The Free Lance-Star – Jan 3, 1997
1. You are declarer with the West hand at Six Diamonds and North leads the queen and then the jack of heart. You play low twice from dummy as South follows with the six and the four. How would you play the hand?
2. You are declarer with the West hand at Five Diamonds doubled, the bidding having gone:
North leads the king of spades, which you ruff. When you lead the ace of diamonds, South discards a spade. How would you play the hand?
1. The best way to avoid a spade loser is to try for a dummy reversal. Ruff the second heart lead with the king of diamonds and cash the J-9 of trumps. If the adverse trumps are divided 3-2, ruff the eight of hearts (assume the ace does not fall). Then play a club to dummy’s jack and ruff the heart king with your last trump.
Now lead a club to the queen, cash the queen of trumps, discarding your spade loser and the rest of the tricks. are yours. This method of play enables you to score six trump tricks (dummy’s Q J 9 and the three heart ruffs in your hand), two spades and four clubs. This type of play is called dummy reversal because declarer reverses the usual procedure of ruffing losers in dummy and instead ruffs dummy’s losers in his hand.
2. The correct lead at trick three is the ten of hearts! This seemingly aimless play offers the best chance for the contract, since the North hand probably looks something like:
If you neglect to lead the ten of hearts, but instead play the A,K of clubs, planning to ruff the next club in dummy, North can defeat you by trumping the third round of clubs, leading the heart jack to his partner ace and trumping a club return by South.
The purpose of the early heart play is to remove South’s heart entry prematurely and thus assure the contract even if North has only a doubleton club. If you make the heart play, the only tricks you lose are a heart and a diamond.