by John Turner
Gareth Roberts came to Cambridge about six years ago to take
up a lectureship in Mathematics at the University. In that time
he has certainly made his mark on the bridge scene, winning the
County Pairs and County Knockout Teams on several occasions and
doing well in national events. Gareth plays a careful,
thoughtful game and is always pleasant to both his partners and
his opponents. He has now been appointed to a Professorship
from September - congratulations to him, but unfortunately for
bridge here his new post is at Lancaster University. I wish him
every success in his new environment. At the very least it will
be easier for him to watch Liverpool at home.
One of my most annoying missed opportunities as declarer
happened when Gareth was dummy. I didn't record the hand, which
came up several years ago, but it was something like this:
As South I was declarer in 6
, and
West led the 
9. I played a trump to
hand, spade ruff, trump to hand, noting the 3-1 break. If clubs
had been 2-2 it would now have been right to attack diamonds.
As it was, I continued with a second spade ruff and then came
back to hand with a top diamond, drew the last trump and played
off my remaining trumps. This line yields an overtrick if the
diamonds come in. Unfortunately when I tested the diamonds RHO
discarded on the second round. 13 tricks had now shrunk to 11,
it seemed. I continued with the 
10,
just in case LHO was totally asleep and covered, but no luck
there. Thinking the hand was now dead I played low from dummy;
with the lead still in hand and just two cards left I pulled
out a random card from hand - which was a spade, and I duly
went one off.
After a second or two I realised something had `happened.'
What I had overlooked is that LHO might have been under
pressure: one of his last two cards is the losing J, and if his other card is a master I can
simply endplay him and he will have to give the last trick to
dummy's K. At the point where I played
my last trump, without realising it I had set in motion a
stepping stone squeeze, LHO being forced to bare his 
A. This then reduced to a two-card ending where
LHO's A becomes the stepping-stone to
the stranded K. It is most irritating
that I messed up this pretty ending - in a slam, of all things.
Some partners would be scathing about such dimness. Gareth,
amiable as always, merely commented that he didn't much like my
play to trick 12.
Although the ending looks obvious in retrospect, its rarity
makes it quite difficult to spot unless one is already familiar
with it. The essence of a stepping-stone squeeze is a partly
blocked suit, together with a lack of entries to the long hand.
I am still on the lookout for another opportunity.