Consider the following North-South hands. As dealer, South elects to open an off-shape 1 NT, then becomes declarer in 4 after a transfer sequence — a reasonable auction that many experts would duplicate.
To make 4 , declarer needs to pick up diamonds without loss and may have to guess hearts, plus there are dangers of an enemy ruff, a bad trump break and inadequate communication. Even so, 4 rolls on a good day; but guess what? This is not a good day.
Construct a West hand so that 4 cannot be made against best defense.
That’s easy! The goal is for 4 to be defeated by the fewest opening leads.
Before reading further, see if you can pick the West hand giving the best solution:
*Contestants had to construct their own solutions. Multiple choice was only added for this writeup.
Given the North-South hands, the object was to complete the deal so that South could not make 4 against best defense, and with the fewest opening leads that defeat the contract. Everyone who succeeded with two leads or fewer is ranked below. Ties are broken by the lowest freakness of the entire deal, then by date and time of entry (earliest wins).
This bizarre layout makes a good segue into my next puzzle, All Crazy but Me!
Dan Baker: Obviously this isn’t near the best for freakness and isn’t very logical on the auction. Perhaps West dreamed of running clubs against notrump? Only the A and a ruff (optionally A first) beats 4 , then a diamond return even sets it two.
Dan was the only solver to beat 4 two tricks… unfortunately, that wasn’t the goal.
The same two leads scuttle this layout, which is more realistic:
Andrew Spooner: West must lead the A [and another heart], either immediately or after the A, to score a ruff with the 10.
A singleton diamond is the obvious source of a killing lead, as this construction shows:
Richard Stein: West must lead the Q, or bide time by first cashing the A. Otherwise, declarer plays on clubs [to remove East’s] entry to get the diamond ruff.
This solver discovered a one-lead solution… alas, out of Fantasy Land:
Prahalad Rajkumar: Only the A defeats 4 , followed by a heart ruff at trick two… A [heavy] heart wins many deals, and eight of them are necessary on this one, admittedly a bit freakish. But hey, it gets the job done!
The top five solvers found optimal solutions, identically shaped, differing only by the Q location and irrelevant spot cards:
Nicholas Greer: To defeat 4 , West must lead the 2, then win the first club and second spade when those suits are played. Eventually declarer can be locked in hand [with a heart ruff] and forced to concede a diamond ruff [to West]. It is essential that East has no entry, else the defense could win two heart tricks.
Chang Lu: This deal [found by computer search] has the least freakness of those where only one lead defeats 4 , but I haven’t checked the logs to determine what the defeating lead is.
Careful! Big Brother may be watching and revoke your bridge license.
Gerbrand Hop: Only the 2 lead beats 4 by South.
Charles Blair: Look, mom! No singletons!
Discovering layouts to beat game in a bridge puzzle, while offering a mental challenge, may not provide any practical benefit to your defensive card play. For a more beneficial challenge, check out these six problems from 20 years ago. Who ya gonna call? Gamebusters! Warning: You might get slimed!
If that frightens you, stick around. There’s something strange in this neighborhood too:
Jacco Hop: Fun puzzle! Underleading A-Q-x as the solution only happens in your puzzles. Amazing, keep it up.
Prahalad Rajkumar: Bridge is a game of enormous possibilities; this puzzle challenged us to find the rarest ones.
Charles Blair: Hi-ho, Hi-ho!
© 2025 Richard Pavlicek
by Richard Pavlicek by Richard Pavlicek