🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <689@ihlts.UUCP> rainbow@ihlts.UUCP (Robert) writes:
>I had a most interesting hand come up. We bid an aggressive 6NT
>with the QD lead, east pitching the 8S. How did I make my contract?
>There was no defensive lapse and the opponents were good players.
>
>	AKT9x		S	W	N	E
>	Axx		-------------------------
>	x		1D	P	1S	P
>	AQJx		1NT	P	2C(1)	P
>			2H	P	4NT(2)	P
>	xx		6NT	P	P	P
>	Kxxx
>	AKTxx		(1)-forcing
>	Kx		(2)-invitational

   Well, as the proposer has kindly pointed out to me my previous solution
is incorrect (sigh).  My apologies.
   The correct (hopefully...) solution follows:

   Win the opening lead and play a spade and four clubs.  If East has a spade
and two clubs (or no spades and three clubs) you must play for him to have
three hearts to the queen (and to fail or to be unable to unblock); exit with
the third heart forcing a diamond return into the tenace, and the thirteenth
heart is your twelfth trick.  It is also barely possible that East has four 
hearts; it would be possible to handle this case but you do not have enough 
entries once you discover the situation (assuming he is 0472).
   But the most likely possibility is that East has two hearts (one spade and
three clubs).  In this case you pitch a diamond and a *heart* from hand, cash 
AK of hearts ending in hand, and lead your thoughtfully pickled small diamond.
East is forced to return a diamond into your tenace, giving you your eleventh
trick and correcting the count for a simple spade-heart squeeze against West
for the twelfth!
   My thanks to Robert for presenting this fascinating hand (and for quietly
pointing out the inadequacy of my previous solution...).  Also my apologies
to the rest of you for burdening you with not one but *two* lengthy solutions.
   I hope we can see more interesting bridge in this newsgroup...

   -- David desJardins