The art of good dummy play lies in the declarer's ability to visualise the distribution of the cards all around. Armed with experience, skilled in bridge techniques, sound in judgement and equipped with a sharp memory and the stamina to be mentally alert throughout the bridge session, a good dummy player seldom fails to pull through.
But even here there are levels of limitations and levels of human endurance. Bridge after all is a game where human vulnerability is a big risk factor. Those who keep a cool head and keep emotions away, relying more on reasonable assumptions and logic rather than instincts, are the ones who are consistently successful. Bridge awareness however needs to be cultivated, harnessed by learning from past mistakes and it is here that those who learn quickly not to err in the same way again become very good dummy player's and obtain that ranking of an expert, which is conferred on them due to their track record and consistently successful run at winning bridge competitions at the international level.
Amongst the experts too there is a rating and amongst them some names become legendary in the annals of bridge history. One such name is that of the British expert, Terence Reese who was considered to be the world's best player of his time. Today's illustration is one contract he played in the 50's holding the following hand and dummy.
The contract is 6S bid as under by north south. The bidding could easily have closed at 7H, which is ice cold but north felt safer at 6S since grand slam would require hearts to break kindly. The opening lead was a killing one - the trump seven - had the opening been anything else declarer had no problem in making the little slam in spades. For then he could ruff two diamonds in dummy giving up a diamond trick. Trump lead has created entry problems.
Put yourself in the south seat and plan your play what is the best approach to the 12 tricks you need on paper? It appears there are 6 trump trick plus 5 hearts tricks along with AD, adding up to 12 required. But that's easier said than done. For there are entry problems blocking your way. There is of course no problem if trumps break evenly 2-2. For then declarer cashes his top hearts and gets into dummy with the trump to notch up 12 easy tricks.
But it trumps be have badly, what are the options left? Yes, the diamond finesse. Of course there is an additional chance too in the offing and that is if the opponent holding the third trump has also the 3 hearts, which would enable you to knock out 2 trumps, then run your top hearts and enter dummy with the last trump to throw 2 diamonds giving up one and conjuring 12 tricks in spades. But let me give you the west east hands as under:
All the favourable distributions that you hope for are non-existing. No squeeze is working either. The diamond finesse is wrong and you have no entry in dummy to run the hearts. It's a tough cookie to solve isn't it? Perhaps if you ponder long enough on it with all cards exposed, you might come up with the solution. But for Terence Reese who had only the dummy exposed before him, it took him only a minute to fathom the best option in the making of 6S. And when in post-mortem, after the solution is revealed, we look to analyse, we are surprised how simple the solution was and why it didn't strike many of us to make that dummy play, which Reese thought of in a matter of seconds.
Here is how it went. Reese took the opening spade in dummy and played a low club from dummy. East holding the club ace hopped up with the ace on which Reese cleverly discarded the AH. Winning the obvious diamond return with the ace, cashing one more spade and the K and queen of hearts, he entered dummy with the last trump 10S and on his 3 heart winners, discarded all his losing diamonds conjuring up the 12 tricks required like the old magician at bridge that he was.

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North      South      West      East
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  1098    AKQJ63       752         4
J10763       AKQ        84       952
    62      AQ94       K83     J1075
   QJ3         -    K10987     A6542
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The Bidding:
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North    East      South    West
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Pass     Pass        2C     Pass
2D         P        2S         P
3H         P        4C         P
4S         P        5D         P
5S         P        6H         P
6S         P         P         P
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