BBO Discussion Forums: At Sixes and Sevens - BBO Discussion Forums

Lamford 'This is a fairly well-known hand, solved by Michael Rosenberg on the way to his fine win in the World Par Contest in 1998. If you don't know it, you may enjoy solving it. West leads the six of hearts and East will show out on the second round of trumps, of course, but you don't know that in advance. I quickly established that the missing two of spades was a black herring, and irrelevant, but the third club intrigued me. Parts two and three are: How would you play if the third club was the seven, and how would you play if the third club was the six? If you ask EW, they will tell you that 2H is 3-9, always a six-card suit.[Also on Bridgewinners, as some do not read both]'
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Well spotted, Paul. Win ♥A. Cash ♠AK, discovering the 4-1 trump break. Cash ♦AKQ.
1. If East is void in ♦, West is 4171 and your best hope is that he has a singleton ♣ honour. Cash ♣A, cross to ♠A. Cash ♦J, Ruff-finesse ♣J.

2. If East has a singleton ♦, then you need his doubleton ♣ to include ♣9. Advance ♣J (covered by ♣Q and ♣A,
Cross to ♠A Cash ♦J, Lead ♣T pinning ♣9.

3. If East has 2 or 3♦s, then you can ruff 2 ♣s, with impunity.
Cash ♣A, Cross to ♠A. Discard a ♣ on ♦J, Ruff a ♣, Lead a ♥ towards dummy.

4. If East has 4♦s, then you need him to have doubleton ♣KQ. Cash ♣A cross to ♠A. Discard a ♣ on ♦A. Ruff a ♣..
(Double-dummy) .

Cyberyeti 'The hole I see in Nigel's analysis is that if W is 4153 then when you lead the heart towards dummy he pitches a club and overruffs the 3rd club, I couldn't see a way around that unless he had KQx. Also not sure how you do it if he's 4126.
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I don't know how to make when West is 4126 Also, unless defenders signal religiously, it isn't clear how you would know to play East for 4 ♦s .
CyberYeti is also right about the case when East has 2♦s, .Then you might make by drawing only 1 round of trumps. But failing to test trumps means you can be defeated by a ruff when they are 3-2
5. As CyberYeti suggests, you can hope that West has 2 ♣ honours as here (when he can't afford to discard a♣).

6. Alternatively, and slightly better, is to hope West has ♣9xx After 2 rounds of ♠ and 3 of ♦. lead ♣J covered by ♣K and ♣A.
Cross to ♠A, Cash ♦J and lead ♣T covered and ruffed. Now a ♥ towards dummy squeezes West in ♣s and trumps!