Talk:Squeeze play (bridge)

Link to main page contract bridge

This page should be linked from somewhere on the main Bridge page.

There should be a page for play of the hand, with squeezes as a specialty.

Who is Audience

Hi all. I would like to add two thoughts. It is great fun to write this and I appreciate all the help and ideas. But I do have the feeling that this might as well not belong into wikipedia. I think that Andre Engles' point is crucial. It still is almost ununderstandably for non bridge players. On the other hand if a non mathematicien looks something up about Fourier Transformation or Gaulois fields is he supposed to understand the stuff??? [unsigned]

Yes I intended to write this for Bridge Players. But I will defenitely try to work more on the basic stuff. Cheers. Robert_Dober 18:01 Oct 21, 2002 (UTC)

I agree with the above comment. I think that the problem is that the page starts with a discussion of the Laws, which is one of the last things a beginner needs to know. Most of the expert-level stuff should be moved to a separate page. [unsigned]

I come to this thread some 10 years later and have often pondered the same question in my editing of bridge articles. Would it be wrong to have material in articles presented explicitly as directed to one of three audience groups:

• For newcomers and beginners players (and non-players)
• For intermediate and advancing players
• For expert and world class players

Newwhist (talk) 18:59, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I came to this talk page to ask whether it is sensible to follow an example of a simple positional squeeze with examples of strip squeezes. (I don't believe that it makes sense to do so.) And I encounter Newwhist's query. Serendipity, I suppose.

It would surely not be wrong to tag articles according to their apparent difficulty level. I do think, though, that we all tend to find our own present skill level. Thus, when I was starting out I spent my reading time with Five Weeks to Winning Bridge, not with How to Win at Duplicate Bridge. I had no basis as yet for the special approaches required by pairs play, I didn't understand the rationales, and I left the book on the shelf for a couple of years.

With particular reference to squeeze play, it might be useful to add a column to the classification table. One column might indicate the difficulty level associated with a particular type of squeeze -- with a simple squeeze shown as (relatively) straightforward and a compound squeeze shown as (relatively) complex. That leaves us with the task of deciding which squeezes are in between.

That said, I'd appreciate opinions regarding the presence of strip squeeze examples in this article. I think it makes sense to have the first example (simple squeeze) as an illustration of the basic mechanism. The strip squeezes should be moved to the existing article.

I do think that further discussion of the conditions for squeezes is needed -- for example, the three major types of entry conditions in simple squeezes, and how entries in the pivot suit in a double squeeze often dictate the order of play. But again, these belong in articles other than the main Squeeze Play article.

Comments? TurnerHodges (talk) 21:26, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

In general, it is my view that articles should be as focussed as possible; wide ranging, rambling articles do not serve encyclopedic objectives well. Accordingly, the article on Squeeze play should be introductory in nature, cover the simple squeeze thoroughly and exclusively and provide navigation to articles on other squeeze plays. So I agree that the strip squeeze material should be relocated.

With respect to editors categorizing articles by difficulty level, I believe this a noble but impossible task. It is fundamental to Wikipedia that content be verifiable by a reliable source; to me this means that it is not the opinion of the editor that matters but what the bridge community has documented in its written literature and its other recorded media. Furthermore, difficuly level is relative not absolute. What is a simple mathematical concept for one person to understand would be incomprehensible to another.

Combining the foregoing, a focussed article is more likely to enable self-identification by a reader as to its relevance to that person's knowledge base, skill level, interests and intellectual capacity.

The Wikipedia scheme for article importance ratings is a tool which may implications for difficulty rating. See Wiki's Contract Bridge Project for a preliminary attempt at applying this rating scheme to contract bridge articles. Newwhist (talk) 20:02, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't play bridge myself, but I have read several introductory books and I read my newspaper's bridge column every day. I found this article clear, demystifying, and helpful. I think of myself as a curious non-specialist, so I feel you have hit the appropriate mark. I find tightly focused articles with abundant links to other tightly focused articles work very well, and I am looking forward to exploring many more of the bridge articles. Jackaroodave (talk) 17:35, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

As a new bridge player I found this article relatively understandable but there is still some terminology that might be confusing to other newcomers. I suggest that maybe all the expert level stuff be shifted or removed as per WP:NOT and focus on the basic techniques and not expert level guides. - 1.02 editor (talk) 02:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Squeeze preparation

We reckon the following should go in here somewhere:

Should someone (eg me) put in transferring the menace in here? It comes up to set up a simple positional squeeze so I reckon it should go here but I'm concerned it will complicate things. bwt transferring the menace is something like leading the Q from QT (dummy) opposite Ax if you are sure RHO has the K and need to put LHO under pressure (you hope he has the J). Obviously if RHO doesn't cover you let it run. Cambion 15:18, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

If not in a separate article, I'd say that it belongs to Squeeze play (bridge). Menace transfer is a common motive for all types of squeezes (much like count rectification). If you have time (I don't), you could append something like the following to Squeeze play (bridge):

• Rectifying the count
• Preserving entries
• Menace transfer

etc. Duja 17:55, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Cambion 15:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Isn't "The defender being squeezed has no idle cards" redundant? If "the defense's guards in the threat suits must be held by one defender only" AND "declarer has enough winners to take all the remaining tricks but one, which is to be gained from the squeeze" THEN the defender being squeezed MUST have no idle cards? DaleLaceyNZ (talk) 23:18, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Article title

I'm not keen on putting this to WP:RM, but ain't the more common and simpler name just "Squeeze" rather than "Squeeze play"? I don't recall ever having heard about it with "play" qualifier attached (or extremely rarely). I think this should be moved to Squeeze (bridge) (and will do it in few days unless anyone objects). Duja 08:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Squeeze play seems a reasonable title to me. 'Squeeze' imo is more specific (eg. I executed a squeeze). 'Squeeze play' is to me a more general description encompassing the techniques and viriants of individual squeezes - in short a better name for the article. ;-) Cambion 13:00, 14 July 2006 (UTC) BTW this artcile has come along nicely, gj guys :-) I'd never even heard of a clash squeeze / vice squeeze...

I changed the title Canibal squezze in the list to suiciced squezze because is the most common name — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tord Grejder (talk • contribs) 15:40, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Example #2 Incorrect

The purpose of Example #2 is to show that for a squeeze to be successful, at least one threat card must be in the hand that plays after the squeezed defender.

The example is unfortunately wrong though.

Trick #1:

South Plays Ace of Clubs, North discards King of Hearts

If East discards Ace of Hearts, south wins 2 of Hearts and Ace of Spades. If East discards a Spade, North wins 2 spades. The mistake here is that there is a threat card in the hand playing after the squeezed defender (2 of hearts). Changing South's 2 of Hearts to a 2 of Diamonds preserves the original intent, but that requires West to have Diamonds. Eqieoqiepq (talk) 02:48, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I have removed the deficient material; IMHO details on the various types of squeezes is best dealt with in their individual articles - links to the various types are listed in the table in the Classification section of this article. Unfortunately the deficient material is also used in the article simple squeeze. Newwhist (talk) 15:08, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Let's not be in quite so much of a hurry here. User Eqieoqiepq's comment assumes, not without reason, that the A, K and 2 are the only hearts as yet unplayed. If, in Example 2, West holds even one heart after following to South's lead of the club A, then South's deuce cannot become a winner, and the statement that "south wins 2 of Hearts and Ace of Spades" is incorrect. In that case the squeeze does indeed fail, assuming that East isn't playing nullo.

I believe (I'm not certain and I'm not about to search the article's history to find out) that I'm the one responsible for the layout of Example 2. In that case, I would have chosen to show only three hands in Examples 1 and 2 in order to focus on the relative position of the threats and guards. I thought that would keep things simpler for squeeze neophytes.

That seems to have backfired, though, and to have created confusion instead of preventing it. Therefore I'm reverting the deletion of Example 2 and will add West's holding to both Example 1 and Example 2, to help make it clear (or so I hope) that the heart 2 is not a potential winner. I'll make the same adjustment if needed to the "simple squeeze" article.

While I concur with Newwhist that "details on the various types of squeezes [are] best dealt with in their individual articles," the issue of the relative position of threats and guards does not define a type of squeeze. Position is a requirement for any type of squeeze, just as it is a requirement for any type of finesse: in both cases it stems from what Kelsey called "premature commitment," the necessity that West play before North, and North before East. As such, I believe that introductory material to distinguish positional from "automatic" squeezes belongs in this article. It also belongs in articles that detail different types of squeezes: for example, non-simultaneous double squeezes are particularly characterized by how the basic issue of positionality evolves as the squeeze matures. TurnerHodges (talk) 16:46, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your clarification TurnerHodges. In my defence, the possibility that West held a higher heart than the 2 did occur to me as the intent of the author of the original hand diagram. But my standard assumption is that when a hand in a deal is not disclosed, its holdings are immaterial, i.e. it may hold any cards the reader chooses to imagine - the original Example 2 did not pass that test. Your most recent edits remove the need for that assumption and keep the examples whole. However, having said that, is it not better to have examples that do not require additional conditions to be imposed on the hand of the partner of the squeezed player? And would not a change of the 2♥ to the 2♠ in the original hand diagrams accomplish this? Newwhist (talk) 13:37, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, nuts. Your use of the words "in my defense" suggests that I sounded as though I was on the offense, and that was not my intent. That said:

I took another look at an old Encyclopedia of Bridge and find that the article there on the simple squeeze uses precisely the same cards as in this article's Examples 1 and 2. So it was surely lifted from that source. Interestingly, in view of your most recent reply, the author of the Encyclopedia's article (Monroe Ingberman, who died far too young) termed the cards in the un-squeezed hand as "Immaterial." At least in a pedagogical sense, we have seen that they're all too material.

I concur, once again, that the more spare the example the better. And I believe you're correct, that replacing South's heart 2 with the spade 2 renders East's holding (Ex. 1) and West's holding (Ex. 2) genuinely immaterial (alas, the use of a diamond 2 as originally suggested would not have the same effect).

However, while I was visualizing the layout with the spade 2 in place of the heart 2, it struck me that the replacement raises a different concern. The layout then begins to resemble the split two-card menace in the Simple Squeeze article. Beefing up South's spade holding from 3-2 to J-2 changes the entry situation and converts what Love called E1 to E2. That's a subtlety that I don't think the article needs to visit upon someone who's new to squeeze play.

But that's a different article. In sum, it seems to me that it's a close choice. If you think it better to omit one of the hands to make the example more crisp, I'm okay with changing South's deuce from a heart to a spade. But I think that would necessitate some added verbiage to distinguish the entry layout from the split menace situation in the Simple Squeeze article. TurnerHodges (talk) 19:24, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

My "in my defense" was not an implication that you were on the offense; on the contrary, I enjoy your penchant for precison in the language. Back to the debate at hand, I have examined the various editions of the Encylopedia (I have them all) and find that in the first edition, the example hand for the Positional Squeeze under the SIMPLE SQUEEZE entry uses 'x' to denote the spot cards and shows the East hand as 'Immaterial'; otherwise the honour cards are as in our Example 1. Also in the first edition under the POSITIONAL SQUEEZE entry, Ingberman presents essentially the same deal using "x" for the spot cards and displaying all four hands; the hand diagram used to illustrate when the Positional Squeeze if inoperative shows the West hand holding a spot card in each of diamonds, hearts and spades. In all subsequent editions, the spot cards for the POSITIONAL SQUEEZE entry are given rank with West's spots outranking South's. However, all subsequent Encyclopedia editions for the SIMPLE SQUEEZE entry remain unchanged , i.e. spots are 'x' and the East/West hand is 'Immaterial'. I have also reviewed the hand diagram treatment in Kelsey on Squeeze Play and in reference to the Simple Squeeze (page 10) and the Positional Squeeze (page 12) we again find essentially the same deal we know as Example 1 - small world! Kelsy display all four hands and gives the opponents spot cards higher in rank than declarer in each of the side suits (but different than those used by Ingberman).

My conclusion from the foregoing is that it seems best to (1) show all four hands in a deal and (2) assign rank to spot cards. This leaves nothing to the imagination - we do not want minds to wander unnecessarily when making the basic points about the simple squeeze play and the positional squeeze. This is afterall an introuction to squeezes.

I suggest that we follow the lead of Ingberman/Kelsy and give East/West spot cards in the side suits other than the squeeze card denomination and show all four hands. For your consideration. Newwhist (talk) 14:45, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Replacing the heart to a spade would render the West hand immaterial on Example #2. I would support making this change, but I'm not experienced enough with Wikipedia to bring it out.

Neverneverland2 (talk) 20:04, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Classification

It seems to me that another significant dimension for classification is the existence of trump. Most squeezes are "no trump" squeezes (even when the contract was a trump contract, most squeezes operate when the trumps are run and there are no trumps left (other than perhaps the last -- the squeeze card itself).

However, other squeezes including the "trump squeeze" and the "backwash squeeze" rely on the existence of a trump as an entry.Beowulf (talk) 20:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)