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Ruff or Sluff
Brian Lee and Walter Lee introduced me to the theme of the veering squeeze card, a technique that can be used to compensate for the absence of one of the usual requirements in some types of strip-squeeze. In these positions, the squeeze card is a loser that, after being led, veers in one direction or another depending on second hand’s discard: Sometimes declarer will ruff; sometimes he will discard and allow fourth hand to win the trick.
The first such squeeze that I encountered was one involving overcoming a missing entry, where the veering squeeze card can serve as a stepping-stone. Here is an example:
1
East opens a weak notrump, and the next thing you know, you, South, are in six hearts. West leads a third-or-lowest spade seven; you win in dummy, East follows with the six, and a successful heart finesse follows. When the heart queen falls under the ace, you return to dummy with the heart ten (as East pitches a diamond honor) to take a winning club finesse.
After the club ace, you reach:
1a
If the closed hand now had a spade instead of one of those diamonds (or if the opening lead had been in any other suit), you could cross to dummy in diamonds, cash the club king, ruff a club back to hand, and take your last trump. East would be strip-squeezed down to only one diamond winner, so you could throw him in and take the last two tricks in spades. With dummy cut off, that strip-squeeze fails—East can prevail by unguarding spades.
If you were willing to play East for a particular shape in the minors, you could alternatively cash all of your trumps, the diamond ace, and the club king and (unless the spades are good) exit with whichever minor-suit loser you preserved. However, that would run the risk of keeping the wrong minor-suit loser in dummy.
Instead, taking the spade lie as given, there is a sure-trick line that caters to all minor-suit distributions and, in the given layout, exploits a veering squeeze card: Cash a trump, pitching a diamond from dummy (East sheds a diamond), then cross to the diamond ace and take the club king, leaving:
1b
Now (unless East showed out on the club king, in which case a diamond play assures the contract) play dummy’s last club. If East pitches a diamond, ruff and then throw East in with a diamond; if East pitches a spade, sluff a diamond, forcing West to give dummy two spade tricks. Should East follow to the fourth club, he has already been (triple) squeezed out of a long diamond, and he can be thrown in with a diamond (West will have been stripped of his singleton diamond). Indeed, a triple squeeze is a more common remedy for a broken strip-squeeze.
The simpler positions involving a veering squeeze card feature the possibility of the squeezee’s partner’s being thrown in to lead a particular suit (spades in the previous deal). This may be necessary because declarer is void, or in the wrong hand, or needs to preserve a trump for control or for a late entry. These variants share the following requirements:
1. The squeeze card is a loser led toward the last trump and through the squeeze victim. Where a normal strip-squeeze is automatic (functioning against either opponent), a veering squeeze is inherently positional.
2. Strip squeezes always have at least one menace that is either extended (i.e., if it is unguarded, a trick can be established by losing a trick in its suit after the squeeze) or can be used as a throw-in card against the squeezee once he has been stripped of excess winners. A veering squeeze must contain such a menace, typically in the hand with the trump opposite the squeeze card. Another menace (which may be any of many types) must be in the opposite hand — that is, with the squeeze card.
3. In order for veering to work, the unsqueezed defender must have a singleton master card in the squeeze-card suit and all other cards in the suit that declarer needs led (normally, this is the suit of the menace in the hand with the squeeze card). Generally, none of the unsqueezed defender’s cards in this “lead-needed” suit can be high enough to take an active role in the play. This is a very restrictive requirement and one of the main reasons that so few veering squeeze cards appear in practice.
In this context, most simple strip-squeezes have veer-squeeze counterparts. For example, in the previous ending, let us weaken the spade menace but move the diamond ace to South:
1c Two variations
If South’s unspecified fifth card is a low spade, he can lead the last trump (or ruff dummy’s club) for a squeeze without the count against East — if East releases a diamond, declarer ducks a diamond. In contrast, if South’s unspecified card is a diamond, the squeeze succeeds only if the lead is in the North hand. On the lead of the veering club six, if East throws a spade declarer sluffs, or if East throws a diamond declarer ruffs and ducks a diamond.
A missing entry to a menace is not the only problem that can be solved with a veering squeeze card. Here is a different sort of example:
2a Four Spades after One Club
After East opens one club, you, South, reach four spades. West leads the club jack. Glad to have avoided a heart lead and looking far ahead, you win the opening lead with dummy’s ace, draw trumps ending in the North hand as West discards a heart, lead a diamond to the queen, and duck a diamond to East’s ace. East exits with a high club to your king. This is the position, with the lead in the South hand:
2b Lead in South
If you still had control of the club suit, you could strip-squeeze East and force him to lead away from the ace of hearts, but that is impossible when he has club winners. Once again, though, the veering squeeze card will bail you out. The importance of having won the first trick in dummy is that you are now in your hand to cash one more trump, pitching a heart (or a club) from dummy; this tightens up the position. (You could also have achieved this by winning the first club in hand and cashing a fourth trump before ducking a diamond.) Then, you cross to dummy’s king of diamonds and lead the diamond eight here:
2c Diamond Eight Here
If East releases a club, you ruff and exit in clubs, as if this were a standard strip-squeeze. The reason it is not a standard strip-squeeze is that the throw-in fails if East discards the heart queen on the eight of diamonds. But if he does that, you pitch your club loser, and West will lead a heart for you while you retain a trump for control.
On the next deal, after East has bid hearts vigorously, you, South, wind up in four spades (don’t ask):
3a Heart Overcall Full Deal
After a heart lead and a diamond shift won by dummy’s ten, you are constrained immediately to finesse in spades and to draw trumps, lest the opponents ruff you to death. If you lead a club, West can win and play a second diamond (his strongest defense). You finesse, cash dummy’s diamond tops, and need three tricks:
3b Heart Overcall Ending
If the club queen and jack were reversed, you could ruff the last diamond and then (depending on what East kept) either overtake the club jack to cash a good club or establish a heart with South’s club honor as an entry. A veering-jettison-stepping-stone serves to overcome the actual club blockage: On the lead of dummy’s diamond five, if East pitches a heart, you ruff and establish a heart with the club queen as an entry (or, you could unblock in clubs and step over to the club jack by putting East in with a heart). Alternatively, if East throws a club, so that the club blockage prevents you from taking two club tricks, you instead jettison the club queen; West wins the diamond but is forced to give dummy two club tricks, and the trump ten wins the last trick.
Diamonds are trumps, North (dummy) leads, and declarer needs four tricks. On the lead of dummy’s club, if East discards a heart, declarer ruffs and attacks hearts. If East discards a spade, though, declarer cannot both establish hearts and enjoy the spade ten in the ordinary way; instead, he must veer off by discarding a heart, to preserve the nine of diamonds as a late entry.
4a Criss-cross Variation
A similar squeeze functions in the remaining diagram. Note that the usual arrangement of menaces is jumbled — West’s long suit matches the menace opposite the squeeze card; and, in the variation with fewer spades, the only extended menace is in the hand with the squeeze card.
A full deal with a similar end-position appears in the February 1969 Bridge World (see page 28):
5a Four Spades against a Trump Lead
South plays in four spades against a trump lead, and on which East discards a club. Scoring a heart ruff seems the best try for a tenth trick, so declarer plays a club, hoping that East has the ace, but West wins and plays another trump. Now hoping for a defensive error, declarer tries the heart seven from the board, but West wins with the king and leads a third trump. Desperate, declarer wins, crosses to the club queen, and runs all but one of his trumps, leaving:
5b Club-Guard Ending
East has already been squeezed out of his club guard. A diamond to dummy’s ace and the eight of clubs produce the position under discussion.
Like its counterparts, the veering squeeze can arise in more-complex end-positions:
6a Six Clubs after Two Diamonds
East opens two diamonds, South lands in six clubs, and West leads the obviously-singleton diamond three. It feels natural to win and to hope that spades and clubs behave: club ace-king, spade ace, spade ruff, club queen, spade king (throwing a diamond), planning to cash the spade queen and a long spade, then to run the heart jack. However, when East shows out on the spade king, a change of tack is needed. A diamond pitch on the spade king is still okay, but on the spade queen declarer had best pitch a heart, leaving:
6b Final Ending
If one of dummy’s diamonds were a heart, declarer could finesse the heart queen, after which the club ten would strip-squeeze East. On the actual deal, South must lead the spade three to make four tricks in the ending. If East gives up a diamond, declarer can ruff and exit with the diamond jack. East may then block hearts by coming back with the heart king, but there will be an established diamond in dummy to compensate, so that extra diamond had value after all, as a “lunar” menace. If East pitches a heart on the three of spades, declarer can discard his diamond. Then, West is forced to help both by leading the suit declarer needs led and by leading away from the guarded ten of hearts. As with the criss-cross ending, the “normal” arrangement of menaces does not apply.
Clearly, the veering squeeze card is not an everyday occurrence. However, a study of its variations may help to clarify the mechanisms of some strip-squeezes, probably the most often overlooked form of squeeze.