The bidding: South has 14 points and opens his six-card major. North has 10 to 12 points and three-card or longer support. He then makes the invitational bid of three spades. South, with his two-suited hand easily accepts.
The Lead: West has a natural lead of the queen of diamonds.
The play: East sees no reason to overtake the trick and sees that there is no switch needed. South wins the diamond continuation with a ruff and cashes a high trump, the ace or queen, to find out about the bad split. South now sees the need to ruff two clubs in the short trump hand. East falsecards by dropping the ten of clubs under the ace. South wonders if the ten is a singleton. Therefore, he crosses to the heart ace and plays a small club to the King.
If East ruffs, South will duck. However, East plays a low club. Declarer now ruffs a club with the king of trump and sees the queen fall. He finesses East for the jack of trump and draws trump. His hand is now good.
Declarer makes four spades plus two for + 480.
Notes:
-Ruffing in the short hand: Consider a trump suit, AKQJ10, with the 987 in dummy. If declarer cashes the spades top down, he will get five tricks. If he first ruffs with the ten in the long-trump hand, he will still get five tricks. If he first ruffs in the short-trump hand, he will get six tricks. Ruffing in the long trump hand does not create a trick. It actually jeopardizes the contract if the trump split badly.
If declarer ruffs with the ten and the trump split 5-0, he will get a net of four tricks because the fifth trump in the opponents hand will be good.
-All the bridge columns may be viewed at http://watsongallery.ca.