t know who has the heart queen.
I now cash the club queen. Lance can’t pitch a diamond or my eight will grow up, so he throws a heart. If he had the heart queen, he was squeezed. Since he protected his diamonds, my diamond eight is now no good, so i toss it on the club. Henry follows.
I have more tricks to cash before i have to decide about the heart queen, though. I come to my hand with the heart king. I cash the diamond Ace. Now, Henry has the good club Jack and three hearts left. If he throws his club, my club ten will be good (and i still have the heart Ace to get to it). So he also must throw a heart. If he had the heart queen, then he was squeezed.
Since they’ve both discarded down to two hearts, i can cash the heart Ace, knowing the queen is tumbling down. Making three.
I believe this is what as known as a non-simultaneous double squeeze. It’s actually a simple squeeze on RHO (Lance) because he is the one who held the heart queen. But you play it as a double squeeze.
I have never seen this non-simultaneous thing before in practice. What a cool hand!!
The full hands were:
| AJxx A87 Tx KQT9 | ||
| Qxx xxx QJ Jxxxx | xxx Qxx K9xxx Ax | |
| KT9 KJTx A8xx xx |