Straight and Narrow

Sitting South, you deal and open 1♦  and in due course find yourself declaring 6♦ on a trump lead.

 You see that if LHO holds ♣ K, you’ll be able to discard a ♠ from dummy on ♣ A, ruff a ♠ and discard the last ♠ loser on ♥ K.

If ♣ K happens to be with RHO, you’ll need to set up hearts. In that case you’ll need hearts to break 4-3 and trumps 3-2. If trumps happen to be 4-1, you’ll need ♥ Qxx to fall. If all else fails , ♠ Qx will see you through.

With these thoughts, you play small from dummy and win with the ten as RHO follows.

You are about to table a small ♣ when it occurs to you that you may not have sufficient entries if defence starts attacking spades. You double check, and notice that you’ll need three entries to dummy – 2 to ruff hearts and one to enjoy the long card. You do have these entries provided ♥ A doesn’t stand in the way.

Congratulating yourself on your foresight, you cash ♥ A at trick 2 before playing a ♣ to Queen. Alas, RHO produces the king, and returns a second trump. You win in hand as LHO follows.

Your plan to setup hearts is still intact, and trumps have proven to be 3-2 so you can afford the ♥ Q to be 4 cards.

Continuing with your plan, you cash ♣ A, ruff a ♣ with ♦ J, cash ♥ K pitching a spade and ruff a ♥ high.

You face a major setback as LHO discards a club. Oh well, seems like you are reduced to playing for ♠ Qx.

Cursing your ill-luck you table the ♦ Q to draw the last outstanding trump, LHO follows and you discard?

Here’s the position:

 So far, every card that you played has been forced. You’ve had no real options. Your path has been straight and narrow.

This is the first time that you have a choice, a fork in the road. First time that you can elect to pitch a heart or spade.

Or can you? 

Lets see what we know about opponents’ hands. LHO has produced 3 diamonds, 2 hearts and 4 clubs so far. RHO has produced 5 hearts 2 diamonds and 3 clubs. At this stage RHO is left with 2 hearts, 0/1 clubs and 3/2 spades. If one club and 2 spades, your play is immaterial. He either holds the queen allowing you to make, or he doesn’t and you go down.

But if he holds ♠ Qxx and ♥ QT.. and if you were to discard a spade from dummy, what can he do? If he pitches a heart, you can simply cross to a spade and ruff the hearts good. If he pitches a spade, you cash both spade honors and then ruff a heart back to hand to enjoy the good ♠ J.

Without any planning, intentions or malice aforethought, just by sticking to straight and narrow, you have executed a trump squeeze. Congratulations!!! 🙂