Establishing a Long Suit

Losers are cards that will lose tricks. Dumping (not a technical term) simply means discarding them, throwing them away. Here we are talking about discarding losers on winners in the other hand, usually dummy.

 
The lead is in your hand, and you have no entry to dummy (eg in diamonds – not shown). Say you need to dump your losing ♣3 on dummy’s hearts before losing to ♠A.

In (A), you cash ♥K (high from the short hand) then lead over to ♥Q. When you follow with ♥A, you can dump ♣3 (and hope both opponents follow to three rounds of hearts – likely).

In (B), you’ll need to take a 50-50 risk. You lead ♥3 and finesse dummy’s ♥Q, hoping ♥K is in the second-plays hand. Note, if you can afford the club loser, you won’t need to risk the heart finesse, which will give you an unnecessary loser if the finesse loses.

In (C), overtake ♥K with ♥A, so you can lead ♥Q and dump ♣3. You have to sacrifice your third heart trick to get over to dummy.