SIMPLE SQUEEZES: MADE SIMPLE

By James Marsh Sternberg MD (Dr J) and Danny Kleinman

Squeezes. Just the word strikes fear into the heart of many bridge players. But simple squeezes are actually quite simple. The single or simple squeeze accounts for 90% of squeezes and 90% of this book deals with simple squeezes.

If you wish to become more than just a mediocre bridge player mastering the techniques of basic simple squeeze play is a must. In any session of bridge of twenty or so deals, the opportunity of some form of squeeze invariably arises on three to four deals even if unrecognized.

Don’t worry about the other types. They are usually only discovered in post-mortem analysis. The purpose of this book is to guide you thru what you can easily master. You will find that the feeling of executing your first squeeze is a “once in a lifetime thrill” at the table.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823018296

James Marsh Sternberg MD (Dr J)

Dr James Marsh Sternberg is a radiologist in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida & Professor of Radiology at two northern universities. He currently teaches bridge in Florida. He has won several North American National Championships and has written extensively for many bridge publications. He is the author of eighteen books on bridge instruction and has won multiple awards from the American Bridge Teacher’s Association’s ‘Books of the Year’ competitions. ‘Dr J’ has been a monthly columnist in the ACBL Bulletin for the past few years. Dr Sternberg lives in Palm Beach Gardens with Vickie Bader. He can be reached at [e-mail].

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© 2023 James Sternberg; Danny Kleinman. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/07/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1830-2 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1829-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023922511

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Also by James Marsh Sternberg

Playing to Trick One – No Mulligans in Bridge (2nd Ed)

Trump Suit Headaches; Rx for Declarers and Defenders (2nd Ed)

The Finesse; Only a Last Resort

Blocking and Unblocking

Shortness – a Key to Better Bidding (2nd Ed)

When Michaels Met The Unusual

From Zero to Three Hundred; A Bridge Journey

Reversing the Dummy

Trump Promotion; The Uppercut

Active or Passive – Becoming a Better Defender

To Ruff or Not to Ruff, That is the Question

Simple Squeezes Made Simple

Also by James Marsh Sternberg

I, Radiologist; The Evolution of Medicine in ‘West’ West Broward County

By James Marsh Sternberg and Danny Kleinman

Second Hand High; Third Hand Not So High

An Entry, An Entry, My Kingdom For An Entry

L O L; Loser on Loser

In Search of a Second Suit

Elimination and Endplay

Suit Preference; Abused and Misused

Solving the Mystery of the Redouble

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Prelude

Summary

Squeeze Menu

Introduction

The BLUE Law

Squeeze Tips

Summary

The Vienna Coup

Squeeze Without The Count

Simple Trump Squeezes

The Double Squeeze

Pseudo - Squeezes

The Cannibal (Suicide) Squeeze

Squeeze Defense

Quiz Deals

Deal # 1   Too Many Tricks

Deal # 2   Partner, You are Hurting Me

Deal # 3   What Are The Chances?

Deal # 4   Choice of Two Evils

Deal # 5   Listen to the Auction

Deal # 6   Greed is Good

Deal # 7   Finally!

Deal # 8   Help From the Defenders

Deal # 9   Backwards

Deal # 10   All The Way

Deal # 11   Another SDAM

Deal # 12   Combining Your Chances

Deal # 13   Who Are You Squeezing?

Deal # 14   There is Always Hope

Deal # 15   A Little Pushy

Deal # 16   There is Still Hope

Deal # 17   Knowing Helps

Deal # 18   Now What?

Deal # 19   Count

Deal # 20   Evelyn Claims

Deal # 21   1 0 1

Deal # 22   I Know Where It Is

Deal # 23   A Near Certainty

Deal # 24   Little Things Mean a Lot

Deal # 25   What Went Wrong?

Deal # 26   Silence is Golden

Deal # 27   Ready to Go

Deal # 28   Easy Does It

Deal # 29   Double Your Pleasure

Deal # 30   A Classic

Deal # 31   Two Against One

Deal # 32   Where There is Six, There is Seven

Deal # 33   Don’t Bang Your Head

Deal # 34   Strip and Flip

Deal # 35   A Switch in Time

Deal # 36   Second Chance

Deal # 37   Thank You

Deal # 38   Use What You Have

Deal # 39   Assisted Suicide

Deal # 40   Is There Another Way?

Deal # 41   Either Way

Deal # 42   What Can Go Wrong?

Deal # 43   Squeeze Who?

Deal # 44   Parity

Deal # 45   Quick Claim

Deal # 46   Sneaky

Deal # 47   Cat and Mouse

Deal # 48   A Grand Old Time

Deal # 49   Plan #3

Deal # 50   Timing

Deal # 51   Back and Forth

Deal # 52   Obscurity

Deal # 53   Good Odds

Deal # 54   Two Down

Deal # 55   Overcoming a Good Lead

Deal # 56   Frustrating

Deal # 57   Your choice

Deal # 58   Optimistic

Deal # 59   Too Much Pressure

Deal # 60   What’s in Your Basket?

Deal # 61   Searching For Number Thirteen

Deal # 62   Overcoming Obstinance

Deal # 63   In the Way

Deal # 64   A Thing of Beauty

Deal # 65   Juniors in Action

Deal # 66   Four Tables

Deal # 67   One From Eddie

Deal # 68   No Hurry

Deal # 69   Over To You

Deal # 70   Plan C

Deal # 71   Lots of Options

Deal # 72   A Trump Squeeze

Deal # 73   Dive, Dive

Deal # 74   Just Keeps Getting Worse

Deal # 75   You Are On Your Own

Deal # 76   Look Who Is Here

Deal # 77   Stuff’em

Deal # 78   Passing The Buck

Deal # 79   Can You Make a Par?

Deal # 80   Who Is At The Table?

Deal # 81   Take a Finesse?

Deal # 82   Yes or No

Deal # 83   Little Things Mean a Lot

Deal # 84   Mr. Smooth

Deal # 85   Not Your Own Partner

Deal # 86   Saving Partner Ryan

Deal # 87   Don’t Squeeze Yourself

Deal # 88   Annoying Both Defenders

Deal # 89   A Little Help, Please

Deal # 90   Unlucky Or?

Deal # 91   Oh No, Not Again

Deal # 92   Do What You Are Told

Deal # 93   Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Deal # 94   Strange But Helpful

Deal # 95   High Level Discard Problems

Deal # 96   No Rush

Deal # 97   Counted Out

Deal # 98   Too Soon

Deal # 99   Declare or Defend

Deal # 100   A Difficult Choice

Deal # 101   Having a Grand Time

DEDICATION

FOR MARSHA

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book would not have been possible without the help of several friends. Marty Bergen, Frank Stewart, Michael Lawrence, and Anne Lund, all provided suggestions for material for this book.

Special thanks to Danny Kleinman who contributed several chapters.

I am forever indebted to Hall of Famer Fred Hamilton and the late Allan Cokin and Bernie Chazen, without whose guidance and teaching I could not have achieved whatever success I have had in bridge.

Thanks to Willie Fuchs, my editor who always makes my writing better.

And as always to Vickie Bader, whose love and patience helped guide me through the many hours of this endeavor.

James Marsh Sternberg MD

Palm Beach Gardens FL

[e-mail]

PRELUDE

A squeeze. What’s it all about? Some great mystery? It’s okay if your spouse gives you one but at the bridge table you want to give one, not be the recipient. Just mention the word ‘squeeze’ to most ordinary bridge players at the intermediate level and what happens? They flee in terror saying that squeezes are just for experts. But contrary to popular belief, executing a squeeze does not require exceptional talent. You too, the intermediate player, can learn to execute such simple plays.

Nearly all the squeezes available to you are the single or simple squeeze which represent the vast majority of squeeze situations you are likely to face. The rare exotic squeezes, such as backwash, guard, and suicide squeezes, strand coups, winkles and squeezes too rare to have acquired names, are usually discovered only in Squeeze Seminars at the University of Mars and in earthly post-mortems.

If you encounter them in contracts that only Zia or Bob Hamman might make, the only advice I can give you is to play fast, go down, and get on to the next deal.

There are few things in bridge more satisfying than making a loser disappear and an extra winner appear as if by magic. Realize first that squeezes are commonplace. Most sessions of bridge provide several squeeze opportunities. Squeezes, first recognized in the days of whist, were called Forcing Discards but renamed squeezes by Sidney Lenz.

Simple squeezes are by far the most common, comprising about 90% of all squeezes. They occur in suit contracts about four times as often as in notrumps. Double squeezes and others are in the 10% variety. Approximately 80% occur in a suit contract, 20% in notrump. So we will focus on simple squeezes.

Many squeezes go unnoticed. Sometimes declarer runs his tricks unaware of a defender’s discomfort and scores a surprising trick with a deuce at the end. The more extra trumps, the more often this happens. It’s usually at Trick 11 that the victim feels the pressure. A declarer sometimes is running his tricks, unaware of the discomfort a defender is feeling. The longer the trump suit, the greater the chance of a squeeze.

Often declarer need only run his long suit and carefully watch the discards. As long as the count has been rectified, something we will discuss, you need only cash your tricks in the right order and wait to see if your squeeze produces a surprise winner at the end or not.

A defender’s cards are either BUSY, working as stoppers or potential winners, or IDLE, to be discarded harmlessly. A defender who holds only busy cards and no idle ones is in the crosshairs of a squeezing declarer. Busy cards serve a purpose either as winners, stoppers, anticipated winners, etc. IDLE cards are those serving no function, non-working cards available for discards. If a defender has no IDLE card and has to release a BUSY card, creating a winner for declarer, the defender has been squeezed.

Let’s add a few words to our vocabulary.

Threat (also called a Menace): A loser that can become a winner if an opponent discards a stopper in the suit. A potential winning trick, standing either alone or in combination.

Single Threat: A card standing alone. See the ♠Q in #1 and the ♣J in #3.

Double Threat: An entry card and a threat card together in the same suit.

Squeeze Card: The card, usually a declarer’s winner, played usually by the declarer that forces a fatal discard from a squeezed busy opponent.

The BLUE law. Don’t worry, this is not a state-imposed law to force somebody else’s religious prohibitions upon you. It is an acronym, coined by Clyde Love in his classic 1960 book on squeezes, for the four conditions needed for a squeeze.

Clyde Love – introduced the term BLUE in his classic book in 1960 which sets forth four conditions necessary for a squeeze to take place. In simple terms,

B- Busy. An opponent guards more the one suit.

L- The squeezer has one of more losers.

U- At least one threat card lies behind the opponent being squeezed.

E- The squeezer has an entry to any threat card he seeks to establish.

Here are two deals that illustrate simple squeezes in their basic form.

Deal # 1

In a team game, both Souths declared 6NT, and both Wests led the ♠J.

One declarer didn’t. At Tricks 2, 3 and 4 he cashed three top clubs, but clubs split 4-2. Then he tried spades, but West had started with ♠J1098. Down one.

At the other table, before trying to test either black suit, declarer ducked a heart, a key play called rectifying the count. A blunder in 7NT, but a necessary precaution in 6NT.

Then upon regaining the lead with dummy’s ♠K, declarer cashed the 188645.jpg A and ran diamonds. West, who had started with four cards in each black suit, squirmed in his seat. On the fourth diamond, he threw a spade, and declarer had a fourth spade trick and his contract.

How would you have played at matchpoints?

The same way, I hope, ducking a heart early. Never mind that you’ll do less well than Alfred E. Neuman at the next table if either black suit splits 3-3 and the What-Me-Worry kid makes an overtrick in 6NT.

Some pairs