Bateman's Bay Bridge Club

Len Dixon played with us on New Year's Eve and encountered this hand. Here is how he wrote it up for the Canberra Times:

Today's deal came up on New Year's Eve in a matchpoint pairs session at the Batemans Bay Bridge Club. Created, as is nowadays usual, by a computer program that "shuffles" the cards far more thoroughly than lazy humans but "understands" nothing about bidding and card play, it is for all practical purposes a truly random deal.

The contract at four of seven tables was 3NT, twice by East and twice by West. No two declarers made the same number of tricks. Results ranged from one down to two overtricks. On hand records distributed at the end of the session, the Deep Finesse software package revealed that, if everyone could see all 52 cards and played perfectly, one overtrick would ensue.

When, at some point in the (unrecorded) auctions at two other tables, West saw fit to show his/her threadbare four-card major, East fell in love with AKQ of Hearts and they became became trumps. Each West made 10 tricks which earned two-thirds of the match points for the pair in 4 Hearts but none at all for the pair in 6 Hearts, a poor slam (against unknown NS holdings) which improves considerably when trumps split three-three, especially if North hasn't led a spade. After, say, a club lead declarer inserts dummy's 9 of Clubs, trumps South's J of Clubs and cashes the Heart AKQ. When NS both follow throughout, 8653 2 are discarded on Clubs and the losing Diamond finesse gives NS their one and only trick.

A trump lead instead of a club allows a similar line. A diamond lead makes things even easier. But what if the opening lead is a spade, establishing a NS winner that can be cashed when North gets in with K? There was accordingly much head scratching when Deep Finesse nevertheless asserted that 6 Hearts can be made against any defence. Pause here, if you like, to see whether you can solve this double-dummy problem which, though accidentally generated, is as challenging as many of the best compositions I have encountered over the years and hinges on what may, subject to refutation I cordially invite, be a hitherto unanalysed end-position.

After Q-2-7-A (S K instead from South would expose North to a simple strip squeeze) declarer crosses to A, trumps 7, draws the NS trumps with KQ and then cashes AKQ10, coming down to AQ 86 opposite dummy's 4 J6 9. North can do no better than keep J10 K9, and South K 1084.

If, when 9 is next led from dummy, South parts with K, West throws 6 and North must discard either a diamond, whereupon West cashes AQ, or a spade, when West exits with 6 and awaits a lead into his AQ. And if, instead, South hangs on to K, West discards Q on 9. North, still unable to spare a spade, must (and seemingly can afford to) part with 9. But now 6 to A drops North's K, after which low to South's K provides a stepping stone to East's established but otherwise isolated J.