Contract Bridge

As a general rule, if you’re a defender and have the opportunity to win a trick for your side, you win it. However, there are times when — for tactical reasons — it is better to refuse to take a trick that you can win.

There is no magic rule that tells you when to do one or the other. It all depends on the circumstances, and these vary so much from one deal to the next that your decision basically becomes a matter of exercising good judgment.

Let’s say you’re West in this deal and lead a heart against four spades. Your partner wins with the queen, continues with the ace and then plays the king. South follows to all three rounds of hearts, and the question is whether you should win the third trick by ruffing with your queen of trump.

Let’s see what happens if you ruff. Declarer discards a club or a diamond from dummy and wins the rest of the tricks. He takes your diamond or club return in dummy, leads the nine of spades, which wins, and then repeats the trump finesse to land the contract.

But if you discard a club or a diamond at trick three, you defeat the contract. Declarer must ruff the heart king in dummy and is then sure to lose two trump tricks regardless of how he continues.

How would you know that you should discard rather than ruff at trick three? That’s a fair question, and it’s entitled to a fair answer.

You should reason that there’s very little chance of beating the contract unless your partner has a trump holding as good as the K-x-x or J-8-x-x, and you should shape your defense to cater to that possibility. Refusing to ruff enables you to defeat the contract in these cases, while ruffing allows declarer to get home safely.