Squeeze play (bridge)

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Squeeze play (or simply squeeze) is a play in contract bridge that often occurs late in the game and involves the play of a card (often, but not necessarily, a winner) which forces an opponent to discard a vital card from his hand, thus giving up a trick (or two in some cases). The discarded card can be either a winner or any card that solidifies defender's defensive position.

Although the squeeze was already discovered and described in whist, its use was best described and perfected in contract bridge.

The squeeze operates on the principle that, in a n-card ending with n-1 combined winners, the two hands can have one potential trick (threat card) each, but there's no room in single defender's hand to cover both of those. In order for a squeeze to work, the victim might not hold any "idle" cards, but all his cards must be "busy", covering some sort of menace.

In general, a squeeze requires the following conditions to be fulfilled. In most common scenarios, all of them are present, but there are also squeezes where one or more of the them is not required:

• The declarer has all but one (in extreme situations, two) winners in combined hands. In other words, the count is rectified, i.e. the declarer has already lost all the tricks he was about to.
• In at least two suits are present cards which are not immediate winners, but present a menace or threat of becoming one;
• At least one of the menaces is placed after the squeezed defender(s) (squeezee).
• The declarer has sufficient entries (winners serving as communication between two hands) to cash the developed menaces.
• The squeezed defender(s) must not hold any idle cards, i.e. the ones that could be safely disposed of.

This mechanism can be shown on a simple squeeze.

		♠	AJ
		♥	K
		♦	-
		♣	-
♠	KQ	N   W S
♥	A
♦	-
♣	-
		♠	4
		♥	6
		♦	-
		♣	A

South leads the club ace in the following position, and West is squeezed between hearts and spades - if he throws away the heart ace, south discards the jack of spades in north, plays hearts and north makes the ♥K and the ♠A, if he throws away one of the spades, south discards the king of hearts in north, plays spades, and again north makes the two remaining tricks.

In this position:

• Three cards are remaining, and the declarer has two immediate winners (♠A and ♣A).
• ♠J and ♥K are the menaces;
• Both menaces are placed after the squeezee (West);
• ♠A serves as an entry to the promoted menace card;
• West has no idle cards.

This is a positional squeeze – East holding West's cards would not be squeezed as one of the two menaces (the spade Jack and the heart King) would be discarded before his turn to play. If north had discarded the king of hearts, east could discard the ace of hearts (provided west still had at least one heart), if north had discarded the spade jack (or the spade ace), east could have discarded a spade.

We will see more of this in simple squeezes.

These plays typically occur late in the game, because they often require the player to have an exact count and location of certain high cards in one or more suits, and must know exactly what cards an opponent will be forced to play, as the following example demonstrates:

		♠	AJ
		♥	K
		♦	2
		♣	-
♠	KQ	N W         E S		♠	3
♥	A			♥	-
♦	7			♦	Q
♣	-			♣	87
		♠	4
		♥	6
		♦	3
		♣	A

This time when the club ace is cashed, West simply sheds his small diamond, an idle card.

To avoid this kind of failure, south needs to 'rectify the count' - that is, he must lose all tricks except the ones he is entitled to and the one he intends to gain with the squeeze. In this case that would mean that he should grant the diamond queen to east first; however, in this case east returns a spade, taken in north, and the communication is lost: south cannot reach the club ace in his hand.

[edit] Classification

There are several possible classifications of squeezes, depending on the position. Most common ones are named, some involving a combination of factors:

• According to the operation of squeeze:
  • In automatic squeeze, either opponent can be squeezed (provided he protects appropriate suits).
  • In positional squeeze, only one particular opponent can be squeezed.
• According to number of opponents squeezed:
  • Single, where only one opponent is squeezed
  • Double, where both opponents are squeezed
• According to number of suits involved:
  • Two-suit squeezes, where menaces in two side suits are involved
  • Three-suit squeezes
  • Single-suit squeeze is peculiar and rare, and presents a specific type of endplay rather than "real" squeeze.
• According to the gain:
  • In material squeezes, opponents are forced to give up a trick directly;
  • In non-material squeezes, opponents are forced to give up strategic position; the extra trick, however, may materialize later. For example, an opponent can be squeezed out of a card which disturbs declarer's entries, or an exit card.
• According to the count rectification:
  • In squeezes with count, the count is rectified before the squeeze card is played, and declarer will not concede any tricks (they're strongly related with material squeezes).
  • In squeezes without count, the count is not rectified; often, it involves a throw-in in the end position (strongly related with non-material) squeezes.

The following articles describe the mechanisms of different types of squeezes:

Name	Automatic	No. of opp's	No. of suits	Material	Count rect'd
Simple squeeze	Both	1	2	material	Yes
Criss-cross squeeze	Automatic	1	2	material	Yes
Trump squeeze	Both	1	2	material	Yes
Progressive squeeze (aka Triple squeeze)	Positional	1	3	material	Yes
Double squeeze	Both	2	3	material	Yes
Compound squeeze	Positional	2	3	material	Yes
Entry-shifting squeeze	Positional	1	2	material	Yes
Single-suit squeeze	Positional	1	1	non-material	No
Strip squeeze	Positional	1	1	material	No
Backwash squeeze	Positional	1	2	material	Yes
Cannibal squeeze	Positional	1	2	material	Yes*
Stepping-stone squeeze	Positional	1-2	2	non-material	No
Guard squeeze	Positional	1-2	2-3	material	Yes
Vice squeeze	Positional	1	2-3	material	No
Winkle squeeze	Positional	1	3	non-material	No
Clash squeeze	Positional	1-2	3	material	Yes
Saturated squeeze
Pseudo-squeeze	N/A	N/A	N/A	non-material	N/A