Ruffing in the Short Hand: Suit Declarer Play
Usually, your default first move in a suit contract will be to draw the opponents’ trumps so that they can’t use their trumps against you. However, there are some hands where it is right not to draw trumps straightaway.
When dummy goes down and you start counting your tricks, you will count your losers using the hand with the longer trumps as the base hand. This means that whenever you ruff something in the base hand, it doesn’t gain you a trick: you still have the same number of losers in that hand.
However, if you ruff losers from the base hand in the hand with the shorter trumps, called the “short hand”, you turn your losers into tricks.
To understand this, let’s look at an example.
(1) Short hand: ♠ Q J T ♥ 3 ♦ A 5 4 3 2 ♣ K 5 4 3
Base hand: ♠ A K 9 8 7 ♥ A 5 4 2 ♦ 6 ♣ A 6 2
♠ are Trumps and LHO has led the ♦K. When you count your losers, you have 3 in ♥ and 1 in ♣. Now let’s examine the possibilities after winning the ♦A:
1. You draw Trumps and play your winners.
These are the cards you will have left after drawing Trumps.
Short hand: ♠ Q J T ♥ 3 ♦ A 5 4 3 2 ♣ K 5 4 3
Base hand: ♠ A K 9 8 7 ♥ A 5 4 2 ♦ 6 ♣ A 6 2
You have no trumps left in the short hand, so you still have to lose 3 ♥s and have already lost a ♣. You will take 9 tricks.
2. You ruff ♦s in the base hand.
You win the ♦A, ruff a ♦ and cross back to Dummy in ♣ and ruff another ♦. You now have these cards left.
Short hand: ♠ Q J T ♥ 3 ♦ A 5 4 3 2 ♣ K 5 4 3
Base hand: ♠ A K 9 8 7 ♥ A 5 4 2 ♦ 6 ♣ A 6 2
You now only have 3 trumps in each hand; the opponents started with 5 between them, meaning that the best possible trump divide is 3-2. Therefore, one opponent now has as many trumps as you do! You are about to lose control of the hand if you keep ruffing ♦, so you need to draw the opponents’ trumps and hope that they are 3-2.
However, you still have the 3 ♥ losers and a ♣ loser. You will take 9 tricks.
3. You ruff ♥s in the short hand.
You cross to the ♥A and ruff a ♥. Now you cross to the ♣A and ruff another ♥. You still have a ♥ loser left but you only have 1 trump left in the short hand, so you have to ruff a ♦ over to your hand (for entry purposes only) before ruffing your final ♥.
You have these cards left and the lead is in the short hand.
Short hand: ♠ Q J T ♥ 3 ♦ A 5 4 3 2 ♣ K 5 4 3
Base hand: ♠ A K 9 8 7 ♥ A 5 4 2 ♦ 6 ♣ A 6 2
You have no ♥ losers left and you still have four trumps in your hand. sadly, you will need to ruff a ♦ back to your hand so that you can draw Trumps but, if they are 3-2 as they normally are, you will take 12 tricks.
Let’s check your understanding with another example. How would you play this hand?
(2) Contract 2♠, Lead ♥K
Dummy:
♠ T64
♥ 43
♦ Q543
♣ KJ72
Declarer:
♠ AK753
♥ A86
♦ 76
♣ Q64
You have 1 loser in ♠, 2 in ♥, 2 in ♦ and 1 in ♣: 6 losers where you can only afford to lose 5 tricks.
If you draw trumps first, the opponents will be able to cash their ♥ and ♦ winners when they get in. So drawing trumps is out; what else can you do?
If you play a second ♥, dummy will now be void in ♥s and you will be able to ruff your ♥ loser in the dummy (the short hand).
This will bring you down to only 5 losers. Contract made!