Unique Winner Challenge
A unique winning move for declarer is a card that must be played by the declaring side in order to make the contract from that point with best (i.e., double-dummy) play by both sides. We challenge readers to discover the highest number of consecutive initial unique winning moves for declarer (the longest unbroken series of such plays beginning with the first card played from dummy) that they can find.
The current sequence of 20 consecutive initial unique winning moves for declarer was sent by Jeff Richmond, Saline, Michigan.
| NORTH ♠ K 5 4 3 ♥ A ♦ A J 8 6 ♣ Q 8 5 2 |
||
| WEST ♠ Q J 10 9 ♥ J 9 8 6 ♦ K 5 4 3 ♣ J |
EAST ♠ 8 7 6 ♥ K 7 5 4 3 ♦ 9 ♣ K 9 6 3 | |
| SOUTH ♠ A 2 ♥ Q 10 2 ♦ Q 10 7 2 ♣ A 10 7 4 |
Contract: Six notrump by South
The play begins:
Spade queen, king, six, deuce.
Club queen, king, ace, jack.
Diamond ten, three, jack, nine.
Club eight, nine, ten, heart six.
Diamond deuce, king, ace, heart three.
Club five, six, seven, diamond four.
Club four, diamond five, deuce, three.
Diamond queen, heart eight, eight, heart four.
Heart deuce, nine, ace, five.
Diamond six, any, seven, . . .
Twenty unique winners.
In context, each of the declaring side's plays is a unique winning move.
This will be superseded when we receive one with a longer sequence. If you can beat the currently-posted champion, send your deal, contract, and early play in the body of an e-mail to the editor, along with whatever attribution you prefer for the solver. Please be very careful! Keep in mind the requirement of uniqueness—a member of a set of functionally-equivalent cards does not qualify. We recommend using a double-dummy player to check your work.
This section is devoted to weird, wild and wacky material. For bridge friends, lovers of arcana, pursuers of special interests, and anyone intrigued with a particular facet of the game of bridge.