[inquiry]

You open 1NT, West overcalls 2♥ and your partner puts you in 7NT.

Opening lead is a club -- and for whatever reason, you decide to play WEST for the spade queen, he has doubleton queen. West also shows up with singleton club.

---

[awm]

It seems like a routine criss-cross squeeze position*; these are pretty easy if you've seen them before and pretty impossible if you haven't. I think such a thing is in level four of bridgemaster hands, which probably rates it about a 7.

* If any criss-cross squeeze can be rated as "routine."

[mikeh]

Either you know about criss-cross squeezes or you don't. I think that the ability to consistently recognize and implement the less common squeezes, if combined with being steady in other aspects of the game, is one, but by far from the most important, hallmarks of the expert player.

Spoiler

If we assume that LHO has the missing diamond King, which seems virtually certain, we reduce to a 3 card ending with the stiif heart A in dummy, along with the jx in diamonds, and the 9x of hearts in hand along with the stiff diamond A.

LHO has to commit to unguarding one of the suits, and we simply unblock the A in that suit, cross to the other and cash our winner.. this does also mean we play LHO for any 6+ heart suit or specifically the missing QJ10 combo... again, pretty clear.

[jdonn]

I think for people who have executed a couple criss cross squeezes and seen it before the difficulty is about 3, but for the general population of bridge players it's a 9.

The end position will be north AK of hearts Jx of diamonds, south xxx of hearts A of diamonds, leaving both suits blocked (you can play off one high heart first at no benefit and no cost). If west started with 6+ hearts and the king of diamonds, he can't keep three hearts with Kx of diamonds, so whichever suit you feel he has unguarded (the hallmark of the cirss cross squeeze is you have to read the discards since your play won't be proven) you unblock that suit then cross back in the other suit.

[MarkDean]

It probably depends on who LHO is. If he is a weak, or random, or hyperaggressive player, I would just take the diamond hook. If I can count on him to be likely to have six hearts (especially if he had another bid with 2551), and more likely to bid with the king of diamonds, then I would play for the squeeze: I agree with others, easy to do if you have seen it before, very hard if you have not.

[cherdanno]

mikeh, on Apr 1 2009, 06:00 PM, said:

Either you know about criss-cross squeezes or you don't. I think that the ability to consistently recognize and implement the less common squeezes, if combined with being steady in other aspects of the game, is one, but by far from the most important, hallmarks of the expert player.

Spoiler

If we assume that LHO has the missing diamond King, which seems virtually certain, we reduce to a 3 card ending with the stiif heart A in dummy, along with the jx in diamonds, and the 9x of hearts in hand along with the stiff diamond A.

LHO has to commit to unguarding one of the suits, and we simply unblock the A in that suit, cross to the other and cash our winner.. this does also mean we play LHO for any 6+ heart suit or specifically the missing QJ10 combo... again, pretty clear.

Just to add a little bit to that: I think it is clear to play LHO for a 6-card heart suit rather than QJTxx. He led a singleton rather than a heart.

[Phil]

Much easier than the others - I give it no more than a 5. I think its no more than a level 4 hand ZBM hand.

Once you recognize the position, the hand plays itself. There's a little guessing in the endgame (West has a mandatory false card of either baring the ♦A or pitching the ♥10 from QJTx), but you'll get it right a lot.

[mike777]

inquiry, on Apr 1 2009, 05:43 PM, said:

You open 1NT, West overcalls 2♥ and your partner puts you in 7NT.

Opening lead is a club -- and for whatever reason, you decide to play WEST for the spade queen, he has doubleton queen. West also shows up with singleton club.

---

First off we nonexperts need to rectify the count..... RR.

[hanp]

I give it a 4 but that's because I am really good at bridge.


(by the way, my vote was the 7th and so far no two votes have been the same!)

[JLOL]

hanp, on Apr 2 2009, 12:59 AM, said:

I give it a 4 but that's because I am really good at bridge.

LOL

[david_c]

I gave #2 a 9 and think this one is harder. There is absolutely no way I'd find this at the table. I might find a criss-cross if it was my only chance, but here with a finesse available I wouldn't even notice the possibility.

[whereagles]

This criss cross is actually pretty textbook. In other criss crosses, you have to read the cards well and even then sometimes you still have to guess what ace to cash.

Still, the criss cross here is better than the finesse by 4 to 3.

[jdonn]

I think this is a lot harder than people give it credit for. The forums population is not representative of the larger bridge population, almost all of whom have never even heard of a criss cross squeeze and probably have a 0% chance of finding one at the table on their own.

[BillHiggin]

This seems to be behaving like a rated performance (diving, gymnastics) thing. The scores on the early ones tend to define the scale for later. I think that I fit fairly accurately into the Advanced rating (per Fred's definitions). I failed on the first two of these, and saw the criss-cross here almost immediately. Still, it is not clear where the lower numbers on the scale fit.

Example of an easier one that is still going to stump virtually all Intermediate and many Advanced players:

Scoring: Rubber

North rather entusiastically raises your Gambling 3N to 7N.
West leads the ♠K.
Plan your play.

---

It would seem that there are still easier examples that are not trivial (13 top tricks ought to be the bottom of the scale).

[Mbodell]

BillHiggin, on Apr 2 2009, 07:12 AM, said:

Example of an easier one that is still going to stump virtually all Intermediate and many Advanced players:

I think I'm in the advanced bucket too, but isn't this just ♠A, ♥A, ♣AK, run diamonds picthing 1 ♥ and 2♠ and then on the last diamond you pitch the ♠J if you haven't yet seen the ♠Q. Then if no one has thrown the ♣Q you cash ♥K and hope that west has kept the ♠Q and east the ♣Q so that your ♥4 is good? Or am I missing a line that can survive if east has 3+ hearts but west has both black Q (and at least 3 clubs)?

[Mosene]

I think the key is coming down to a 5 card ending

Dummy

♠A
♥AK
♦Jx
♣-

You

♠-
♥9XX
♦AQ
♣-


LHO

♠-
♥QJ10?
♦Kx
♣-


You pitch a diamond on the last spade and LHO is stuck. If diamond pitch, then diamond to A, else cash AK of hearts and diamond to hand winning last heart. I am playing LHO for 6 hearts to the qj or qT and of course the diamond k. So I will watch for H discards from LHO.

[awm]

Just a suggestion...

This rating of hands thing is very fuzzy, since no one really knows what we are rating.

It might be easier to say, "what level of bridge master would you expect to find this on"? This gives us a large sample of hands on which to base a comparison.

This hand is definitely level four. I remember seeing a criss-cross squeeze in level four (I don't think it was one of the freebies though).

[whereagles]

Looks like an automatic simultaneous double squeeze to me. One of the most frequent variants, so I'll rate it a 5.

By the way, Ben? Are you trying to set up a course or something and want stuff rated?

[BillHiggin]

whereagles, on Apr 3 2009, 05:14 AM, said:

Looks like an automatic simultaneous double squeeze to me. One of the most frequent variants, so I'll rate it a 5.

By the way, Ben? Are you trying to set up a course or something and want stuff rated?

But what would Han rate this?

Maybe it is just a laydown. When it came up (many many years ago at a money bridge game), I claimed at trick one.

[inquiry]

I am preparing some tutorial stuff for a project I am considering. It will probably not be successful, who knows, but it is based upon sequential evaluation of hands not unlike the way I taught myself about squeezes.
In essences, I am collecting and catagorizing a group of hands, that start with 7NT (no chance for ruff, no chance for endplay, no chance for suit establishiment by giving up a trick, etc), then seven of a suit (doesn't matter which one) that require techniques not available in NT, then 6NT, then 6 of a suit. The idea is to build upon general play techniques in a logical order based upon what type of plays are available. Think of it as a bridge plays from A to Z type of thing, but with plays group based on what you can afford (no losers? one loser? two losers?) and if trumps are in play or not. Yes, a few hands deal with simply what is a finessee and the fact that you need to take it (a level 1 or level 0 hand for sure, and too simple for Bridge Master Level 1).

In the process of doing this, I want to sort types of hands based upon difficulty level. Sometimes, I have a lot of touble deciding how difficult a hand is. I think the answer to that is, if I can find it, how difficult can it be? In part, I am posting these thread as you suggest, to see how the forum views some of the hands found (others I iknow how difficult or not difficult the problems are). In part, simply because I find the hands interesting and it seems like a fun thing to do post hands and see how people might approach them. In each case, the hand is makable, and at least someone went down in it during play on the BBO. I have found two backwash squeezes -- admission I had to use deep finessee on those, so I rate those as 9/10's. I have a couple of entry squeezes, found one of those myself, deep finesse need for the others. And a whole host of guard squeezes, double squeezes, etc.

But, and this is imporant, the vast majority of hands collected have nothing or little to do with squeezes (one considers squeezes on some but then elect other lines for good reasons). Some in fact, simply involve not blocking yourself while cashing sure winners. Others with test the split of one suit before taking a finesse. Others cashing cards in the right order to protect against 4-0 splits (so you can pick up the suit), things like that. The vast majority are thus way to simple to be posted in an interesting hand thread here. The project is more for beginners/intermediates, but there are some that a larger audience might find fun.