BRIDGE

BRIDGE

Both vulnerable. South deals.

NORTH

xA 9 7 5

uQ 10 9

v10 8 3

wQ 7 6

WEST EAST

xK Q J 10 x8 6 4 2

u6 2 u8 5 3

vQ 5 2 vA K 9 7

wJ 9 4 3 w10 8

SOUTH

x3

uA K J 7 4

vJ 6 4

wA K 5 2

The bidding:

SOUTH WEST NORTH EAST

1u Pass 2u Pass

4u Pass Pass Pass

Opening lead: King of u

One of the basic tenets of declarer play is to protect your trump holding. If you must take ruffs, do so in dummy. Once in a while, though, you must switch your aims. Consider this deal.

The bidding is simple enough, and the opening lead is normal. Declarer won in dummy and was faced with a problem. If he drew trumps, he would lose three diamonds and a club unless the club suit breaks evenly, but that is against the odds. Accordingly, declarer planned to make dummy the master hand.

Declarer won the opening lead with dummy’s ace and ruffed a spade high. A low trump was led to the nine, and another spade was ruffed high. A trump to the ten was the entry to ruff the remaining spade, and the queen of clubs was the entry to use dummy’s trumps to draw the outstanding trump. In all declarer scored one spade, three spade ruffs, three trumps and three clubs for a total of 10 tricks.

Not surprisingly, this technique of using the table’s trumps to extract the enemy teeth is known as a Dummy Reversal.

2012 Tribune Media Services