Bridge Game

Pseudo-squeeze

Pseudo-squeeze is an "ingenuine" type of squeeze in contract bridge, where the declarer goes through the motions of a squeeze where none actually exists ? simulating a genuine squeeze in the hope that a defender gets the position wrong.

For example, consider the simple positional squeeze as given in the main squeeze page:

Club ace is lead from dummy in the following position, and East is genuinely squeezed between hearts and spades - if he throws away the heart ace, declarer discards the ♠J from hand, plays hearts and makes the ♡K and the ♠A. If he throws away one of the spades, South discards the ♥king, plays spades, and again makes the two remaining tricks.
 

Now consider the following layout (South as declarer):

Now, seeing all the cards it is obvious that on the play of the ♣A East can safely throw a spade, as his partner still guards South's spade 2 menace. However, he cannot see declarer's hand and if he throws the ace of hearts, then he has been pseudo-squeezed.
Similarly, the position could have been:

Now, if East throws the spade on the ace of clubs, South makes the rest of the tricks.
 

Defenders can usually avoid pseudo-squeezes by accurate counting and signalling.

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