The Schnapsen Log

Setting Up the Endplay (solution)

Martin Tompa

Let’s start out with some plays that don’t work. Probably the first thing you should consider is cashing your winners ♣AT and ♥A. The good Doktor will discard two jacks and a queen, leaving you in this nearly-winning position:

Doktor Schnaps: (19 points)
♠ A
♥ —
♣ —
♦ A

You: (65 points)
♠ K
♥ —
♣ —
♦ T

You nearly reached 66 trick points but, unfortunately, you’ve taken your last trick.

If you instead start out by leading a losing spade or diamond, the good Doktor will force you by continuing to play whichever suit you led. For instance, suppose you lead ♦T. After winning the trick, the Doktor will continue with ♦Q, forcing you to trump and leaving you on lead in this position:

Doktor Schnaps: (40 points)
♠ AJ
♥ —
♣ J
♦ —

You: (40 points)
♠ K
♥ A
♣ T
♦ —

Doktor Schnaps’s forcing play was also a counterforce: you cannot force back with ♥A, because that trick plus ♠A will give the Doktor 68 trick points. If instead you continue with ♠K, you will be forced to trump again by ♠J, and the Doktor will win the last trick with the lowly jack of trumps. Your only other play from this position is ♣T, which will allow the Doktor to win the last trick with a spade.

I’ll leave it to you to convince yourself that leading your losing ♠K at trick 6 is exactly analogous to leading ♦T. You’ll be forced in spades, and faced with the same losing possibilities.

If you are a regular reader of this series, you might recognize the reason why these plays are giving up the last trick to the good Doktor. By leading either a spade or diamond, you are violating the rule that, if the outcome is going to depend on winning the last trick, you shouldn’t lead suits where your opponent has more cards than you do. You would like your opponent to be forced to lead such a suit, resulting in the loss of a tempo.

What else is there to do at trick 6 if neither running your winners nor leading either of your losers works? The answer is to run just two of your three winners. Let’s first draw one round of trumps:

Doktor Schnaps: (19 points)
♠ AJ
♥ —
♣ —
♦ AQ

You: (39 points)
♠ K
♥ A
♣ T
♦ T

Now, from this position, lead ♥A. What can the good Doktor discard? Either a small spade or a small diamond. Whichever one the Doktor chooses, you will exit in that same suit. Suppose, for instance, that the Doktor discards ♦Q on your ♥A. You continue with ♦T, putting the Doktor on lead in this position:

Doktor Schnaps: (40 points)
♠ AJ
♥ —
♣ —
♦ —

You: (53 points)
♠ K
♥ —
♣ T
♦ —

You have executed a tempo endplay, forcing the good Doktor to open up the spade suit for you. This will present you with the last trick and 1 game point. I leave it as an exercise for you to convince yourself that you have an analogous tempo endplay if the Doktor discards ♠J instead of ♦Q on your ♥A. One aspect of this deal that I like very much is that the suit you employ for the tempo endplay is dependent on the suit your opponent chooses to discard on ♥A.

Go back now to the diagram above at the beginning of trick 7, when you are about to lead ♥A. The lead of ♥A from this position is actually a squeeze play! Leading ♥A squeezes your opponent out of either a small spade or a small diamond, the cards that served your opponent so nicely as exit (and forcing) cards. Depriving your opponent of that exit is exactly what enables the tempo endplay.

But this squeeze is different from the few squeeze plays we have seen so far. In those plays, you never had to give up the lead after the squeeze play: the squeeze always enabled you to cash enough new winners to reach 66 trick points. Today’s squeeze is different, in the sense that you squeeze your opponent out of an exit card, and then endplay your opponent. Bridge players call this sort of play, where you squeeze your opponent and then still give up one or more tricks, a “squeeze without the count”.

© 2012 Martin Tompa. All rights reserved.

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