Monday, 4 May 2020

Dummy Reversal

Often this blog is about my blunders, but this one I played nicely. The other night in a friendly game online I was declarer in 4♥. 6♥ would have been good, but it was matchpoints so I had to forget about that and try and make as many tricks as possible.

Assuming Hearts split 3-2, there are 12 top tricks (two Spades, five Hearts, five Clubs). But can you get 13? If you ruff three Diamonds in dummy, you can get 13 tricks (two Spades, three Hearts, three Diamonds, five Clubs). You have enough entries to do this. The only danger is that you can't draw all the trumps, so someone might ruff in.

As it happens the Clubs were 3-1 the wrong way, so there was a ruff. But it only cost me the trick I gained, so I still ended up with 4♥+2, like nearly everyone else.