Sometimes in Bridge situations arise where you have to rely on your technique and timing to bring home a seemingly hopeless contract.
Amongst the many such techniques of play in bridge, the one known as trump reduction is perhaps the least used but is nonetheless, most effective in organising the play of your hand in a manner whereby exhausted of all safe exists, the opponents holding a seemingly winning advantage suddenly find themselves caught in a hopeless situation where their winning tricks evaporate under declarer's play of Pure Timing and Bridge Technique.
Today's hand is a classic example of such an end play whereby East finds himself entrapped.
THE BIDDING AND NORTH-SOUTH HANDS ARE GIVEN BELOW:
The opening lead from West is the QS to dummy's AS and at trick 2, your QH is finessed successfully. Both defenders play low and on the continuation of JH which is covered by East's KH to fall under your AH. West discards a club giving you the bad news that East holds an impregnable position with 108 of trumps as against your remaining trumps of 97 of hearts with no more trumps in dummy to encircle East's trumps to just one loser.
As South, how do you go about your chances of making the Little Slam of 6H. For that you need to construct East's hand in a manner where he can cash his side winners and envisage a 3 card ending with the lead in dummy to lead through East's 108 of trumps towards declarer's 97 of trumps so that his trump losses are reduced to only one. For that, the declarer needs to have his 3 diamonds running to give him any chance. But the more important task at hand of course is to get his trumps reduced to the same length as the defender in order to avoid being entangled in hand. For that purpose, what the declarer could foresee was to have 2 ruffs in hand compulsorily to enable him to finally reach dummy for the final kill.
One glance at the dummy reveals that to enable you to engineer the 2 ruffs, you need 2 entries in dummy and also vitally, the third entry to finally lead from dummy through East's. 108 of trumps. Of course, the two clear cut entries for the ruffs are visible in the KS and the K of diamonds. The question is from where does South find the third entry in dummy to entrap East into a helpless portion where he can be squeezed to waste his otherwise sure trump trick?
In bridge there is always a determination of the declarer not to give up easily and instead, keep his cool and use all his possible resources to press home the advantage and turn the tide in his favour. The declarer had finally no choice but to place cards in a manner that could give him that vital third entry in dummy for squeezing East to surrender. South found the third entry in the only way he could - in the finesse of the lOD against West's JD so that his plan could materialise.
Now South put his plan in action in a neat manner with the West-East full hands pictured:
After the ace of hearts, South unblocked AC, crossed to KS and ruffed a club. Cashing his DA, he led a small diamond to finesse 10D, got a further club ruff to reduce his length equal to East and returned to dummy with KD leaving the following 3 card ending.
On KC, East is squeezed. If he ruffs with 8 of trumps, declarer over ruffs with 9H and play his QD winner. If East ruffs with 10H, South discards QD to score both his trumps and finally if East discards South does too leaving East in the same dilemma. South came down in trumps to go up as Winner.
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West East North
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Q J 1 0 8 7 2 5 3
4 K 1 0 8 6 --
J 9 5 8 6 3 --
Q 1 0 8 J 9 5 K
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West East South
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J 1 0 8 --
-- 1 0 8 9 7
-- -- Q
Q -- --
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North South
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A K 5 3 6 4
Q J A 9 7 5 3 2
K 1 0 2 A Q 7 4
K 7 4 2 A
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West North East South
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--- 1 N T Pass 3 H
Pass 3 N T Pass 4 D
Pass 4 H Pass 5 C
Pass 6 H ALL PASS
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