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by Hugh Darwen Next
update: Monday, 31 October, 2016 Click
here for history of updates to this web site.
composed by Paolo Treossi
South to make four hearts. West leads the ♣Q. To send me your
solution,
and please suggest a DR. Entries to reach my inbox before: 13:00 UTC on Sunday, November 5th, 2016. Competition Problem 140b composed by Paolo Treossi
South to make five diamonds. West leads the ♠9. To send me your
solution,
and please suggest a DR. Entries to reach my inbox before: 13:00 UTC on Sunday, November 5th, 2016. Click
here for the result of Competition Problem 139a All competition problems are previously unpublished. You can add to your overall DD Master Points score (though not your annual one) by solving Competition problems 1, 2, and 3. Selected section links (italicised ones are to other web sites): I welcome links from other bridge related web sites. For example, there is this Dutch bridge portal. The double dummy page at Majala Bridge Indonesia includes several problems from this web site, with my permission. I am always pleased for my collection to reach a non-English-speaking audience. Double Dummy Corner was started in January 2001 for the benefit of people interested in double dummy bridge problems, in which all players are assumed to play perfectly with all hands exposed. Its main purposes are
It is updated every Sunday, in principle, subject to the vagaries of the webmaster's personal life. As a matter of policy I provide solutions only to Competition Problems (usually shortly after the closing date), but you can send me a solution to any problem and I will reply (not always immediately!) telling you if you are right or, if you are not, where your solution goes wrong. If you are right and it is your first attempt at the problem in question, then I add your name to the list of solvers for that problem. Whenever you send me a solution, please be sure to include the problem number (and section name if it is from any section other than the first, my own collection). The best way, if it works for you, is to use my "click here" buttons, as shown with the two current competition problems shown above. Nowadays these problems can be solved by computer programs; indeed, I use such a program myself to check all the problems that appear here and to check submitted solutions. I assume unless you tell me otherwise that your solutions result from your own mental efforts, not assisted by any computer program. My archive of previously published problems is divided into six sections: The first section is my own collection. It currently has 516 problems and consists mainly of problems that appeared in solving competitions British bridge magazines from 1949 to 2005. (The highest problem number is currently 516, but there are some gaps and there are some duplicates that came to light after their appearance here.) The second section, consisting of problems composed and collected by Ernest Bergholt towards the end of the 19th century, has 51 problems, all of which have been checked by a computer. The book contains 56 problems but I found five of these to be unsound. The third section has 32 miniature problems from another early book, Royal Auction Bridge: Problems of Analysis, by "Yarborough", believed to be the pen name of Colonel G.G.J. Walshe. In addition to the problems appearing in this section the book includes six problems under the heading NULLO DECLARATIONS, referring to a variant of bridge in which a side could declare to lose a specified number of tricks, as in "misère" at solo whist, rather than win them. Example appeared as Competition Problem 125c in July, 2015, and Competition Problem 130c in January, 2016. The fourth section, which I haven't yet completed, contains problems from a bridge column appearing in an Australian newspaper in the 1940s under the by line "Pachabo", a pen name used by Les Parker. The fifth section, consisting of problems collected by George S. Coffin during the middle of the 20th century, is complete and has 304 problems. Every problem is checked by a computer, which has so far caused me to discard 212 as being "cooked" (though in many cases nobody seemed to notice when they were first published). I found 77 cooked problems in George Coffin's two books, out of 413. Several of these cooked problems are given high accolades by Coffin. Of the 635 problems published in my magazine column and, before me, Ernest Pawle's, 135 were cooked. It all goes to show just how tricky this business is! The sixth section consists of previous competition problems that have appeared on my front page. Because these were all previously unpublished, they appear along with their solutions. In addition to the main repository, there is a section entitled Mistakes From The Media giving some interesting examples of incorrect double dummy analysis by prominent bridge writers. Yet another section, Exchange & Win Problems, is devoted to a comparatively new, intriguing kind of problem invented by Luigi Caroli. Click on Competition Problem #1 if you want to have a go at one of the toughest problems ever composed. During the period at the beginning of 2001 when I had no magazine column, I started to place "competition problems" here. I only got as far as #2 (though much later added #3). In 2005 I lost my magazine column again and restarted competitions here with #4. Correct solutions to #1, #2, #3 and the current one(s) on this page, sent by e-mail, earn D.D. Master Points. Richard Pavlicek has composed some nice problems that you can find at his web site.
© Hugh Darwen, 2015 Date last modified: 24 October, 2016
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