Declarer squeezes himself By Oswald Jacoby

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Times Daily – 23 Dic 1976

East dealer North/South vulnerable

Opening lead – 2

Oswald ‘The suicide squeeze is usually worked by a defender, but here is one that declarer worked out against himself »

Jim: «It certainly is one of the most unusual hands of 1976. South took East’s queen of clubs with the king, led the nine of clubs, covered with dummy’s ten, cashed the ace of clubs while discarding his four of hearts, led a fourth club to set up dummy’s last one and suddenly found he could not afford to discard from his own hand. A diamond discard would make it impossible for him to collect three diamond tricks and a spade discard would cost him a spade trick. So, he discarded a second heart »

Oswald. ‘This would have given him nine tricks except that West diagnosed the problem and led his deuce of hearts. This set up three heart tricks for West while he still held his ace of spades and South was down one.»

Jim. «South could have made the hand by leading a low club instead of the ace from dummy at trick three This would have kept him from squeezing himself and he would have made the game «