Dummy play is successful only if the declarer is alert enough to pick the opening lead and subsequent revelations of defenders signals and has to investigate what evidence can come before him to enable him to make the right judgement. It is only when the declarer keeps his eyes focused on what needs to be done so he can put the final nail in the defenders coffin. Let us learn by example our first illustration is where NS on the following hand bid 4H vulnerable vs non-vulnerable as under:
The bidding: West's opening lead was the 9S to east's ace who returned the 7S with west following with the 6S as south wins with KS. As south, how would you plan your play? On the face of it, after losing a spade, you are threatened with losing a diamond and 2 clubs unless you manage to restrict the club losers to 7.
When facing the dummy to plan your play, it is always better to pause and plan as to where you want to end in trump drawing - hand or dummy. It is quite evident that the spades need to be eliminated immediately for which you need to end in dummy with trumps breaking 2-1, (west-east) west dropping singleton J while east sheds 5 and 3. On ruffing the spade, west shows out discarding a club. What should your next move be? The diamond finesse loses to east's king who returns the 10D taken by AD. Now a diamond elimination by ruffing the third diamond in hand sees east following with 7. The stage is now set for the crucial play. From the cards played so far, you can reconstruct what east can possibly hold. He has shown up so far with:
11 cards are known. He can have at most 2 clubs 2 diamonds or a diamond and a club. This leaves west with at least 5 to 6 clubs and the odds already point out that he is likely to hold both club honours AJ. This should warn you for not playing the normal club to queen and finessing the JC on way back. So what should be your best line of play?
Go to dummy with a trump and lead a small club to the king. If west takes the AC, he is stuck with leading clubs from hand away from the jack; otherwise he has a ruff and sluff threat staring. The only way you can lose is if east has the JC doubleton. Our second illustration takes us to a NS little slam in hearts 1H by south, pass by west, 6H by north on the following hand.
The opening lead is QS from west. How do you plan be play? The best line of play would be to draw trumps by finessing the KH. It wins. Next you need to eliminate spades and clubs by ruffing. From this elimination comes the information that west has something like this.
The question is what your reconstruction of west's hand is? Do you give him the KD or not. Remember west passed your 1H opening bid. Had he the KD he would surely have over called 1S. Thus KD is placed with east. Hence play a small diamond from hand and insert the 10 from dummy. East will either win with the KD or JD.
The KD gives you the 12th trick while JD end plays him holding DK too-either ruff or sluff or leading away from the king into dummy's QD. The play loses only if west has KD doubleton. The moral of the lesson is that in Bridge to locate a favourable placement of card, you need to assume that it actually is so and play accordingly. This is the Bridge expert's way to locate missing high cards.
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NORTH SOUTH NORTH SOUTH -
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10 3 2 K Q 7 2 A K 4 A J 8 7 5 4
K 9 6 4 A Q 10 8 7 2 A 10 8 6 4 Q J 9 7 3 5 3
A Q 2 5 3 Q 10 8 A 6 2 K 10 7
Q 8 4 K 10 3 A K 3 10 J -
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N E S W
P P 1H P
3H P 4H All Pass
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Q J 10 X X X Q J 10 X X X
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K X OR K X
? ? ?
Q J X Q J X ?
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