masterho

Exactly what I think. I always only blame myself for guessing wrong.

[hv=pc=n&s=sq63hkt74dqcaqt93&w=s8542hq83dt98642c&n=sa9hj96dkj5ckj854&e=skjt7ha52da73c762&d=e&v=e&b=6&a=1cppp]399|300[/hv] Some time ago I played a hand like that. I was South. This is the exact scenario I imagined on the first day I learnt bidding. I have asked a number of more experienced player and they usually told me not to worry too much about it. One told me if that happened the opponents probably had game. It seems he's correct. The result was down 5 for declarer (about +6 IMP for us) which essentially means it could have been 5C made for S/N. I personally would not open with 4-3-3-3 12 HCP. What would your bidding as E/W be?

Thank you all for the discussion, especially those who give rare examples of when it actually benefits the declarer. I think the logic in the examples is easy to understand. The declarer only discards a winner and the defender avoids giving a free finesse to declarer.

Since my early days of learning bridge, I’ve been told how not to allow a ruff-and-discard as a defender. In general, one almost never benefit by leading a suit which allows declarer to ruff at short hand (usually dummy). Leading that suit is probably the worst choice out of 4. If possible, usually it’s best to lead a trump. On BBO, there have been numerous times where I stretched to bid a doubled contract with obvious losers going for down 1, which somehow made because the defender allowed a ruff-and-discard. Most of the time it happened when the defenders won A-K in a suit and then decided to lead a Q into a void in dummy which had 3 trumps. Those who made the mistakes includes players who claim to be intermediate or even advanced. In fact are there situations that I’m not aware of that the defender can actually benefit in a ruff-and-discard? Were those players that made the mistake simply taking calculated risk that failed?