BRIDGE

North-South were playing a strong club system, hence the one diamond opening bid.

Readers will be familiar with a declarer-play technique known as a dummy reversal. Declarer ruffs in the long-trump hand enough times to leave the other hand with longer trumps and then draws trumps using trumps that were originally in the shorttrump hand. This is often hard work for the gain of just one trick, but that one trick can be very important. Today’s deal is an extreme example of the technique.

South ruffed the opening spade lead and led a low heart to dummy’s queen and East’s ace. East returned a heart to West’s king and West continued the suit to dummy’s jack. Declarer ruffed another spade, led a club to dummy’s nine, and ruffed another spade.

South overtook his jack of clubs with dummy’s king and ruffed dummy’s last spade with his last trump — the queen. Declarer crossed back to dummy with the queen of diamonds and drew the last outstanding trump with dummy’s ace of clubs while discarding his low diamond. The ace and king of diamonds took the last two tricks. Making five after a well-played hand.

Note that declarer had to ruff four times in his hand for the gain of just one trick, but that one trick brought home a vulnerable game!