The Ruffing Finesse in action.

The Ruffing Finesse is a method of card promotion that enables you to benefit, even though the critical missing honour is sitting over your strength. The technique has the advantage of allowing you to dispose of a loser in another suit should the ruffing finesse fail.

The success of this 4 ♥ contract depended on guessing which opponent held the queen of spades. West led the king of clubs and, when it won, continued with the queen of clubs to East’s ace. East switched to the king of diamonds, and declarer won the ace.

There were several good reasons for playing the ruffing finesse (ace-king then run the jack - in the hope that East held the queen) as opposed to the regular finesse (low to the ten - playing for West to hold the queen).

• (i) West had preempted, so East rated to have the length (and strength) outside.

• (ii) The contract would go one fewer down should declarer misguess.

• (iii) The ruffing finesse against East would also succeed if West held the queen in a singleton or doubleton holding.

Declarer cashed the ace of trumps and crossed to dummy’s ten, West discarding (a club). Leaving East’s last trump out (needing the queen of trumps as a later entry), declarer cashed dummy’s ace-king of spades. No queen fell, so he followed with dummy’s jack (the ruffing finesse).

If East had covered with the queen of spades, declarer would have ruffed, crossed to the queen of trumps, then cashed the promoted ten of spades discarding a diamond. He would merely lose one diamond at the end. At the table East played low on the jack of spades. Declarer discarded a diamond and, when the jack won the trick, was able to draw East’s last trump and concede just one diamond. Game made.