At the Table
MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU

By Eric Crowhurst

A declarer who has been forced to ruff can sometimes find it expedient to string along with the defenders and force himself to ruff. An interesting example of such a manoeuvre occurred on the following deal:

Dealer: South. Game All.     A Q 5   J 8 6 3   9 8 6 2   A Q     10 8 4 3   5   Q J 10 4   9 7 6 2   9 6 2   K 10 9 2   A K 7 3   8 3     K J 7   A Q 7 4   5   K J 10 5 4

West	North	East	South
			1
Pass	1	Pass	1
Pass	1	Pass	1NT
Pass	4*	End
*To proceed to 4 via the fourth-suit bid of 1 showed a high-card raise to game

The defence began with two rounds of diamonds, and South ruffed the second and crossed to dummy with a spade in order to take a trump finesse. The Q held the trick, but the lead of the ace on the next round revealed the bad break.

Declarer continued by cashing dummy's top clubs, leaving this position:

Q 5   J 8   9 8   -     10 8   -   J 10   9 7   9 6   K 10   A 3   -     K J   7   -   K J 10

The routine play at this point is to enter the closed hand with a spade and play on clubs, discarding diamonds from dummy. This would have failed, for East would have ruffed the third club, and cashed the K and the A for one down.

South made the key play of ruffing a diamond in the above situation. He then played the K, discarding dum-my's last diamond, and East could only make his two trump tricks, whatever he chose to do.