In the game of bridge, a Grosvenor gambit or Grosvenor Coup is a psychological play, in which the opponent is purposely given the chance to gain one or more tricks, and often even to make the contract, but to do so he must play for his opponents to have acted illogically or incorrectly.
Thus, the opponent likely ends up blaming himself for not taking advantage of the opportunity presented, even though to do so would have been irrational. The benefit of the Grosvenor gambit is supposed to come on future hands, due to a loss of concentration by the player who was taken in by the gambit.
The gambit was named after Philip Grosvenor, a fictional character in a short story by Frederick B. Turner published in The Bridge World, [1] who first discovered the gambit accidentally, and over time developed its theory and deployed it deliberately. The story depicts Grosvenor as often frustrated by opponents who are too obtuse to fall for his ruse. Grosvenor's lifeless body is eventually found bludgeoned to death, his dealing fingers broken, shortly after a bridge tournament in which he used his gambit against the wrong opponents.
A subsequent article by Kit Woolsey in The Bridge World, titled The Grosvenor Gamble, [2] extends the original idea, farcically expounded in the 1973 story, to possible at-the-table applications.
The following deal provides an opportunity for a Grosvenor coup by West:
| South in 3NT | ♠ | 5 4 | |||
| ♥ | Q J | ||||
| ♦ | K 9 8 7 3 2 | ||||
| ♣ | 7 3 2 | ||||
| ♠ | 8 7 3 2 | N | ♠ | Q J 10 | |
| ♥ | A K 10 9 | ♥ | 6 5 3 2 | ||
| ♦ | Q 10 6 | ♦ | 5 | ||
| ♣ | 5 4 | ♣ | Q J 10 8 6 | ||
| Lead: ♥A | ♠ | A K 9 6 | |||
| ♥ | 8 7 4 | ||||
| ♦ | A J 4 | ||||
| ♣ | A K 9 | ||||
Against South's 3NT West leads ♥A and continues with ♥K and two more winning hearts. South wins the spade continuation, and has to run the diamonds without losing any further tricks. He therefore plans to play the ♦A and next to unblock by playing the ♦J to the ♦K, hoping for a 2–2 split or a singleton ♦Q (this is the percentage play with the given holding). On the actual layout, South cannot succeed. See, however, what happens when West drops the ♦10 under the ♦A. Declarer now has the opportunity to make his contract by next letting the ♦J run. This play, however, is utterly illogical: it can gain only when West has started with Q-10-6, but with that holding West would "never" play the 10 first. So, South plays for a 2–2 holding in diamonds and on the second diamond trick overtakes the ♦J with the ♦K, only to see East show out.
South will regret not having finessed, and – per Grosvenor's theory – will be furious with himself for not taking the illogical play, for not guessing that West would misplay from ♦Q 10 6. Worse yet, North may blame declarer for not having made the impossible play of letting the ♦J ride. East-West are expected to reap even more benefit on the following boards, due to the emotional storm that West has stirred up for North-South.
In his 1973 article, [3] Turner describes various other examples, including one in which a Grosvenor gambit is successfully deployed by declarer.
In contract bridge and similar games, a finesse is a type of card play technique which will enable a player to win an additional trick or tricks should there be a favorable position of one or more cards in the hands of the opponents.
The simple squeeze is the most basic form of a squeeze in contract bridge. When declarer plays a winner in one suit, an opponent is forced to discard a stopper in one of declarer's two threat suits.
Safety play in contract bridge is a generic name for plays in which declarer maximizes the chances for fulfilling the contract by ignoring a chance for a higher score. Declarer uses safety plays to cope with potentially unfavorable layouts of the opponent's cards. In so doing, declarer attempts to ensure the contract even in worst-case scenarios, by giving up the possibility of overtricks.
In the card game of contract bridge, to hold up means to play low to a trick led by the opponents, losing it intentionally in order to sever their communication. The primary purpose is to give as many tricks to opponents as needed to exhaust all the cards in the suit from one of their hands. If that hand regains the lead, it will not be able to put the partner on lead to cash its tricks. Hold up is one of basic techniques in play.
In contract bridge, coup is a generic name for various techniques in play, denoting a specific pattern in the lie and the play of cards; it is a special play maneuver by declarer.
In contract bridge, the trump squeeze is a variant of the simple squeeze in which one threat is a suit that if unguarded can be established by ruffing.
Pseudo-squeeze is a type of deceptive play in contract bridge. The declarer goes through the motions of executing a genuine squeeze where none exists, in the hope that a defender misreads the actual position and misdefends. The pseudo-squeeze simply gives the defender able to recognize the possibility of a squeezed position a chance to go wrong.
Morton's fork is a coup in contract bridge that forces an opponent to choose between
A compound squeeze is a type of play in the game of contract bridge. In this squeeze one opponent is squeezed such that some form of other squeeze emerges involving either or both players. Usually this term is used to reference a pentagonal squeeze. In this form of squeeze both players guard two suits, and one player guards a third suit. On the play of a card the player guarding three suits must give up one of the shared guards . Now each opponent singly guards one suit, and there is a third suit that is jointly guarded. This means that a double squeeze matrix exists. Note that there are pseudo compound squeezes, where the triply squeezed opponent can select the 'correct' shared suit, such that the entry situation precludes the proper functioning of the double squeeze.
The trump coup is a contract bridge coup used when the hand on lead has no trumps remaining, while the next hand in rotation has only trumps, including a high one that would have been onside for a direct finesse if a trump could have been led. The play involves forcing that hand to ruff, only to be overruffed. A similar motive is met in coup en passant, where indirect finesse is used instead of direct.
These terms are used in contract bridge, using duplicate or rubber scoring. Some of them are also used in whist, bid whist, the obsolete game auction bridge, and other trick-taking games. This glossary supplements the Glossary of card game terms.
The Bath coup is a coup in the game of contract bridge in which the declarer, who holds AJx(x) in a suit, ducks the left-hand opponent's lead of a king in that suit. The coup is presumed to be named after the city of Bath in England and dates from the game of whist, the predecessor of bridge.
The Merrimac coup is a contract bridge coup where a player sacrifices a high card in order to eliminate a vital entry from an opponent's hand. It was named after American steam ship Merrimac, which was sunk during the Spanish–American War in 1898 in Santiago de Cuba in an attempt to bottle up the Spanish fleet.
A clash squeeze is a three suit bridge squeeze with a special kind of menace, referred to as clash menace. The clash menace is one that might fall under a winner in the opposite hand, because it can be covered by another card in an opponent's hand. If the clash squeeze can force the opponent to discard his guard, then the clash menace can be cashed separately from the winner opposite. For example, consider this layout of the spade suit:
In the card game of bridge, tempo is the timing advantage of being on lead, thus being first to initiate one's play strategy to develop tricks for one's side. Tempo also refers to the speed of play and more generally the rhythm of play over several tricks.
The Alcatraz coup is an illegal method of learning about the opponents' cards in contract bridge. It is not a true coup. The word is being used facetiously based on the name of the former Alcatraz penitentiary. The "coup" consists of a deliberate revoke by declarer, causing the next player to reveal whether he holds the key card whose location is sought. The declarer then corrects the revoke and the defender may change his play, but declarer now knows about the key card and can choose how to finesse accordingly.
The Belladonna coup is the play of a low card away from an accompanying high card, giving the opponents the impossible choice between setting up a winner for declarer and abandoning an attack on another suit.
In bridge, the Deschapelles coup is the lead of an unsupported honor to create an entry in partner's hand; often confused with the Merrimac coup, the lead of an unsupported honor to kill an entry in an opponent's hand.
An entry squeeze is a move in contract bridge
Shooting is an approach in bridge to the bidding or play of a hand which aims for a favorable result by making a choice that is slightly against the odds. A player might decide to shoot toward the end of a pairs game, when he judges that he needs tops to win, not just average-plus results.