[CSGibson]

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Someone e-mailed me this fun problem. N-S to make 6 spades on a heart lead.

FWIW, I had to think about this for a little while looking at all the hands before the solution presented itself.

[rhm]

I do not know why, but somehow I find dummy reversals easy to overlook.
Nice problem

Rainer Herrmann

[Antrax]

Is that what it is? I got stuck if E pitches one ♦ and one ♣ and the situation seemed pretty hopeless.

[Cyberyeti]

I couldn't get the dummy reversal to work, I found myself an entry to N short, can you give it card by card please (swap the ♠ Q and 6 and it's trivial).

[helene_t]

Doesn't E get squeezed on the third heart ruff?

[Antrax]

helene, probably, but I don't see how we continue if he pitches a small card in each minor.

[Fluffy]

I think you gotta play a second diamond trick to dummy quickly forcing west to ruff early if he wants to, if he does cross ruff high after scoring ♠6 on a club ruff from dummy (before east can pitch)

if he doesn't ruff it its time to ruff hearts high on hand, eventually east gets squeezed, either he keeps 4 diamonds and ♠6 is scored ruffing one, or he does not, and dummýs club is pithed on the 4th diamond whil east ruffs with his trump trick.

[Antrax]

Am I being amazingly dense? After ruffing three hearts high and ruffing the fourth diamond, N has ♥x ♣Jx, E has ♠x ♣KQ, S has ♣Axx and W has whatever. How do you score two more tricks?

[Fluffy]

you ruff 4 hearts in hand first one low?

[rhm]

helene_t, on 2013-April-15, 04:22, said:

Doesn't E get squeezed on the third heart ruff?

Not yet.
Try what is called in squeeze terms a "losing squeeze card"

Rainer Herrmann

[nige1]

CSGibson writes "Someone e-mailed me this fun problem. N-S to make 6 spades on a heart lead. FWIW, I had to think about this for a little while looking at all the hands before the solution presented itself."

Thank you CSGibson Simplified diagram on the left.
Rainer is right again...
Dummy reversal. Then West's ♥ operates a fratricidal squeeze.
East may ask West why he didn't lead a passive ♣

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[PhilKing]

Nice hand - I thought it would end up as a Ottlikesque knockout squeeze, but you stumble into a standard dummy reversal and suicide squeeze.

[Cyberyeti]

Fluffy, on 2013-April-15, 05:22, said:

you ruff 4 hearts in hand first one low?

And what are your 5 entries to the short spades hand to do this and draw trumps ?

Please do this trick by trick so we can see what you're thinking.

Your line allowing W to ruff the losing diamond looks promising so far but I can see some issues with the timing (you need to carefully avoid E pitching his last diamond before you cash the A, and also leaving yourself in a situation where you have ♠ Q3 left with 2 hearts to ruff and E with 98 so he can ruff the 4th and 5th).

The way I think it works is as follows, you have to cash the diamonds early.

8♥-A-7-2
K♦-7-2-5
3♥-Q-2♠-9
3♦-4♠-6-8
5♣-4-10-A
3♠-5-10-7
Q♦-9-4-6♣
4♥-10♦-3♠-10
A♦-7♣-J♣-J

Now you can ruff a club low and high crossruff the rest. Not sure if cashing K♦ early kiboshes the contract if W doesn't ruff the second round though.

[manudude03]

Win the ace, ruff a heart, diamond to the king, ruff a heart high, diamond to the queen (it doesn't help West to ruff- allows you to draw 1 round of trumps and arrange a high cross-ruff or the ability to draw trumps if East ruffs a heart), ruff a heart high, 3 rounds of trumps ending in dummy (throwing a club). Now play the last heart which squeezes West in the minors.

edit: that doesn't work, apparently West can win and return a club to beat the contract.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-April-15, 06:25, said:

8♥-A-7-2
K♦-7-2-5
3♥-Q-2♠-9
3♦-4♠-6-8

West pitches instead of ruffing.

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-April-15, 06:56, said:

West pitches instead of ruffing.

Which is what I said I thought would happen at the bottom of my post, but PLEASE can somebody put something out card by card as I'm seeing a lot of people glibly saying what you do, and I found defences to beat them when I tried them.

[PhilKing]

Cyberyeti, on 2013-April-15, 08:09, said:

Which is what I said I thought would happen at the bottom of my post, but PLEASE can somebody put something out card by card as I'm seeing a lot of people glibly saying what you do, and I found defences to beat them when I tried them.

Trick 2, ruff a heart

Many variants now, but the key is just to extract both of West's trumps, before executing partial reversal and suicide squeeze. But simplest:

Tricks three and four: ace and another trump
5: ruff a heart
6: diamond
7: heart ruff
8: diamond
9: draw trump
10: lead your heart loser - East raises the white flag

[Cyberyeti]

PhilKing, on 2013-April-15, 08:15, said:

Trick 2, ruff a heart

Many variants now, but the key is just to extract both of West's trumps, before executing partial reversal and suicide squeeze. But simplest:

Tricks three and four: ace and another trump
5: ruff a heart
6: diamond
7: heart ruff
8: diamond
9: draw trump
10: lead your heart loser - East raises the white flag

This works, I was obsessed with Fluffy's idea of leading up to the diamond and allowing W to ruff the loser, you don't need to mess with any of that.

[Fluffy]

yeah I was obsessed as well, it looks like without ♣J there is no wa to make the contract.