Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Interesting 4-card Ending

Notrump contract.  Last four cards in dummy were the King-deuce in diamonds, a small club and a small heart.  In hand, Ace, Queen, Jack, trey in diamonds.  How would you play this four-card ending to get your best shot at taking the last four tricks?

In case you are confused, a bit of context may be appropriate.

Earlier in the KO match, our opponents proved themselves to be quite the sticklers for stated lines when claiming.  Quite upset, in fact, if we ever claimed at all.  My partner played most of the hands.  On one, with the last three trumps and the Kx in a side suit, Ax in that same side suit on dummy, he tried to claim, rejected.  When he then cashed the three trumps and then tried again to claim, the opponents demanded his line.  He worked it out, which was impressive.

I later had the opportunity to play a hand.  With 17 tricks available, I offered to simply lean forward so that the opponents could see my hand in its entirety.  I even offered to allow them to discuss tactics.  This was rejected, as well.

So, on this last deal, with this four-card ending, not all was as it seemed. 

So, I opted the obvious finesse-squeeze line.  Diamond King, diamond to Jack, diamond Ace!  LHO had as her last two cards a winning club and a winning heart.  After a very long thought, considering options as to which card to save, she opted a club pitch.  I of course saved the club and pitched the heart.

When I cashed the diamond Queen at the end, I was polite enough to advise RHO that her partner simply could not escape the squeeze, which both of them agreed to.  Just an unfortunate layout for them.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely hysterical. That might be a "self" suicide squeeze.

Memphis MOJO said...

LOL, too funny.

How're the sales of your new book?

Kenneth Rexford, Esq. said...

Not sure. With Masterpoint Press, they give reports to authors in April and October for the first and second half of the year. So, I expect I'll know something concrete by about October, and that will be through the end of June only. More anecdotally, I know that quite a few people have acted on their expressed interest and purchased the book, with favorable reports back, always nice to hear.

Andre Asbury said...

That's kind of cruel. But I guess they deserved it.

And I just wanted to say I'm a big fan of canape and I've been working on my own system for awhile. I loke your book, too.

Kenneth Rexford, Esq. said...

Cruelty? That implies that the opponents had enough gray matter to follow what had been done to them. They just saw it as a bad squeeze position (if they knew what a squeeze was).

Anonymous said...

I wish I had that kind of dummy-play technique. It'd save me a lot of mps.