This is aHand:

Once again you will find yourself in need of a strategy to get rid of an excess loser.

Should you trump it in dummy? Dump it on a long suit in dummy? Create a shortage in dummy?

Bidding.

After East Passes as dealer we open 1♥ on a lovely 5·4·3·1 hand with 18 points. Partner raises gently to 2♥ (so he has some trump support and 6-9 points, give or take a little) and we have to decide what to do.

Passing is off the menu so it’s a choice between a game try of 3♦ (partner would be expected to convert to 3♥ or 4♥ according to his values) or a full-blooded “VuBridge game try� of 4♥. So-called because we bid game, then try to make it..!

We are seeking that ever-attractive game bonus so decide to go for the jugular. 4♥ it is.

Play.

West, with a neat sequence in Spades, starts off with the ♠J lead. Dummy's red Queens are excellent – the ♠Q is worthless tat. Ho hum. Life's like that.

Time to Count and Plan. We can see four losers – three Clubs and the ♥A. Winners? Well, we can count nine of those – one Spade, four Hearts and four Diamonds.

The good news is that the arithmetic balances (nine winners, four losers).

The bad news is that the arithmetic balances (nine winners, four losers)…(!) We’d like to see ten winners so that we’d see a way to dump losers.

However, we do have another opportunity to turn the dummy into what we need to get rid of losing tricks. When we've got too many losers, we try to find a way to trump losers in dummy or dump them on a long suit in dummy. When we look at this dummy, we don't see a dumping ground, so... what about shortening a suit so we can trump in dummy?

We've got a great "shortage creator" with the Diamonds in the closed hand. We're going to discard dummy's Clubs, enabling us to ruff Clubs in dummy. Note that we’d then be ruffing Clubs in the short trump hand.

We don't dare pull trumps first, as the nasty opponents have the controlling Ace of trumps; they'd win it and would immediately go after our quick Club losers. So at tricks two and three we attack the Diamonds. At trick four, we discard one of dummy's Clubs.

We perform our mid-hand recount and see that we are going to be ruffed in on if we play another Diamond. But... what's the harm? We have another Club loser and may as well pitch it on the boss Diamond. On a good day the fourth Diamond would be ruffed by an opponent's ♥A. Today is not that day but we can't abandon hope. In any case, it may weaken a defender's trump holding.

When we play the last Diamond East ruffs and desperately tries to extract dummy's trumps (he can see our Plan is to ruff Clubs). Nice try sir, but definitely no cigar.

West plays off the ♥A and another Heart but we are in control. We win, casually concede a Club and are in Easy Street. Our losing Clubs are ruffed on table and we have ten tricks.

We only one Clubs and two trumps. We make one Spade, six trumps (four in hand and two ruffs), and three Diamonds (note that one got trumped).