From the desk of Bob Jones:

WEDNESDAY NIGHT FUN

June 14, 2012

Hi All,

Jourdan’s has a great little game going on Wednesday nights. It is small, but the players who come have a great time. Look at this hand from last night (Board 2, Wed June 13):

As the cards lie
bridge hand

Most pairs got to 4 hearts after spirited diamond bidding by West. 4 hearts is cold on a simple line of play. Say West leads his singleton club (as good as any). Declarer wins, draws trump in 3 rounds, then plays 2 more top clubs before ruffing his last club in the North hand. He then plays a diamond to the Ace and ruffs his other diamond with North’s last trump. He scores 4 trump tricks in the South hand, 2 more trumps ruffing in the North hand, and his 4 top tricks in the minors. This technique, where you ruff in the long trump hand until it has fewer trumps than the ‘short’ trump hand, is known as reversing the dummy. One player went down in 4 hearts last night, so this technique must have been unknown to him.

A very good score went to the West player who soldiered on in diamonds, competing to the 5-level. He was doubled of course, but it was a good sacrifice with a point to the play. West will quickly gain the lead by ruffing and he should look at East’s spades as a potential entry, not a potential finesse. He should lead a small spade to the queen, losing to South’s king, ruff the next trick and then play a spade to the jack. He now has an entry to make a diamond play. He should lead a diamond and make his best guess when South ducks. -300 if he guesses right, -500 if he gets it wrong, but he beats -620 either way.

Bob