Four hands of 13 cards each were dealt from a standard deck - one hand for each of the players Spott, Duce, Trey, and Nave - for a game in which aces are high.

Duce was dealt one card of each denomination, and the same number of cards of a certain suit as Trey.

Trey's hand had no red cards and no face cards.

Spott's hand had neither hearts nor spades, nor any card lower than a five.

Nave held no black cards and no aces, but he had at least as many jacks as any of the others.

Spott had the same number of cards as Duce in a certain suit and in that suit, Spott's cards were all higher than Duce's.

Can you reconstruct the contents of all four hands?

Is that same as "nobody has more jacks than Nave"?

No.

Denis, yes.

Jema, this was created by Virginia McCarthy - one of my favorite constructors.

One more question; is that same as:
Spott had no 2's, 3's, or 4's, and had at least one 5 ?

Spott had no 2's, 3's, or 4's. It's safe to say he had at least one 5 or that clue would have been worded differently.

Pandora,

I know which player has to have each of the 4 Jacks and 3 of the Queens, Kings, and Aces. I have gone over the clues and my results a dozen times and cannot see another logical placement/elimination.

Can this puzzle be solved entirely logically?

Color me purple with frustration.

I have the first 4 clues done, buy the fifth is a real tough one.

Tough but good puzzle.

This puzzle can be solved entirely logically. No if/then guessing needed. I just solved it again and took notes this time. If nobody solves this in a few days, or even after it's solved, we can do the steps one at a time.

Toughie! This is what I get...I think.

Duce: ♥A, ♦234567, ♠JQK, ♣8910
Trey: ♠2345678910A, ♣234
Spot: ♦8910QKA, ♣567JQKA
Nave: ♥2345678910JQK, ♦J

&*!@&%#(%#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I took this: "Duce was dealt one card of each denomination"
to mean 4 of a kind....like 4 7's

...now I see how silly that assumption was

Nice one, Cue; a real 4 banks in the side pocket!!

Brilliant solve, Cue!

Denis, I know you'd have gotten it if you'd realized what that first clue meant.

Curly, Jema - did you get tripped up in the same place?

Yes Sue. Great puzzle anyway. Thanks.XX

It would have made it easier, anyway:
we can tell right off the bat that Duce has J-Q-K spades,
Nave has J-Q-K hearts and Spott has J-Q-K clubs....
plus Duce has Ace hearts, so none of the other Aces;
and Ace diamonds is forced to Spott, Ace spades to Trey.

Again, nice puzzle.

Pandora,

No, Clue 1 didn't trip me up. I think I understood all the clues, and I have the same solution as Cue. But I do have a question about how to make one decision using only logic.

After determining logically which player had each of the 4 Jacks and 3 each of the Queens, Kings, and Aces, I figured the next step would be to determine which of Spott's 2 suits was the common one with Duce and how many cards of that suit each player held.

I still can't see how that can be determined without some if/then. I can't see a strictly logical reason for it to be only Diamonds and 6 cards.

After determining that, I did solve the rest of the puzzle using only logic.