It might be time to start showing more respect to your dummy. Yes, you’re the boss, the brains, the living force behind the contract; dummy is just an inanimate row of cards at your disposal. But sometimes you need to bring it alive in your imagination, swap seats, see things from its upside-down point of view. Contracts which seemed bleak can suddenly have much brighter prospects.

A dummy reversal basically involves ruffing dummy’s losers in the long trump hand (declarer’s), turning it into the short trump hand, and draw the oppo’s trumps with dummy’s trumps (convoluted as that sounds). I’m not one of those players for whom it comes naturally to shift perspective – I have to kick myself to remember. But it seems I’m not the only one. In a recent tournament, quite a few players

Playing 2/1, 3♠ was stronger than 4♠. After a couple of cue-bids, South checked for key-cards and bid slam. West led a trump. Declarer won in hand and played a diamond to the ◆K. East won and played another trump. Some declarers now played on hearts – if they broke 3-3 or the defender with short hearts had no more trumps, that would have worked. Others saw the better chance: a dummy reversal. They cashed the ◆Q, ruffed a diamond, played the ♣A and the ♣K and ruffed dummy’s last club. Next came a heart to dummy’s ♥Q, and the last diamond was ruffed. A heart back to the ♥K was thankfully not ruffed, so they could draw the last trump and cash the ♥A for 12 tricks.