BRIDGE
Never give up
Susanna Gross
ONE OF the great pleasures of bridge is watching the opposition squirm (all too rare an experience for non-experts like myself). Nothing induces a squirm so much as a squeeze — and there is a whole range avail- able (single, double and triple squeezes, criss-cross and stepping-stone squeezes ... ).
A squeeze, loosely speaking, is a play which forces an opponent to discard a win- ner or a card which protects a winner. Per- haps the most sadistic type is the suicide squeeze, in which one defender is out on play to squeeze his own partner.
Last week, the expert player Unal Dur- mus lured his opponents into a kamikaze death on the following hand: Dealer North Neither side vulnerable • AKQJ 7 IF 6 4
• K 7 2
4 A S 4 4 10 9 5 3 V A 10 8 7 • Q 9 +5
2 3
4 8 4
9 5 2 • J 10 6 • K Q 102 W 4%1 E
46
• K J • A 8 5 4 3 • J 9 7 6 3 The Bidding
North East South West 14 pass 1NT pass 3NT All pass The V7 was led, and South took East's VQ with his VK then crossed to the 4A. If the spades break 4-3, nine tricks are in the bag — but on the third spade East discard- ed a heart. The contract now seems impos- sible: how can a 9th trick be made without the defenders first cashing their hearts?
The mark of an expert is never to give up. Durmus saw his only chance and took it: at trick 5 he played a heart! West now cashed his heart winners, East discarding the +10 and +2. West switched to a club, and declarer played dummy's +A, East dropping the +K. South now cashed his 4J, and East was done for: he had no more convenient discards. If he threw a diamond, all of South's diamonds would be set up; if he threw his +Q, South's +J would become a winner. In the end, he chose death by diamonds.
West could have averted the suicide squeeze by refusing to cash his hearts when he was thrown in — indeed, he should have smelled a rat — but the offer had seemed too good to resist. Beware Greek gifts!
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