A criss-cross from the club

Sometimes neat things happen at the club and with the advent of breathalyzers, there are fewer people sitting around at the bar after play to review the nightly session.

I was playing this hand recently at the Otago Bridge Club, against two middling Intermediates (club Open players).

West opened a weak NT and it went all pass, and the defence started somewhat inelegantly:

North	East	South	West	North	East	South
A	4	6	2
K	5	8	3
T	4	Q	J
		8	K	A	2
9	2	8	3
7	T	5	6
7	K	8	3
	4	J	A	5
			6	K	9	3
7	Q	?

At this point, South gets squeezed, as the layout of the remaining material cards is:

West		South		East
J - -  A96				Q94 Q -  -
		T7 - - QJ

When East wins the Q, South has no effective discard. A Club discard would allow West to play a towards the J; and the  A9 will be good.

A  discard will allow West to play the Q, which will drop the T and the J; and dummy's remaining s will all be high.

This position is what's called a criss-cross squeeze; but came up organically at the club. Sadly, correctly reading the squeeze here took you from -2 to -1, but it's still a neat position. Well done to John Revie to accurately read my discards and execute the squeeze in the endgame.

There are certainly comments that could be made on the bidding and defence prior to this position - if people feel the need to start a discussion around that; feel free - but I thought it was worth highlighting that such a 'rare' or 'difficult' position is liable to crop up "at the table", and there's no reason why you can't go right in similar positions when you're playing.

Started by Brad Johnston on 03 Mar 2020 at 01:33PM