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The Disappearing Diamond Loser.

One of the most normal things you do when, as declarer, you see dummy is to look at your own hand, and in a suit contract, to see how many losers there are and to see which ones you can eliminate. Indeed, all the advice we get hammered into us says that is what we should do before we play to trick one.

What seems to be a lot harder is to do that in reverse, to look at dummy and carry out the same exercise. Make dummy the master-hand. It is called a “dummy reversal”. A clue that a suit contract can be played that way is when you have a side-suit of Axxx opposite a singleton in your hand. So, let’s have a look at the problem with which we left you and see if indeed there is any way to make what looks like an almost impossible slam.

 

Despite your partner trying to sign off in 4, you propel yourself all the way to 6. 5showed two key cards, no Q. West leads 4. Bid them up. Play them well. Can you?

Let’s face it. You overbid a little. Your partner could have bid 3 not 4 if they had a better hand. However, you discovered that your side had all the Key-Cards even if the Q was missing. You bought yourself a challenge! Unless the QJ fell doubleton, it looked like you would have a trump loser and there seemed like a diamond loser too, unless East obliged by having  KQ doubleton or trebleton. Those chances were pretty low… but both could be combined into a “dummy reversal” situation which gives you one extra chance.

So, one important point is never give up. Playing AK and then saying one down because of the 2 obvious losers is defeatist play. We want to make our slam…and indeed the slam could be made without any help from the defence.

So, win the A and ruff a heart (no king or queen appeared- that chance was now gone). Return to the table with a club to the king and ruff another heart (still no honours appeared…they are hanging onto them as long as they can!). Play A and a spade to dummy’s king (no magic QJ doubleton as both follow with the J unplayed) and ruff dummy’s last heart with the remaining trump in your hand (10).

Yes, hearts broke 4-4. Both honours fell on that trick! Well, you do need a little bit of good luck. Let’s take stock of where we are at. We won the first seven tricks (two high trumps, A,K and three heart ruffs):

 

We are in hand and cash our top two diamond winners and then AQ. The opponents follow as you discard a diamond on Q. You have now taken 11 tricks and have a losing club and diamond in your hand and a “losing” trump and losing diamond in dummy….but

when you lead your club, look what happens.

 If West ruffs, you discard your diamond from dummy, making your trump at trick 13.

If West discards, you ruff and have taken the first 12 tricks..magic, the diamond loser just seemed to disappear. Let’s see the complete four hands:

 

 

except, it was not magic. It was employing a dummy reversal technique which still gave you the slim chances of short spade or heart honours. It needed pretty much:

hearts 4-4, trumps 3-2 clubs 4-3 and diamonds no worse than 5-2 and

West to hold the remaining trump or East to hold both the remaining trump and the remaining club.

Lucky? Perhaps, but well earnt if you had played the slam that way. Much better than basically giving up at trick 1.

And for tomorrow:

 

Your partner led the 9. Declarer plays low from dummy. Your king takes the first trick as declarer plays J. Which card do you play to trick 2? See you then.

Richard Solomon

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