Trump reduction (Le Bridgeur Magazine No.904)

Article written by Jérôme Rombaut and published in the French magazine Le Bridgeur No.904 (July/August 2016)

Bob Herreman, a loyal reader of the magazine “Le Bridgeur”, long-time Funbridge player and member of the French Bridge Federation, has shared this deal with me. His analysis seems quite interesting.

I have been regularly playing French Bridge Federation tournaments on Funbridge for a few months. This is a great way to learn. The main advantage is that once the tournament is over, you can compare your bidding and card play with other participants (there are usually more than 40 tables). Here is a deal I have played.

A Q 10 8 7 3  K J 8 4  Q 3  Q

4   Q 5  K J 8 4  A K 9 8 6 3

S	North

According to Funbridge rules, I become declarer sitting in North.

East is faced with a difficult choice. He decides to lead the diamond ace to the 4, 2 and 3. He follows with the heart 2 to dummy’s 5 which is taken by West’s ace (the 4 is in North). West plays the spade 6 (?). You decide to finesse (Phew! Successful!). Then you cash the spade ace and East drops the jack. It is very likely that West holds 4 trumps. And since you already have two losers, you should avoid losing two trump tricks and consider using the trump reduction technique.

To do so, you need three entries to dummy: two to ruff and one to run the master cards in clubs and diamonds. Your first entry: club queen taken by the ace (Don’t rely on the third honour trick in clubs.) You ruff a club. Second entry: heart queen. And you ruff another club.

The diamond 2 played by West on the lead shows that he was very likely holding three cards in that suit. And even if West dropped a diamond on the third round of clubs, you can serenely go back to dummy one last time by overtaking your diamond queen with the king. All you have to do now is playing your master cards in clubs (or diamonds), leaving West with no solutions.

4S=: you got 80%. One down: you got 44% only. 3NT(+2): you got 94%…

The full deal was:

A Q 10 8 7 3  K J 8 4  Q 3  Q

K 9 6 5  A 10 9 6  10 9 2  J 10

J 2  7 3 2  A 7 6 5  7 5 4 2

4   Q 5  K J 8 4  A K 9 8 6 3