In the column 6N, it would seem that declarer has a variety of ways to proceed but, one way or another, will concede a diamond trick and try clubs (as 3-3 split is 12 easy tricks).

Thus, declarer will learn early that West has only four major suit cards and that a squeeze is likely against East. That is, East is almost sure to have length in both majors.

As long as declarer recognizes that the KH is the key late hand entry and the KC the late Board entry (and protects them), cashing the top spade honors (and the AH, if a heart is not returned) will reveal that West is 2-2 in the majors and the club suit immaterial (in fact, the entire West hand is not material).

With one round of hearts played, declarer simply arranges to be on the Board at the two card ending with 10S and 3/4H with declarer left with K8 or K7H.

My point here is that the meticulous column line appears only necessary if West turns out to have an unlikley major suit guard. I would probably have made 6N on the actual layout, but might have failed to time it precisely on some others.

Hi Jim2,

Thanks for the clarity you used to describe the inner workings of what turns out to be a simple squeeze against East (and his major suit length) with, of course the side issue of West having to protect against North’s long club, although on the subject hand that was of little importance.

My long term experience has allowed me to think of high-level bridge learning (squeeze endings certainly lend themselves to that) to two different types of bridge minds: 1. The serious analytical textbook superior scientific approach guided by Clyde Love’s original squeeze elements and how to do it represented, at least to me and through the years by Bob Hamman, Oswald Jacoby, Eric Rodwell, Benito Garozzo, Sammy Kehela, Sidney Lazard, Bart Bramley, Grant Baze, Peter Weichsel, Jean Besse and many other brilliant players, too numerous to mention, certainly deserving of recognitiion, but not well enough known or experienced by me, who had both a specific numeracy bent and a great talent for the game itself and 2. The seat of the pants player who was not necessarily formula conscious nor scientifically inclined, but knew the elements involved, always (or almost) knew locations and distributions of all the important cards and suits and therefore was equally adept at execution. Those players, in my early days, were many of the old time names, Schenken, Mathe, Silodor, Kay, Crawford, Reese, Sobel, Becker, Belladonna, Forquet, Murray, and Tim Seres as well as present day bridge magicians such as Meckstroth, Zia, Chagas, Levin, Balichi, Chemla, Mari, Perron, Martel, Versace, Passell, Lauria, Berkowitz, Levy, Helgemo, Hampson, Branco, Stansby, Lebel, Bocchi, Sontag, Duboin, Sundelin, Hamilton, Helness and Patrick Huang come to mind. Please understand that this list is composed of my encounters only and so by its very nature is going to leave many other, equally qualified players off, but I just wanted to recount my own personal experiences in the hopes of equaling your clarity in presentation as well, of course, as to present to the reader the anatomy of what it takes to arrive at a successful conclusion.

I guess my message also suggests, like the ability to skin a cat, there are alternate ways to beard the bridge lion.