June 2020 - 51

Newer Players

Lessons Learned
BY MICHAEL BERKOWITZ

michael@larryco.com

Killing dummy
North (Dummy)
♠A5
♥983
♦KQJ97
♣974
East (You)
♠ K J 10 9
♥A6
♦A32
♣ 10 8 3 2

I think all little siblings will empathize with my failures to win at the
game "keep away" with my sister and
her friends.
In bridge, playing keep away can be a
good defensive strategy. Finding ways
to sever declarer's ability to get to the
dummy may frequently limit declarer's
ability to take tricks. A common example is this simple holdup play.
North (Dummy)
♠54
♥983
♦ K Q J 10 9
♣762
East (You)
♠982
♥AQ42
♦A74
♣J84
West

North

East

Pass

South
1NT

Say partner leads the ♠K and
declarer wins the ace and plays a
diamond. With a hand like this, it's
clear that you should not win the
first diamond play. You should look
at partner's count signal (a high card
suggests an even number of cards in
the suit, low is odd) and win the trick
at the appropriate moment when
you know declarer is playing the last
diamond from the closed hand.
Sometimes, dummy's suit won't be
as solid looking, but it still pays to take
away entries to dummy:

West

North

East

Pass

3NT

All Pass

South
1NT

Partner leads the ♥J. Should you
win or duck the ♥A? If you win, what
do you play at trick two?
Here, you can see that declarer's
diamonds will be good eventually. You
plan on holding up later in diamonds,
but as long as the ♠A is in dummy,
declarer can get there. In order to take
that card from dummy you need to play
a spade at trick two, but which spade?
If you play the ♠J, declarer can
put in the queen if they hold that card
and play diamonds. Instead, you must
play the ♠K at trick two. This type of
play actually has a fancy name - the
Merrimac Coup - but you just need to
think of how you can get that ace out of
dummy. You shouldn't worry about giving up a spade trick, because declarer
could always get it themselves later.
Instead, remember that you are cutting
off dummy's diamond suit.
One final test for yourself. What is
your plan looking at this deal? I'll show
all four hands, but focus on the East
cards:

North (Dummy)
♠54
♥974
♦J63
♣ A K Q J 10
West (Partner)
East (You)
♠7632
♠A
♥KJ6
♥ Q 10 8 5 3
♦9754
♦ K Q 10
♣92
♣7643
South (Declarer)
♠ K Q J 10 9 8
♥A2
♦A82
♣85
West

North

Pass
1NT
Pass
2NT
All Pass

East
Pass
Pass

South
1♠
2♠
4♠

Partner leads the ♣9. Declarer wins
and plays a spade, everyone following.
What do you do next?
If partner has a singleton club, that
means declarer started with six or seven spades and three clubs. The defense
will take the ace of trumps plus a club
ruff, but you might not get any more. If
partner has two clubs as in the diagram, he won't ruff this trick, but declarer can't get to dummy's good clubs
anymore. If declarer pitches a loser
on the third club, partner will ruff (for
your second trick) and you will still get
two tricks in the red suits. Sometimes
you need to make the counterintuitive
play of playing dummy's best suit to
sever communications prematurely. ◾
June 2020 Bridge Bulletin

June 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2020