Pressure plays.
			By Jos van Kan.

It is not only the proverbial cat that is killed by curiosity. Celebrating your
birthday you get a hand that befits the occasion:

   S AQJ
   H AKQ2
   D Q76
   C K84

as you play a rubber with your wife and a friendly neighboring couple. All 
square and RHO passes. You open 2NT (20-22) which causes some noises of 
disbelief with your better half and after a pass by RHO she bids a firm 7NT.
"That should be laydown", she says as LHO leads ST and she tables:

   S K73
   H 864
   D AK54
   C AQJ

Well, it certainly would have been if one of those black Jacks had been red.
As it is it seems that you have to rely on either red suit breaking 3-3 for
your thirteenth trick. And let's face it, most declarers now would test Hearts
first, then Diamonds and then depending on what happens would be hero or goat.

But suppose you cash your clubs and spade tricks first.
1. Is there a difference and if so, what?






















1. The superficial difference is, that you seem to postpone the moment of
truth. But there is a more fundamental difference. After six black tricks have
been played there are only 7 cards left to play. Suppose *both* red suits are
breaking badly, but *one* opponent started out with length in both suits.
Now turn and twist as he may, he must have discarded one of those suits.
You have *squeezed* him. Now, that wasn't too difficult, was it?

Why doesn't the squeeze operate when you cash the red suits first? Because you
disrupt your communication. After you cash out the red suits, the opponent with
length in both suits can discard in such a way, that the trick that the squeeze
has produced will be unreachable. When you experiment  with that, you see that
you can trim down the configuration to:

                S ---
		H 8
	        D A5
  S ---         C Q        S x
  H J10                    H ---
  D J10         S ---      D ---
  C ---         H A2       C xxx
		D 6
		C K

and the squeeze will still operate. You even could cash AH and it *still* would
operate. But the card you absolutely can't miss is AD. However, if you had
cashed the clubs in a different order such that the last club in dummy had been
AC instead of QC, then the shoe would have been on the other foot: you could
have cashed AD, but could not have missed AH. Note, that the East and West
hands can be exchanged; that makes no difference. 

Since it was your birthday both red suits were 3-3, so all this wisdom went for
nothing and 7NT made with an overtrick. :-)



Let's try another example just for the hell of it. You are in 6NT against a DT
lead:

                S A2
		H AK74
		D Q5
		C A8653

		S Q53
		H QJ2
		D AKJ3
		C K72

Plan the play. Preliminary analysis: there are 11 tricks on top and if Clubs
break 3-2 you can develop a club trick.





















There is more than one way to tackle this hand, but the simplest is to take DQ
and cash C AK. If both opponents follow, you're home. If one opponent shows
out in the first or second round, you must play his partner for the SK. How do
you continue?





















Cash out all your winners in the red suits leaving:

               S A2 
	       H --
	       D --
	       C 8

               S Q5
	       H --
	       D --
	       C 7
If the opponent with the long clubs has discarded down to one club, you put him
on lead with that Club to lead from his presumed Kx of Spades. If he still has
two clubs left, his presumed SK is now singleton and should drop under SA.


You also could make the hand by ducking a Club in trick two. This is left as an
exercise to the reader. (Don't forget to cash SA (Vienna Coup) before you
rattle off your red suit winners).

Copyright (c) 1997 by Jos van Kan. All rights reserved.