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Ruffing

The advantage of having a trump suit is the ability to use your trump cards to take out the opposition’s high cards in the side suits – this gives you an unbelievable amount of power if you have enough of them

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What is Ruffing and why should I do it?

Description

In Bridge, to ruff means to play a trump card on a trick when that player has run out of the suit which was led. If trumps were the suit led then following suit and playing a trump card is not ‘ruffing’ . As all the other players must follow suit if they can, even a low trump card can win a trick. In Bridge the player who cannot follow suit is not obliged to ruff, they can if they want discard unwanted cards from their hand. Normally, ruffing wins the trick but it is possible that a subsequent player overruffs as they also cannot follow suit, and choose to play a higher trump card.As a verb -“To trump” is a synonym of “to ruff”, but “ruff” is normally preferred, for accuracy.
As a noun -“ruff” and “trump” are different — where “ruff” means only “an instance of ruffing”, whereas “a trump” means only “the suit for that game which outranks all suits”, or “a card in this suit”.

Problem

With only 6 certain winners in your hand, how can you play to make at least 10 tricks for the contract of 4♥

North

Dummy
♠ A K 6 4 2
♥ 9 7 5 4
♦ A 5
♣ 8 4

after five rounds of spades they should be established – on the fifth spade to discard club Q

South

Declarer
♠ 9
♥ A Q J 10 6
♦ K 8 6 2
♣ A Q 7

With a trump finesse you can discard one of your losing clubs on the spade K

The Rule

The underlying rule for all ruffing is:
1. Draw the trump suit  as soon as possible when you fear the opposition may ruff winners in your side suits
2. DON’T Draw your trumps early on in the game when you need to ruff losing cards in Dummy.
3. When dummy and declarer have equal numbers of cards in the same suit no immediate ruffs are available, but you can shorten the suit length in one of the hands by discarding a card in the suit on a winner in the other hand

The Solution

Trick 1: West leads a spade – win with the Ace
Trick 2: From dummy lead the King of Spades discarding a low club from declarer’s hand
Trick 3: From dummy lead the heart 9 (an indirect finesse) – hoping East has the King – when East doesn’t play the King – play a low heart from declarers hand
Trick 4: from dummy play a low heart (a direct finesse) – if East plays the King cover with the Ace
Trick 5: all trumps have now been drawn – so from declarer’s hand lead a low diamond to your Ace of diamonds entry to Dummy
Trick 6: lead a low spade from dummy and ruff in declarer’s hand (count oppositions discards of spades)
Trick 7: lead King of diamonds from declarer’s hand diamond discard in dummy
Trick 8: lead a low diamond from declarer’s hand and ruff in dummy
Trick 9: lead a low spade from dummy and ruff in declarer’s hand
Trick 10: lead your last low diamond from declarer’s hand ruff in dummy
Trick 11:  lead out the last spade which has been established as a winner (and of course you were counting how many spades were discarded by the opposition as you played them?) – discard the Queen of clubs in declarer’s hand on this card
Trick 12: lead a low club from dummy to your Ace of Clubs
Trick 13: lead your Queen of hearts
and then play the King of Spades and discard a loser club in declarer’s hand – ruff two low spades which establishes dummy’s fifth spade