Bridge By Phillip Alder

THE ‘SESAME STREET’ CHARACTER WHO COUNTS

Which inhabitant of Sesame Street would surely make a topclass bridge player?

Today’s deal requires an ability that this character has in abundance. After an aggressive auction involving a limit major-suit raise and four control-bids, South is in seven spades. West leads the diamond king. How should South plan the play?

He has five clubs and the heart ace, so he must win seven trump tricks. These can come only from four winners and three ruffs in hand. Declarer ruffs the diamond lead and cashes the spade ace, getting the bad news. Now he plays a club to dummy, ruffs a diamond high, crosses back to board with a heart to the ace and ruffs the last diamond high. South leads the spade eight to dummy’s nine, draws the last two trumps, discarding the two heart losers from hand, and claims. It is a textbook dummy reversal.

It would be a different story if West were to lead his club (or a heart or a spade!). Often, leading a singleton against a grand slam is a bad idea because you cannot hope to get a quick ruff. However, here the lead removes a dummy entry prematurely. Declarer wins trick one on the board, ruffs a diamond, cashes one top trump, plays a heart to the ace and ruffs another diamond. But now South cannot both get to dummy to ruff the last diamond and return to dummy to draw trumps without letting West score a club ruff. Declarer would be left to rue the lack of the spade seven or eight in the dummy.

The Count made it, of course. Did you?