Dubious Logic

Fear of a Ruff

You select a trump suit because your side holds the preponderance, and as declarer you try to squash any impertinence the defence might have to use their small allocation. The natural inclination is, of course, to draw opposing trumps as soon as possible. But sometimes this is not as easy as it seems; try this as a play problem in four spades:

West opened with a conventional two clubs announcing a strong hand and received a negative response of two diamonds. After that the auction regressed several decades for the next bid was two spades. That style harks back to the early days – though perhaps in a dusty London club there might be a rubber bridge enclave that would choose the bid today – the modern preference would be two no-trump. But no harm was done (or East was on the same wavelength); a gentle raise to three was advanced to game by West.

North led the club ten and, as this was pairs scoring where overtricks had real value, saw that the diamonds would serve as discards for hearts. Conscious of keeping the spade king in dummy as an entry for the blocked diamond suit, West played the ace and queen of spades; North discarded a heart and it had become more than a little awkward.

Taking a step back (which declarer couldn't do at the table of course), it must be mentioned that the 'natural' way of playing trumps is ace and king. Why? After all, you can finesse either North or South for knave to four trumps… Without lengthy calculations, you hope to ruff a club in dummy and that means that you will not be able to keep length over North – but you can over South. If trumps are 3-2 you always have an entry with a late club ruff.

The spade ace and queen have gone, what now? Let's look at the full deal:

It looks tempting to play the spade king and then start on diamonds. If South has three of those, you will most likely be able to get to dummy with a club ruff and play another, throwing a loser as South ruffs. But South has two and, moreover, he will not ruff the third but discard a club. There will be no way to dummy and West will lose two hearts and two clubs (one of them over ruffed).

At the table declarer tried ruffing a club immediately and then three rounds of diamonds but this did not test the defence too severely: South trumped the third diamond and played king and another heart. Now a fourth round of clubs promoted South's trump.

So what should West have done after the misguided start? When the bad trump break comes to light, West must play diamonds. True, if South had a singleton the defence would score two hearts and two ruffs but in that case, there was no making the game. When spades were not 3-2 diamonds had to be; the defence could ruff and take two hearts but that was their lot. Sometimes you have to draw trumps by conceding a ruff.

Published Saturday 26.Jan.2008