Zia Mahmood

In November, 2007 the "Naturalists" played the "Scientists."

This London event was "broadcast" live on BBO. I did some of the on-line commentary, but unfortunately didn't get to witness this deal from early in the match:

Vul: Dlr:	J 8 3 3 A Q J A Q J 10 9 6
7 2 J 10 8 5 2 8 7 4 3 5 3		K 10 9 6 5 A Q 9 6 5 2 K 2
	A Q 4 K 7 4 K 10 9 6 8 7 4

South (Zia)

At extremely high stakes (hundreds of dollars per IMP), both North-South pairs reached 3NT. Five clubs would have been much easier, but then there would be no story.

At both tables, North opened 1. At one table, East overcalled in spades and declarer received a spade lead from West (East-West never bid hearts), making life easy. The K was knocked out and declarer had 11 easy tricks for +460.

Zia had it much tougher. His RHO doubled the 1 opening. Zia redoubled, LHO bid 1, raised to 2 by East. Against 3NT, West led a heart, setting up 4 tricks for the defense. Zia would not be able to set up the clubs.

The opening heart lead went to East's queen and declarer's king. How should Zia play?

He knew from the takeout double that the K would be wrong. He could play for that card to be singleton, but instead Zia played back a heart at trick two!

The defenders cashed four heart winners and the key moment had arrived. West had to play a club through the dummy, but he didn't. He exited with a diamond and that set the stage for the rare crisscross squeeze.

Zia won the diamond in dummy, finessed the Q and ran his diamonds. On the fourth diamond East had to discard in this position:

Vul: Dlr:	J 8 -- -- A
7 -- -- 5 3		K 10 -- -- K 2
	A -- -- 8 7

South (Zia)

East (to play)

What should East keep? If he throws a spade, Zia cashes the A and dummy is good. If East throws a club, Zia plays to the A and then his hand is good. This is called a crisscross squeeze (for obvious reasons)*.

Of course, this requires reading the distribution, but Zia had enough clues from the bidding and the tempo (squirming) to read the position and score a hard-earned +400 (and hold the loss to under a thousand dollars!).

*(Squeeze connoisseurs will note that a simple black-suit squeeze on East also would have worked).