Wednesday, February 01, 2006 1:28 PM

Squeezes - Patterns

PITBULLS:

There are many advanced declarer techniques that are not available to Bridge players who do not “think in patterns” or apply patterns. The entire field of executing squeezes is dependent on patterns as are other techniques like end plays , squeeze strip and endplays . Even finesses like the “intra-finesse” require thinking in patterns. When the tormentees have most common patterns ingrained in their memory banks , a next step is to tackle some more advanced play techniques like squeezes. Patterns must come first though because these plays are too complicated without them.

Dora and I got to a nice slam the other day.

J	A	Q	K
9	x	x	J
x	x		9
	x		8

We bid up to 6♠ and Dora got a heart lead. Dora dropped the spade queen doubleton on side and found the club queen. She now made an error as she claimed saying you get a heart for making 6. Without going into the details of squeezes in great detail whenever you have two threats between yourself on the board and you have the rest of the tricks anyway , you can try a squeeze. However, you can not even visualize a squeeze unless you “think in patterns” .

A	K	A	A
K	x		10
10	x		x
x			x
x

You have all the black tricks so the two threat suits must be diamonds and hearts. The diamond queen could be a trick if they were forced to throw the diamond king away but where is the other threat coming from ? Try heart patterns for your answer . If the heart pattern is 4-3-3-3 then there is no threat card as both defenders can guard hearts . But what if the hearts are 4-4-3-2 ? These means that one defender has only two hearts and they must be played under the Ace & King . What if the person with 4 hearts holds the diamond King ? When you run all your black tricks and your diamond Ace that is 10 tricks . This means that this defender must come down to 3 cards. She can not do it without giving you your 13 th trick QJ10 of hearts & the diamond King . On the last spade what do they discard ? Death by fire or death by water , their choice .

Familiarity with patterns over time will bring you to another level in declarer play eventually. Have I ever mentioned that patterns are important in the game of Bridge ?