George Coffin's collection:  No. 256

composed by W.H. Whitfeld, 1896
known as "The Whitfeld Eight", also "The Emperor Problem"
Possibly the earliest problem in my entire collection.
Coffin relates how the end position arose four years later in a game of whist, when the South player, one Charles M. Clay, was able to work out how the remaining cards must lie and recognised the ending as identical to that of the famous Whitfeld problem.  Clay asked the other players to lay their cards face down on the table, saying that if he would be allowed to nominate his partner's cards as well as his own, he would make the rest.  He was and he did!

DR1	♠ 7432 ♥ 74 ♦ 74 ♣ none
♠ none ♥ KJ8 ♦ KJ8 ♣ KJ		♠ none ♥ Q9 ♦ Q9 ♣ Q954
	♠ none ♥ A6 ♦ A6 ♣ A876

South to lead with spades trumps.  North-South to make all eight tricks.

To send me your solution, click here.

Successful solvers to date:  Dick Yuen, Yunfeng Zhu, Derek Lu

        © Hugh Darwen, 2006

Date last modified: 21 June, 2009