| Bridge, horoscopes and last Saturday’s solutions

SATURDAY, MAY 27, 2023

Assume you’re declarer in six hearts and West leads a trump. It looks as though you have bitten off more than you can chew – apparently you must lose a club and a diamond – but, in fact, the contract is far from hopeless. If the defender who holds the club length for his side also has to guard diamonds, you can make the slam on a squeeze.

Accordingly, after cashing three rounds of trump ending in dummy, you lead a low club to your king. West takes the king with the ace and returns the seven of spades. You win with dummy’s king and play the queen and another club, which you ruff. You then cash the A-Q of spades, producing this position:

When you now play your last trump, West is in serious trouble. If he discards a club, dummy’s seven becomes a trick; if he discards a diamond, all your diamonds are tricks. Either way, you make the slam.

Note that it is necessary to ruff a club for the squeeze to succeed. If you failed to ruff a club, East would be able to guard the clubs while West guarded the diamonds, and you would go down one. The purpose of the ruff is to force one defender to guard both suits, which is the key element of a squeeze.