New categories of squeezes are rare beasts - especially squeeezing all opponents in all suits

By Manol Iliev,  miliev@lirex.com

The Bulgarian Squeeze was first reported in the Bulgarian Bridge Media in 2001 and it took awhile untill experts recognized its power. The squeeze was initially reported as a ... quize: "How can South make the 9 tricks in 3NT with Q opening lead by W 100% - regarless of how cards are stacked in the opponents’ hands." Here are the NS hands (bidding is virtually irrelevant, opponents pass):

3NT by S, W leads Q. 

K2
A10932
K5
A1093

A109
J54
A9432
K2

There are several moves that have no alternatives (if you want to make 9 tricks :-) – we will call them mandatory moves. 

Round #1. The first mandatory move is winning the lead in dummy with the K. If we win with the A or let the opponents win the trick, there is no 100% winning line of play. 

Round #2. The second move is also mandatory – heart from dummy towards the J in hand. If both opponents follow suit or East is the one who shows out, you have easy 9 tricks continuing developing the hearts. So at this point we assume that hearts are 5:0, and East plays the 8, letting your J win while West shows out. 

Round #3. Now again a mandatory second round of hearts toward the 9, letting East win with one of his honors. Note that E can touch neither clubs nor hearts, so let’s explore the eventual diamond return. If a diamond is returned, we win with the A. If W follows (or if he has discarded diamond on the second round in hearts), we have the tempo again to open up a 9^th trick in diamonds. 

If W shows out, this would mean that E has started with 5 diamonds and 5 hearts – a good indication that he is easy to be stripped out of black suits and to be thrown in. We play spade toward dummy’s K and if E follows suit, we play the club towards the K in hand. If E shows out in clubs, we develop the 9^th trick in clubs immediately. If he follows both the spades and clubs rounds, cashing the two black Aces will eliminate his black cards for sure and we throw him in with a duck in diamonds. If E failed to follow suit on the K, then he is 0-5-5-3 and we draw the A. East must keep at least three hearts and at least two diamonds, so he will be left with maximum two clubs. Now we cash the two high clubs, eliminating that suit, and throw him in with a diamond.

Round #4. The only case still to be covered is when East plays spade. Now we take with K (collecting one of the missing Q and J honors in the process) and reach the key point:

Round #5. We play a round of diamonds and if E shows out, we duck (a mandatory move) – otherwise we certainly collect the A. If West shows out, we follow the line described in “Round 3”. If West follows suit, we continue with another round of diamonds, thus clearing the diamonds if the suit splits 3:3 or West has 4 diamonds originally dealt. If East has 4 diamonds and plays a small spade, we finesse the 10, West wins the trick and plays one of the black suits. Now we cash all the top tricks except A, finishing in South. In this 3-cards end-game East falls again under the pressure of red-suits strip squeeze.

What remains to be covered now is the main case – East shows out of diamonds and West wins with a small diamond, having no hearts and obviously jumping into the forks in diamonds and spades. So his only meaningful alternatives are playing a high diamond or playing a club.

Round #6a. West plays high diamond and we duck (mandatory move) – that’s the easier case. 

Round #7a. West plays a club and we win the trick the K, collecting one of the missing honors in the process (mandatory move). 

Round #8a. Now cash the A (mandatory move) - we have discarded a club and a spade so far. The position is:

---
A 10 x
---
A 10

A x
x
x
x

If East has only 2 hearts, we play A and a small - mandatory move. 

If East has 3 hearts, then we play A (discarding a heart). If now East discards a heart, we follow with 2 rounds of hearts, while if he keeps three cards in hearts, we fines the 10 of clubs (mandatory moves again).

What remains is the main case “Round 6”.

Round #6. West plays a club and we win the trick with K, collecting one of the missing honors in the process.

Round #7. Now we play the A, discarding a spade (!!) – a mandatory move. This completes the unique double joint squeeze:

• West was squeezed in clubs, diamonds, and spades;
• East was squeezed in clubs, hearts, and spades.

---
A 10 x
---
A 10 x

A (no additional spades necessary!)
x 
x x 
x

West is known to have at least two diamonds (otherwise in Round 7 we wouldn’t have broken the communications in spades and clear the diamonds) and East has three hearts (otherwise we would kill him with two rounds in hearts – A and small). This results in 5 red cards out of the 12, thus leaving the two opponents with maximum 7 black cards, which in turn means that have a maximum of 3 cards in one of the two black suits. Now we have set the stage for Round 8.

Round #8.1 (to distinguish the line from this in 8a). If the opponents have been left with max 3 spades in total, we play the A (mandatory move), discarding club from the dummy. Now, if East shows out, we play A and another heart, waiting for the jump into the clubs fork. If, on the other hand, West is the one who shows out, we finesse the 10 of clubs, which will result in an ultimate jump in hearts (after the eventual claim of the good spade).

So, we reach the interesting case when both opponents follow suit in the round of spades. 

Round #9.1 We finesse the 10 of clubs (mandatory move) and East wins the trick. If he hold a good spade, he can cash it out (we discard a heart) but now he would ultimately jump into the fork with his three hearts. Otherwise:

Round #10.1 East continues with club toward our Ace, but then we play a small heart and wait for the jump into the fork to collect the last two tricks.

Round #8.2 If the opponents have been left with max 3 clubs in total (rather than 3 spades as in Round 8.1), we finesse in clubs (mandatory move). If West shows out and East has two clubs and we play A and another club, while if East has three clubs, we play small from dummy! This forces E to jump against both forks in clubs and hearts. Note the interesting method we repeatedly use, which resembles the tango-dance – a step backward, followed by 2 steps forward. This is combined with promoting 2 tricks while refusing to take the sure trick with A. If E shows out in clubs (which means that the 10 holds), we collect the A and A, and exit with a heart, waiting for the last trick in hand. If both opponents follow suit while the 10 still holds, then 10 tricks are easily on the table. 

What remains is the main case, where both follow suit and E wins the trick with once of the missing honors. Now we compensate the lost trick (A) with the promoted trick in clubs.

Round #9.2 East plays a club – then we win with the A (mandatory move). If East plays any other suit, we have direct 9 tricks. 

Round #10.2 We collect the club (mandatory move).

Round #11.2 If E still has 3 hearts, we throw him in with a heart, while if he has only 2 hearts, we play A and another heart, and collect the last trick with the A in hand. 

Rounds #12.2 and #13.2 E jumps with his 2 hearts or collects his heart and gives the last trick to the A in hand . In both cases the moves are mandatory.
 

The Bulgarian Squeeze combines several unique techniques to reach a squeeze in all 4 suits via counting the total number of cards in each suit, rather than trying to figure out the exact distribution of the opponents.