Squeezes

A squeeze makes a trick out of nothing. You lead a winner, and a defender has to discard. Every card they could throw away gives you a trick.

Squeezes sound like magic, but most of them follow one simple pattern. Once you recognise it, you’ll find a squeeze or two every month at the club, and your opponents will wonder how you did it.

By the end of this module you’ll be able to:

Explain how a simple squeeze works.
Check the four conditions a squeeze needs.
Rectify the count by losing a trick early.
Recognise squeeze chances at the table.

1. How a squeeze works

Here’s the end of a hand. No trumps, and South is on lead with three cards left. South needs all three tricks.

                North
                ♠ A 2
                ♥ Q
West                            East
♠ K 3                           ♦ 7 6 5
♥ K                             (East's cards don't matter)
                South
                ♠ 4
                ♥ 4
                ♣ A

South has two sure tricks: the ♣A and the ♠A. Normally, the third trick is lost.

Now South leads the ♣A, the squeeze card. West must discard before dummy:

If West throws the ♥K, dummy’s ♥Q becomes a winner. Dummy discards the ♠2, and South crosses to the ♠A and cashes the ♥Q.
If West throws the ♠3, West’s ♠K is now alone. Dummy discards the ♥Q. South leads the ♠4 to dummy’s ace, the king falls, and dummy’s ♠2 wins the last trick.

Either way, South makes all three tricks. West had to guard two suits but had room to keep only one guard.

2. The four conditions

A common memory aid is BLUE:

Letter	Condition	In the example
B: Busy	One defender must be the only guard of two suits	West alone guards spades and hearts
L: Losers	You must be able to win all but one of the remaining tricks	South has two of three tricks
U: Upper	At least one threat must lie in the hand that plays after the busy defender	Dummy (after West) holds the ♥Q
E: Entry	You need an entry to your threats after the squeeze card	The ♠A gets you to dummy

A threat (or menace) is a card that will win a trick if the defender lets go of their guard: here, the ♥Q and the ♠2.

If any condition is missing, the squeeze fails. Check them when you plan the hand.

3. Rectifying the count

The “all but one” condition is the one most often missing. If you have two losers left, a squeeze won’t work: the defender can discard a card from the suit you’re going to lose anyway.

The fix: lose a trick early. This is called rectifying the count.

You’re in 6NT with eleven top tricks and need twelve. If you start running winners, you’ll still have two losers, and the defenders have room to discard safely.

Instead, duck a trick early (lose a trick you were always going to lose). Now you have eleven tricks and one loser, and when you run your winners, the busy defender is squeezed.

With eleven tricks in a slam, duck a trick before running your winners.

4. Recognising a squeeze at the table

You don’t need to plan every squeeze in advance. A simple practical approach:

You’re one trick short.
One defender seems to hold length or honours in two suits, often shown in the bidding or by the opening lead.
You have threats in those suits: a card that would win if the guard went away.
Run your long suit (or your trumps), keeping your threats, and watch the discards.

The defender will often throw the wrong card, especially if they haven’t counted. Even when no real squeeze exists, the pressure of discarding causes mistakes. This is sometimes called a pseudo-squeeze.

Which cards to keep

As you run your winners, keep:

Every card that might become a winner (your threats).
Entries to your threats.

Throw away the cards that can never take a trick (“idle cards”).

5. Other squeezes, briefly

Positional squeeze. The example above works only against West, because dummy’s threat lies after West. If East held the guards, the squeeze would fail, because East would discard after seeing dummy’s card.
Automatic squeeze. If the one-card threat is in the hand with the squeeze card, and the hand opposite holds the two-card threat (with its entry) plus a spare card it can discard on the squeeze card, the squeeze works against either defender.
Double squeeze. Each defender guards one suit, and both guard a third suit. Running your winners squeezes them both in turn.

Start with the simple squeeze. Once you can recognise it, the others follow the same ideas.

Rules worth remembering

A squeeze works when one defender guards two suits and must discard.
BLUE: Busy defender, all-but-one Losers, Upper position of a threat, Entry to the threats.
Rectify the count: lose a trick early so you have all but one of the rest.
Keep your threats and entries; discard idle cards.
When one trick short, run your winners and watch the discards.
A simple positional squeeze works against the defender who plays before your threat.

Try these

1. In the example, why would the squeeze fail if West’s guards were in East’s hand instead (East holding ♠ K 3 and ♥ K)?

2. You’re in 6NT with eleven top tricks. West has opened 1♥ and seems to hold the ♦K as well. What should you do before running your winners?

3. As you run your spades in 3NT, which cards should you keep in dummy?

4. You’re in 7NT with twelve top tricks. Do you need to rectify the count?

Answers

1. East discards after dummy. On the ♣A, dummy must discard first. If dummy discards the ♠2, East throws the ♥K; if dummy discards the ♥Q, East throws the ♠3. East always keeps the right guard, so the squeeze fails. (This is why it’s called a positional squeeze.)

2. Duck a trick early to rectify the count, then run your winners, keeping a heart threat and a diamond threat with an entry. West may be squeezed in hearts and diamonds.

3. Keep threat cards (any card that might become a winner) and entries to them. Discard cards that can never win a trick.

4. No. In 7NT you need all thirteen tricks and have twelve, so you already have “all but one”. You can’t afford to lose a trick, and you don’t need to.

Words to know

Term	Meaning
Squeeze	Leading a winner that forces a defender to discard a guard and give you a trick
Squeeze card	The winner you lead to force the discard
Threat (menace)	A card that will become a winner if the defender discards its guard
Busy	A defender who is the only guard of a suit
Rectifying the count	Losing a trick early so you have all but one of the remaining tricks
Positional squeeze	A squeeze that works against only one defender, because of where the threats are
Automatic squeeze	A squeeze that works against either defender
Pseudo-squeeze	Pressure from running winners that makes a defender discard wrongly, even without a true squeeze
Idle card	A card that can’t take a trick, safe to discard

What next?

Deal out the example ending and play it both ways. Then move West’s cards to East and see why it fails.
When you’re one trick short, run your winners and watch the discards before taking a losing finesse.
Move on to Module 9: Expert defence, where you learn to avoid being squeezed yourself.