BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

You are West, declarer in 7 ♠ (1 ♠♠ -4 ; 5NT-7 ♠ ) and North leads ♥ 9. What’s your best line of play? A CLuB lead would have doomed your contract from the start. so would the most obvious line of clearing trumps and discarding dummy’s club losers on your diamonds because dummy will have only one trump left to deal with your club and diamond losers.

The solution is to play on a dummy reversal. Ruff the lead and cross to dummy with a trump (noting North’s void) to ruff another heart. Repeat this process, then cross to ♦ Q to ruff a fourth heart with ♠ A.

Now ruff a diamond in dummy, draw the last trump, discarding your club loser, and your hand is high.

If you had bid and played the same way, you would be a partner after my own heart!