This Week in Bridge
(616) Fundamentals of Trick Taking – Ruffing Losers
© AiB Robert S. Todd
Level: 2 of 10 robert@advinbridge.com
General
When we declare a hand in a suit contact, we usually look at our number of losers. We start by counting our certain losers (the ones we know we cannot avoid), then estimate our potential losers, and make a plan for trying to get rid of as many of our potential losers as possible. We start by approximating our losers from the long trump side (which is frequently declarer’s hand). When we have potential losers in a side suit, one of the ways that we can get rid of these losers is by trumping them with the short side’s trump. Ruffing losers in the short side is a useful declarer play technique and one we need to make sure to make use whenever possible.
Using Partner’s Shortness – Ruffing Losers
When we have shortness in partner’s hand (in the short trump side) then we can use that to help us get rid of our potential losers.
Example 1
Say ♠ are trump and this is the ♦ suit:
Dummy (short trump side)
♦ 54
Declarer (long trump side)
♦ AK7
We can get rid of our potential loser, the ♦7, by ruffing it in the dummy.
Example 2
Dummy
♣ 6
Declarer
♣ A432
Here we ruff our losing ♣432, as long as we have enough trump in the dummy to cover all three of these losers.
Drawing Trump
Anytime we are declaring a hand in a suit contract, as soon as we gain the lead we must decide whether we should draw trump immediately or wait until later. When we plan to make use of the short side’s trump to “take care of” our potential losers, then we have to decide how many trump we need from partner’s hand.
If we need to ruff some losers in our hand (presumably the long side), then we need to make sure that we enough have trump remaining when we go to draw trump.
If we have a 5-3 trump fit and we draw trump, there will be no trump left in the short side – none left to ruff with.
If we have a 6-3 trump fit, then there is a chance we will have a trump left after drawing trump.
If we have a 5-4 trump fit, then we will likely have one trump (and may have two trump remaining in the dummy after we draw trump).
If we need to ruff more losers than our expected number of “remaining trump”, then we will need to do so before drawing trump.
Ruffing our losers before drawing trump has danger that the opponents might ruff our winners with their trump – leaving them with trump has danger. There is an art form to balancing the risk of leaving some trump outstanding (allowing us to ruff our losers), without letting the opponents ruff our winners.
Creating Shortness in the Dummy
When our hand and the dummy (presumably the short trump side) have equal length in a side suit (say 3-3 fit), then it may seem that we will not be able to ruff any of our potential losers in this suit. But if we are clever, we can create shortness where none existed.
Let’s say ♠ are trump and dummy is the short trump side. Let’s also assume that after drawing trump dummy has at least one ♠ remaining.
Example 3
Dummy
♦ Q64
♣ A54
Declarer
♦ AKJ6
♣ K87
Here we play four rounds of ♦ and discard a ♣from the dummy. We can then ruff our third round ♣ loser in the dummy.
Conclusion
When we have shortness (what is often called “ruffing values”) in the short trump side then our hand has a valuable asset for partner. Part of modern hand evaluation is to add points to our hand in these situations, called support points. But after we have upgraded for this, we need to make sure and play the hand and take full advantage of the short side’s trump. We start by ruffing our losers, either the obvious ones opposite partner’s shortness or those we made ruffable by creating shortness in partner’s hand. Another one of the choices we are forced to make has to do with when to ruff our losers: should we do so immediately, or should we wait until after we have drawn trump? Learning to make the use of our trump is part of the art of good declarer play. Make sure it is something that you spend time getting better at!