A ruff needs careful planning

Howard Ruff, a financial adviser, helped popularize the proverb, “It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

Bridge has a faint connection with Noah because each side plays two cards to each trick, and more often than not, they will be from the same species — I mean suit. In today’s deal, how should South play to make sure that he moors safely on Mount Ararat? The declarer is in four spades, and West leads the club jack.

North might have raised one spade to two. Then, South’s two-club rebid was New Minor Forcing, which promised at least game-invitational values and primarily asked opener if he had three-card spade support.

South saw immediately that if the spade finesse was working, he would have 10 top tricks. Then he noticed that if the spade king was offside, he might find clubs 3-3 or be able to ruff a heart on the board. So, there was an immediate reaction to play a heart to the queen at trick two. However, here, that would have been fatal if East had taken the trick and shifted to a trump.

Instead, declarer spotted an unusual type of avoidance play. He crossed to dummy with a diamond, then led the heart six. If East had won with his ace to shift to a trump, he would have gifted South a heart trick. But when West took South’s jack with his king and led a trump, declarer won on the board and played the heart queen. East won and returned his second trump, but South took the trick with the ace and ruffed his last heart on the board. He collected four spades, two diamonds, three clubs and the key heart ruff.