THE FUTURE IS NOW
By: Eric Kokish

TWO OF MY favorite bridge players are Sheri Winestock and Fred Gitelman of Toronto. Still young enough to believe there is a way to reach the end of the rainbow, they work hard on their partnership. One of their most useful tools is a computer bridge program that they developed together. It is called Base III and is commercially available through most bridge supply houses and this magazine.

The program is sufficiently wise to solve double-dummy problems, calculate percentages, and assist the user in testing various aspects of bidding (with a hand-generator feature). The powerful software has already been upgraded several times, and the current list of users includes such household names as Bob Hamman and Eric Rodwell. End of cheap advertisement.

This deal was played in the Toronto Regional against a good team. Fred was South, Sheri North. East and West were John Cunningham and Doug Andrews, respectively.

If you've got to open that South hand, an 11-14 one notrump seems much more descriptive than 1. East's bold 3 gave his opponents some problems. In their methods, a reopening double by North would have suggested a relatively balanced hand with a lot less in clubs, so North cuebid 4 and soon discovered that it was going to be awkward, even after locating a fit.

Rather than leave her partner to wonder what 4NT would mean, she improvised a solution: 5, exclusion Roman Keycard Blackwood for hearts (don't count the A, partner). When South showed one keycard, North took a shot at slam.

Had trumps been 3-1, declarer would have had an early claim, but on West's trump lead, East showed out, discarding a club. A spade ruff in dummy would secure a 12th trick, but it looked as if it would be impossible to keep East off play, and with a sure club ruff coming, declarer could not afford to lose the lead to East while there were trumps outstanding.

There was work to be done, and declarer started by winning the trump lead in hand, crossing to dummy with a second trump, and leading a spade. East split his honors. Declarer won and played three more rounds of trumps, discarding a spade from dummy. East's discards on the last four trumps were virtually forced: a second club, two small spades, and a diamond.

	By now declarer had a shrewd idea of the distribution and he could afford to concede a spade to East (throwing a club from dummy). East switched to a club. Declarer played off the high clubs, which forced West to come down to two diamonds and the J, covering the threat of declarer's 9:
	Now when declarer played K, 2, it was clear to play dummy's A. West's last card was known to be the J, and East (who had been squeezed down to two diamonds much earlier, in order to keep his black-suit protection) was known to have a high club. It was a simple show-up squeeze at the end, but in fact, it played as a nonsimultaneous double squeeze with elements of a winkle thrown in!