Transfer squeeze

Tuesday morning’s club game included a hand (Board 12) with bidding issues for both partner and me and with a play issue for me.

Here are the hands of partner (North) and me (South):

 

Bidding issue #1.  Do you open the North hand or not?  If you do open, do you open 1♠ or 2♠?  My preferences are that the requirements for a weak two bid and a one bid run continuously; that is, assuming adequate suit length and quality, if a hand is not strong enough for a one bid, then it is a weak two bid.  I know of some other players who believe that there is a gap between the two.  To determine if I have an opening bid, a frequent guideline I apply is Rule of 22: add your HCP and the length of your two longest suits (akin to the Rule of 20) and also add your quick tricks: if the total is 22, you have enough for an opening one bid; if the total is fewer than 22, then you do not have enough for an opening one bid.  (I suspect I would be better off to slightly shade the opening if not vulnerable, but I do not.)  So, by my standards, the North hand is a 2♠ opening.

Partner chose to open 1♠ (as would many).

Bidding issue #2.  What do you respond with the flat 21 HCP of South (playing 2/1 game forcing)?  4NT is definitely not right; you would prefer that partner ask for keycards than you, because if partner were to ask he could probably count tricks better than you, as you have all aces and kings and no length or secondary cards.  2♦seems like the normal response, but since I was hunting for information, I decided to try 2♣.

Partner now, of course, rebid 2♠.  We are not a familiar partnership and so I am not sure we have all of our necessary 2/1 treatments agreed.  Still, a benefit of my choosing 2♣ response, is that I can be pretty sure that partner has six spades for the rebid even if our rebids of majors might otherwise deny the ability to rebid 2NT rather than promise a six card or longer holding the opened major.

I now bid 3♠ and partner raised to 4♠.

Bidding issue #3.  What do you rebid with my hand?  At this point, I still don’t like 4NT but could not think of an alternative.  Partner responded 5♣, showing 1 key card.  I next rebid 5♦, asking about the ♠Q.  Partner bid 6♠, promising the ♠Q but denying the holding of a side suit king.

Bidding issue #4.  What do you bid next with my hand?  I am counting on six spades and five more cards in my hand for eleven “top” tricks.  With partner not having any side suit kings, his opening 1 bid, I thought, must include at least two queens.  If they were both in the minor suits, I have thirteen top tricks, but if one were in hearts, then I have only twelve top tricks.  Either way, I was unable to discern a benefit to spades over notrump, and so I chose to rebid 6NT.

 

The ♥J was led and dummy was a disappointment: only one queen and it is not a minor suit queen!  I am certainly going to guess that the ♥T lies also with West and that the ♥K lies with East.  No matter how I look at this hand, I need three club tricks to make my slam.  And if I lose a club trick, I will suffer more undertricks than the spade slam bidders.

Play issue.  OK. I need the club finesse to win twelve tricks.  Might as well assume that it does win.  Is there then a way to thirteen tricks?  

There is, if there is a red suit squeeze, one hand having been dealt five or more diamonds plus having to guard hearts.  Here, the play gets interesting:

• If West holds the long diamonds, then I should cover the ♥J in order to establish the ♥9 as a threat card against West (transferring the heart menace).
• If East holds the long diamonds, then I should fail to cover the ♥J so that the ♥Q is a threat against East.
• I, somewhat unplanned, also notice that perhaps my choice to respond 2♣ rather than 2♦ might pay a dividend.  My not having shown length in diamonds might cause the potential for a red suit squeeze to be tougher to identify for the defender with a three card holding in diamonds.  If that defender discards a diamond at some time, then his partner might be subjected to a red suit squeeze even if his partner were dealt only four diamonds.

Without regard to which opponent I play for diamond length, the end positions are similar.  Win the heart ace, play a high club, two spades ending in dummy, take the club finesse, play a third winning club and  three more rounds of spades.  After five of six spades, one heart, and three clubs, I reach a four card end position, with North’s last spade to be led and one opponent only (I hope) holding three diamonds:

 

The ♥? is the ♥9 if I choose to squeeze West and is the ♥Q if I choose to squeeze East.

Who do I choose to squeeze?

I have no idea, but I think the decision might reasonably be based upon which defender do you think is more likely to discard a diamond from a three card holding.  At the table, I had not really thought that through and so played the ♥Q at Trick 1 just in case the lead had been away from the ♥K (fat chance!).  At any rate, the club finesse did work (good!) but East did choose to hold on to his four diamonds (good for him) and so I scored +1440.  I wonder if West might have pitched a diamond so that I could have won a thirteenth trick had I not covered the ♥J?  Still matchpointed well, though.