May Problem

	A 8 4 3 6 5 J 9 7 5 4 10 3
Both Vul	K Q 7 J 9 3 A K A Q J 7 2

West Pass Pass

North 3 3 NT

East Pass All Pass

South 2 NT 3

West leads the deuce of hearts to your 3 NT contract. Hearts are 4-4, so you are not down yet. The defense will take their four heart tricks, and then exit in diamonds. Plan the play, starting with your discards on the third and fourth hearts.

As is our custom, the free play will go to the correct answer from the RBC member with the fewest masterpoints. “Correct” is a relative term; just saying “I lead X,” even if X is the winning play, will probably not qualify unless nobody else finds the play. You need to furnish some justification for your play. (On the other hand, a briefly or poorly stated but correct justification will fully qualify, if I can figure it out. This is not an essay contest.) I am the sole judge of what constitutes “correct.” Send answers to JohnCTorrey@aol.com.

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April Problem Held Over

	K 4 3 10 5 2 6 4 K Q 9 6 3
8 K 9 7 4 J 8 7 5 A J 8 4

West Pass All Pass

North 2

East Pass

South 1 6

Trick 1. W 2. N 3. W

Lead 8 K ?

2nd K 7

3rd 5 2

4th 6 A

You led the eight of trump to South’s six spade contract. South won the king in dummy and led the king of clubs, discarding a diamond as you won the ace. Plan the defense.

There was only one response for this problem in April. Ashok Damle suggested that if South has eight spades, the AQ of hearts and the AQ2 of diamonds, we should now lead a club to make him guess which finesse to take. This is a good play on that reconstruction, and South might very well play that hand that way. But I just can’t believe that any human would open only 1 with that hand.

We have no current winner, so the problem is held over. If I give you the whole hand as a hint (as I did a few months back) then the answer will be obvious. Here the problem is to construct a holding where your play matters, and where South’s bids and plays make sense. I will give one hint: South does not have eight spades.