[inquiry]

You open 1♠ and north excitedly puts you in 6♠ after a blackwood auction.

Openign lead ♣T

Right or wrong, this is the first three tricks...

T1. CT-CK-C8-C2
T2. SQ-S2-S4-S3
T3. S7-C6-SA-S6

Your up.

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[quiddity]

I guess we have to come down to a 2 card ending with the lead in hand (holding a spade and a club) where we can lead the club and score the jack of spades. The alternative method of scoring 3 ruffs in hand is impossible; we don't have enough entries to dummy.

If West is 4432 or 4342 we can cash the AK of diamonds discarding a club, ruff a diamond, and cash the AKQ of hearts discarding a club. Now at trick 10 we have to guess which red suit to lead and ruff in hand, hoping West cannot overruff. Then cash the ace of clubs for a discard and lead the last club.

If West is 4441 he can either ruff the club ace high and continue with another trump (sticking us in dummy) or he can ruff low forcing us to overruff in dummy. Either way we will need a winner in dummy. Because of the possibility of this layout, it is better to lead a diamond at trick 10 - this will establish a diamond winner in dummy if west started with 4 diamonds.

The strict endgame conditions make this a relatively easy problem to solve if given enough time. 2.5.

[inquiry]

The full hand. The "correct play" is to just play out winners as described by quiddity, although I would just go ahead and cash the ♣A early for easy of visualilzation below. He even noted the one complication, trying to figure out West's four card red suit. The defense can make it difficult by West discarding the ♦9TQ on the three rounds of diamonds (setting up the jack doesn't help declarer). A good trick to note for the defenders. East might rock the boat a bit with the ♥J on third round, making it look like West' Ten was from T9... still this is the only line that has a chance

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The full hand. The "correct play" is to just play out winners as described by quiddity, although I would just go ahead and cash the ♣A early for easy of visualilzation below. He even noted the one complication, trying to figure out West's four card red suit. The defense can make it difficult by West discarding the ♦9TQ on the three rounds of diamonds (setting up the jack doesn't help declarer). A good trick to note for the defenders. East might rock the boat a bit with the ♥J on third round, making it look like West' Ten was from T9... still this is the only line that has a chance

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I thought this play was easy enough, given any thing else is sure down. Simply play out the cards without touching trumps. The panel at this time (10 votes in) show an average rating of 3.05 (low of 1.5, high of 4).