[mikeh]

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After an ambitious auction you reach 7 spades by south. You get the normal trump lead.

I’m making this double dummy since I was given the hand in this way….nobody had seen how to make it, although probably because the discussion was late night and fueled by a fair amount of wine.

Anyway, I’m happy to say that I solved it, aided no doubt by having just got out of hospital and choosing not to fuel up the evening I was shown the hand.

Please use the spoiler feature should you post a solution before I reveal the line I think works.

[shyams]

I think the contract cannot be made if both majors split 4-1. So my objective is to cater to a situation where one of the two major suits splits 4-1. Accordingly

Part 1:

Spoiler

Win the lead in hand. Then diamond to dummy's Ace, and a low diamond ruffed. Now the first decision point --- lead a low spade to dummy and play the ♠Q.

Whew, both opponents follow when we play the second trump. So our focus is now on preparing for a 4-1 split in hearts.

Part 2:

Spoiler

At trick 5, lead the last diamond and ruff in hand. Then cash Club K followed by Club A, then ruff a low club with the high trump. Now enter dummy by leading a low heart to the Queen.

That's 9 tricks in the bag. North's last 4 cards are: K 97 -- 8 while South holds ♥AK62 and nothing else. If one player has the 13th club and the remaining 3 heart cards, that player is squeezed when dummy's ♠K is played and South discards the ♥2 on it.

An early club ruff instead of a 2nd round of trump is dangerous if spades split 4-1 and hearts were 3-2 all along.

[DavidKok]

Spoiler

A dummy reversal followed by a rounded suit sqeeze on West.

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

With West still to follow to the 10th trick:

---

And they fold.

[Huibertus]

You have 11 tricks, and need a ruff in dummy to set up ♥ or you need a dummy reversal to get to 12 tricks and squeeze to get to 13.

So, there are two reasonable lines of play.

1: A dummy reversal. Ruff 2♦ and 2♣ before crossing to dummy in ♠ towards KQ in order to draw the last 3 trumps. So this requires you to take the lead in hand, NOT to draw a second round of trumps, to use all your entries (♣ A, ♦ A, ♥ Q) to get your 3 ruff in hand (not screwing up the order of play so first ♣ K, ♣ Ace ♣ ruff, and then in order NOT to risk getting overruffed in ♣ using ♦ first and ♥ last for 2 ♦ ruffs. Once this works cross to dummy in trumps, draw the last trump and hope for ♥ 3-2 or for a ♥/♣ squeeze when the 4 card♥ also has 4♣. It works on the actual hand. (Your suggested order of play does the same thing).

2. Assuming ♥ are 4-1, ruff a ♥ in dummy after drawing 2 rounds of trumps only. Take the lead, draw another round, play 2 rounds of ♥ first Q then A or K, if you get ruffed it's too late. If both follow draw the last trump and claim as ♥ are 3-2. If someone discards, cash the 3rd high ♥ and ruff the 4th round. Then return to hand to draw the last trump and claim. This does not work on the actual hand. But I'm pretty sure the line of play is actually better due to higher odds of succeeding.

"One down good Bridge" is what they say and on this hand it is the right comment. Double dummy solutions are not always the way one should play. If there were any drunks that lost the debate suggesting the second line they probably are the same players that tend to win the event.

[Cyberyeti]

DavidKok, on 2025-June-17, 11:00, said:

Spoiler

A dummy reversal followed by a rounded suit sqeeze on West.

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

With West still to follow to the 10th trick:

---

And they fold.

This works, but you feel like an idiot when trumps were 4-1 and hearts broke

[mikeh]

Shyam has it right.

We know that trump are not 5-0 because both opps follow to the opening lead. We are cold…indeed we missed 7N…if hearts are 3-2.

So we assume 4-1 hearts and consider what we can do about it.

One line is to pull two rounds of trump and then test hearts. The idea is that if hearts are 4-1, we are ok so long as the short heart hand also has short trump. One needn’t have a degree in probabilities to know that this is unlikely, so is there an alternative?

One possibility, which is much more likely than someone being 2-1 in the majors, when we’re missing 10 major suit cards….his partner would be 3=4…is to find the long hearts with 4+ clubs…maybe we can inflict a squeeze.

But we only have 11 top tricks in that scenario. 5 spades, 3 hearts and three tricks in the minors. A simple squeeze won’t work…we need to have 12 tricks to pull off a simple two suit squeeze.

Can we get 12 winners?

Yes…if we’re familiar with dummy reversal technique…where we ruff multiple times in the long trump holding. Here, if we score three ruffs in hand, and also score three trumps in North (one actually taken by declarer but the last two by the KQ) we have 12 tricks and a squeeze may materialize.

Now, David also noted this but his timing was poor. In essence, at least as I read his post, he committed to assuming a 3-2 trump break.

The correct line is to win the lead in hand…I’d suggest the Ace but either the Jack or 10 is ok.

Do NOT ruff clubs first. You want to conserve entries to dummy. Diamond ace, diamond ruff….cross to dummy in trump. This is the third critical play…the first was winning trick one in hand and the second was taking an early diamond ruff.

Why is crossing in trump important? Because you may find that trump are 4-1 in which case you abandon the dummy reversal and have to hope that hearts break.

Once trump are 3-2, ruff a second diamond and now play three rounds of clubs, ruffing in hand.

We are down to void AKxxx void void and dummy has K Qxx void x.

We lead to the heart Queen and draw the last trump. We hope that hearts are 3-2 or that if they’re 4-1: then the hand with 4 also had 4 or 5 clubs.

I don’t know and can’t be bothered to find out the relative probabilities but I am very confident that the dummy reversal/squeeze line is far superior to hoping that one opp is 2=1 in the majors.

[WasWinM]

Win in hand
diamond to A ruff diamond low
King , A of clubs , ruff club
Cross with J of spades
diamond ruffed with A
Cross to hesrt Q
Draw last trump while squeezing west in H/C

[mikeh]

WasWinM, on 2025-June-17, 18:25, said:

Win in hand
diamond to A ruff diamond low
King , A of clubs , ruff club
Cross with J of spades
diamond ruffed with A
Cross to hesrt Q
Draw last trump while squeezing west in H/C

Down on 4-1 trump and, as cyber said, looking very silly if hearts were breaking and spades were not

[DavidKok]

You said it was a double dummy problem. If you had said otherwise I'd have paid more attention to combining chances.

[WasWinM]

mikeh, on 2025-June-17, 19:29, said:

Down on 4-1 trump and, as cyber said, looking very silly if hearts were breaking and spades were not

Presented as double dummy, and although I am a singular dummy my twin doesn’t even play bridge.

[HardVector]

Since you gave it as a double-dummy problem, I'll just present the simplest solution based on the existing hands. It's a simple heart/club squeeze. You just need to isolate the clubs by playing the KA, then ruff a club, then run your winners.