Bridge Lesson 11: Ruffing in Dummy for Extra Tricks

Ruffing in dummy means using dummy's trumps to win tricks in a suit where dummy is short and you have losers. Each ruff in the hand with fewer trumps is an extra trick, so you often ruff your losers first and draw trumps afterwards.

In lesson 10 you learned to draw trumps early, and you saw that one good reason to wait is a planned ruff in dummy. This lesson shows when that reason applies and how to count it.

Say you hold five trumps and dummy holds three. Your five trumps will win five tricks whatever you do, as long as you draw the opponents' trumps first. Now look at the two kinds of ruff:

• A ruff in your hand (the long trump hand) uses one of your five trumps. It wins a trick, but that trump would have won a trick anyway. You gain nothing.
• A ruff in dummy (the short trump hand) uses one of dummy's three trumps. Those trumps would normally just follow when you draw trumps, winning nothing. Now one of them wins a trick of its own. That is a real extra trick.

So the rule is: ruffs in the short trump hand gain tricks; ruffs in the long trump hand usually do not. The short hand is usually dummy, but not always. It is simply the hand with fewer trumps.

In notrump you count winners (lesson 7). In a suit contract it is often easier to count losers, the tricks you expect to lose, from the point of view of the hand with the long trumps:

1. Look at each suit in your hand, up to its first three cards.
2. Count each card that is not covered by a top honor in your hand or in dummy (ace, king, queen).
3. Add them up and compare with the losers your contract allows: 4♥ allows three (13 - 10).

Then look for ways to get rid of the extra ones: a long suit in dummy to discard them on, a finesse, or a ruff where dummy is short.

Count South's losers in 4♥:

• Spades: ♠A K 3. The three is a loser. One.
• Hearts: ♥A K Q J 4. None.
• Diamonds: ♦7 6 4, with no high diamond anywhere. Three.
• Clubs: ♣8 5 opposite dummy's ♣A K. None.

That is four losers, one too many. But dummy has a single diamond. After the first round of diamonds, dummy is void and can ruff your other two diamonds. Two diamond losers turn into two tricks.

West leads the ♦A, dummy's five falls, and West sees the danger: dummy is now out of diamonds. So West switches to a trump, the ♥10, to take trumps out of dummy. Now play in the right order:

1. Win the ♥A in your hand.
2. Lead a diamond and ruff it in dummy with the ♥7.
3. Come back to your hand with the ♠A.
4. Lead your last diamond and ruff it with dummy's ♥9.
5. Now draw the remaining trumps with the ♥K and ♥Q, and take your other winners.

You lose only the ♦A and a spade: eleven tricks. Now try the other order. If you draw three rounds of trumps right away, dummy's three hearts all go on those rounds. Dummy can no longer ruff, your three diamonds are losers, and with the spade you lose four tricks: one down. Same cards, same lead, two tricks of difference. Reveal the hands and check.

In every suit contract, make the loser count before you play to the first trick. If you have too many losers and dummy is short in a suit where you have losers, plan the ruffs before you touch trumps. Count how many trumps dummy needs to keep for them, and how you will get back to your hand between ruffs.

There is a balance. Sometimes you can draw one or two rounds of trumps and still keep enough in dummy. A useful check: draw only as many rounds as you can afford while dummy keeps one trump for each ruff you plan.

BridgeDummy's free double dummy analyzer is a good place to test your plans: enter this deal, play it both ways card by card, and the analyzer shows after every card how many tricks are still possible with best play.

Previous: Lesson 10: Drawing Trumps. Next: Lesson 12: Opening One of a Suit, the first lesson on bidding.