Steppingstone Squeeze

A steppingstone squeeze occurs when a defender is reduced to giving declarer an entry to an otherwise inaccessible winner. It is a type of strip-squeeze originally described by Terence Reese in "Master Play in Contract Bridge" in 1960. (The other two that Reese presented were the vice squeeze and the winkle.)

To illustrate:

South is on lead needing 3 tricks. He only has 2 winners in hand — the ♥ Q and ♦ K — and no way to reach the good ♠ J in dummy.

If South plays the ♥ Q, though, West will be squeezed. To protect the ♦ Q, West might decide to discard a spade. In that case South continues with the ♦ K and the ♦ 8. West, thrown in, must ignominiously lead a spade to dummy's jack.

The steppingstone squeeze is so named because declarer uses a defender as a surrogate entry, or step, into the other hand.

The following deal was authored by the late writer Alan Truscott (1925 - 2005) for The New York Times.¹ South landed in a 1NT contract and received an opening lead of the ♠ 4:

"As it turned out, a minor suit lead would have defeated the contract, but West tried a spade in the hope of finding a spade suit in his partner’s hand. The declarer won with the ♠ A in dummy and led a heart to his king. West won with the ace and shifted to clubs. After four rounds of the suit, West was on lead in this position:

"West continued with a spade, the only play to give South a problem. This severed the North-South communications, making it impossible to cash six winners in the major suits. However he plays, South finds himself cut off from either the ♥ J or his own fourth spade trick.

"South did not choose to stake everything on the position of the ♦ A, so he cashed his three spade tricks, throwing a diamond from dummy. East became the victim of a ‘steppingstone squeeze,’ a rare ending. In order to keep his three hearts, and prevent South from overtaking the ten with the jack in dummy effectively, East had to throw the ♦ 6. South cashed his queen and ten of hearts, noting the discard from West at the 11th trick.

"The declarer had to lead from his ♦ K at the 12th trick, but East had to take the ace and give dummy the last trick with the ♥ J."

¹Truscott, A. (1968, December 5). Solodar and Bethe Form Pair at Last Minute and Win Title. The New York Times.