Jennbridge: Not Exactly Your Dad's Dummy Reversal

By John Kozero, Santa Rosa

Whoever would have thought that you could reverse dummy when your hand has KQJ1097 and dummy has A63? But if you can get a little help from your friends, magic can happen -- which is what happened in my favorite hand from the recent North American Open Pairs at the Reno Nationals
In first position at no vulnerability I pick up:

♠ A64
♥ 10742
♦ KQJ1097
♣ Void

This six-loser hand begs to be bid so I open 1D, hear pard bid 1NT and see RHO call 2C. Thereafter follows a club raise, a diamond raise and another club raise until I buy the hand in 4D. Dummy puts down:

♠ K75
♥ J65
♦ A63
♣ J964

♠ A64
♥ 10742
♦ KQJ1097
♣ Void

I take stock and see, that although I have only three top losers, I have only eight sure winners: six trump winners and two spades. Clearly I'll need to find hearts splitting 3-3 if the 10 of hearts is to score or else I must trump it with dummy's ace. But that's only nine tricks. Still, the hand is young, so I trump the club lead and get to work by leading a small heart to board. LHO puts in the Q and continues with another club. I trump that and lead another heart. This time RHO wins and leads a third club which I ruff and lead the third round of hearts to find that LHO wins as the suit breaks 3-3. LHO now leads clubs yet again which allows me to score my fourth ruff.

Hmmmm, magic HAS happened. With four tricks in the bag, I merely cash my last two trumps (the K and Q), enter dummy with the spade K, pull the remaining trump (they split 3-1) with the Ace as I dump my losing spade, re-enter my hand with the spade Ace, and cash my 10 of hearts for 10 tricks.

At any point all the opponents had to do was lead a trump rather than a club to foil my play, but old habits die hard, especially when it ostensibly seemed safe to keep me ruffing. So I guess the lesson to the defense in this story is this: Sometimes you must be kind to be cruel. So consider leading trumps whenever declarer seems well-stocked in trumps and yet for some reason doesn't take your little kiddies off the street.