October 2014 - 18

A Royal Misfortune
BY PETER BUCHEN

and play a spade to his 10.
The real interest is what happened
at my table in the open room, where
Henry Christie and I opposed Munawar Sawiruddin and Bert Toar Polii.
This was the auction:
Well, here I am again presenting you
with possibly a new bridge position -
this time a squeeze I had never seen
until recently. I am interested in knowing if any of you have seen the likes of
this unusual squeeze.
The deal occurred in the Seniors
final at the 2nd Asia Cup in Jin Hua,
China, June 12-22: Australia 1 versus
Indonesia. Indonesia won the Seniors
event, as well as the women's, beating
Australia in both finals. Singapore won
the open against Indonesia. The deal:
Dlr: East
Vul: Both

♠AJ872
♥62
♦Q43
♣ J 10 8
♠Q653
♠ K 10 4
♥54
♥AKJ3
♦J985
♦ K 10 2
♣K52
♣A64
♠9
♥ Q 10 9 8 7
♦A76
♣Q973

In the closed room, Bruce Neill and
Arjuna De Livera for Australia 1 bid
the East-West cards efficiently against
silent opponents (Eddy Manoppo,
South, and Henky Lasut, North):
1♣-1♠; 2NT-3NT. Neill got a friendly
heart lead to his jack but misguessed
everything to go three down. He played
a diamond to dummy's 9 at trick two
and might have made 3NT had he won
the club switch in hand, cleared the
diamonds and ducked the next club
to win the third round in dummy. He
could then cash the diamond winners

18 Bridge Bulletin October 2014

West
Polii

North
Buchen

Dbl (3)
2♠

2♣
Pass

East
S'ruddin
1♣ (1)
Dbl (4)
4♠

South
Christie
1NT (2)
Pass
All Pass

(1) Precision: strong, artificial and
forcing.
(2) Spades and diamonds or hearts and
clubs.
(3) 5-7 high-card points. 
(4) Takeout.
Clearly, East-West would not get
many points in a bidding contest.
I led the ♣J to West's king, South
encouraging with the upside-down
signal of the ♣3. Declarer played a
spade to dummy's 10, continuing with
the ♥A and ♥K. On the third round of
hearts, Christie falsecarded with the
10. Declarer ruffed with the ♠3 and I
overruffed with the 7.
My ♣10 was taken in dummy
with the ace. Declarer then played a
diamond to his 9 and my queen. The
diamond continuation went to the king
and South's ace. When Christie played
the ♥Q, declarer discarded his losing club. I pitched a diamond. Christie
continued with a diamond to declarer's
jack, which I ruffed.
Declarer was already two down, having lost a heart overruff, two diamonds,
the ♥Q and a diamond ruff. I was on
lead in this three-card ending:

♠Q6
♥-
♦J
♣-

♠AJ
♥-
♦-
♣8

♠K4
♥-
♦-
♣6

♠
♥9
♦
♣Q9
I realized that declarer would ruff
the club switch and just play the ♠Q,
and we'd get only the trump ace. So I
tried the ♠A to find that declarer was
squeezed. If he played a low spade, I
would lock him in dummy by playing
the ♠J to dummy's king. Declarer
would still have to lose a club. At the
table, declarer unblocked the ♠K, so
I continued with the ♣8, forcing declarer to ruff with the trump queen. My
♠J won the last trick.
How embarrassing. Declarer's
dummy was squeezed in his own trump
suit by a defender!
Well, that was down four and plus
400, so we had a small gain of 3 IMPs.
Note that the squeeze will not operate
if you swap the ♠K and ♠Q. The position of the king and queen of trumps is
crucial, so unless this squeeze has been
analyzed elsewhere, I propose to call
it the "Monarch Squeeze" - unless you
can come up with a better name.
Have you seen this end position before? No one in this neck of the woods
has.
◾

The author is a professional mathematician and
winner of many state and national events in Australia.
He is currently a member of the WBF Scoring Panel
responsible for introducing the new continuous VP scale.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2014
