The Schnapsen Log
The Last Trick (solution)
Martin Tompa
You cannot afford to let Polona trump your ♣K, because that trick plus her ♠T and ♥A tricks would give her a total of 67 trick points. So start by pulling her trump:
Polona: (34 points)
♠ TQ
♥ AQ
♣ —
♦ —You: (39 points)
♠ K
♥ J
♣ K
♦ T
Now it’s going to come down to who can win the last trick, because neither of you can reach 66 trick points. This means leading out your losers. The problem is that your losers are both in suits in which Polona has more cards than you do, and those are suits that you want Polona to open up so that she loses a tempo. If you make the mistake of leading either your spade or heart, Polona will win and return the same suit you led, forcing you to trump. You cannot then prevent her from winning the last trick in her other suit.
You must first get her to shorten one of those two suits. So lead ♣K instead and see which queen she discards. Whichever it is, lead that same suit next, since she no longer has more cards in that suit than you do. For example, suppose that she discards ♥Q on your ♣K. Here is the resulting position:
Polona: (34 points)
♠ TQ
♥ A
♣ —
♦ —You: (46 points)
♠ K
♥ J
♣ —
♦ T
When you continue with hearts, the suit she discarded, you execute a tempo endplay. Polona is forced to open the spade suit and lose a tempo, so that you win the last trick with your remaining trump.
When you led your ♣K at trick 7, you were executing another type of squeeze without the count. It’s a squeeze because how you continue depends on what Polona chooses to discard. It’s “without the count” because, after playing the squeeze card, you still have to give up the lead to Polona before winning. Since the play that follows the squeeze is a tempo endplay, I will call this particular type a tempo squeeze.
© 2012 Martin Tompa. All rights reserved.
