HOW CAN YOU RUFF WITH MORE CARDS?

A t first, you may think that Tommy Lee, a founding member of Motley Crue, was commenting on upside-down signals in bridge when he said, "Playing upside down is insane. It's two or three times more difficult than what's normal." Then you read on: "Your feet want to come off the pedals, your arms want to drop down -- all of your body is fighting gravity." Ah, he was talking about his drum kit.

In one way, the winning line of play in today's deal is upside down. How should South play in six spades after West leads the heart queen?

In the bidding, I think South was right to show his five-card major. He always could have bid three no-trump on the next round if North didn't raise spades or show a long heart suit. Four clubs and four hearts were control-bids showing aces (or perhaps voids), in North's case denying the diamond ace because he had skipped over that suit. South cautiously used Blackwood, confirming that his partner had the heart ace.

South has two losers in his hand: one diamond and one heart. Usually, declarer eliminates a loser in one of two ways. First, discard on a winner in the other hand -- impossible here. Or ruff it in the shorter trump hand -- at first glance, also impossible, but not so!

Declarer should win the first trick on the board and immediately play its diamond. Let's suppose West takes the trick with his ace and returns a heart. South wins with his king and cashes those two diamond winners, shedding hearts from the dummy. Now declarer can ruff his heart loser high in the shorter trump hand, draw trumps and claim. Beautiful!