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Remember the Dummy?

As a declarer, it is there to help you. You are the boss in that you tell your partner which card to play from their hand. Whichever hand wins the trick is good as long as it is not the opposition. Do not forget your dummy.

Today’s deal is quite a glaring and real example of what occurs at the table more often than many realise:

West led Q. A took the first trick with East following with 2.

Your questions here are how and why did 4 fail?

That’s 27 high card points. Anyone reading yesterday’s article where we discussed the merits of opening a 22 count as a game force may smile at the sight of this hand. There would be no opening this hand at the 1 level!

Yet, there was no chance to open 2 either as West got to open first! However, when South got to bid spades, there was no question as to where North was heading. Indeed, maybe West’s opening had a little 3^rd in hand touch about it and that South had more high card points than the bidding indicated? North could have forced with 2 and inflicted more pain on their partner. They did not and let South go for 10 or 11 tricks….or 9!

Surely not? Assuming South had four spades or even just three but held J, trumps could be drawn and all the remaining aces and kings could be cashed. Barring a revoke, there seemed to be no way to go wrong…. but there was.

Maybe South did not appreciate how good their dummy was but they looked a little too closely at their own paltry collection. They saw a heart, two diamonds and a club loser. That was one too many. Looking at dummy, they saw that one of those losers would disappear if they ruffed a diamond. To do that, they had to give up a diamond.

So, at trick 2, they played A and a second diamond to West’s 10. West continued with a low club. Up went the K in dummy…and down went the contract!

Two tricks lost already and there were still a club and a heart to lose and that was one down. There were two elements to South’s demise. The first was to appreciate that they did not need to ruff a diamond to come to 10 tricks. They were actually setting up the dummy hand, not their own. Five spade tricks, two hearts, one diamond and two clubs…add up to 10 tricks. Somehow, that apparent second diamond loser vanished. Well, it was never there in the first place as dummy only ever had two diamonds including the ace.

There were far too many losers in the South hand. They looked in the wrong direction, miscounted and took the wrong line. 

     panic!

Of course, they should still have survived had not the worst attribute of many declarers not taken over, panic! West had opened 1 and had led Q. They must hold the jack as well. Yet, when West played the second round of clubs, South panicked, forgot, played safe. You choose the appropriate wording. It was not the ruff that “killed the contract” but the sacrificing of the K. Unless West was being unbelievably cunning, they held J and playing low from dummy had to be right. South, this time, forgot to look at their own hand, their club holding.

A cruel lesson for South to learn. Had clubs broken 5-2, there would have been no story, no lesson.

Do not just look at your own hand (but do keep check on it as well!). Look at your dummy, too, especially when it is strong. It may enable you to count to the right number of tricks without doing anything rash. It may just prevent you from making unwise plays as South did above.

A Hand for all

 You may only have a weak no-trump but you have "support" for both sides, for your partner and "for" the opposition's suit. Presumably partner bid 4 with some hope of making? What action should you take now?

Richard Solomon

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