A crossruff is a means of scoring trump in both hands. It works when you have — or create — a void on each side of the board.

Here’s an example of how it works. I was sitting South and paired with Audrey Egger at the Island Bridge Club on August 28, with West dealing and North-South vulnerable:

NORTH
♠K J 6 2
♥A 3 2
♦5
♣J 6 5 4 2

WEST                        EAST
♠10 9 3                    ♠8
♥ J 9 8                      ♥K Q 6 4
♦ J 10 8                    ♦Q 9 4 2
♣ K 10 8 7                ♣A Q 9 3

SOUTH
♠A Q 7 5 4
♥10 7 5
♦A K 7 6 3♣ —

The bidding proceeded as follows:

West              North               East               South
Pass               Pass                 1♦               1 ♠
Pass               2 ♦ *             Pass               4 ♠
All Pass

* Limit raise in spades

Opening lead:♦J

Audrey’s 2♦cuebid ended any doubt that I could make game. In addition to having no club losers and possibly no diamond losers, I felt I had a solid trump suit with her support.

Who could blame West for leading diamonds? Immediately, I saw a crossruff in diamonds and clubs setting up.

But before you start ruffing, it’s important to cash every available winner in the non-trump suits. Otherwise, your opponents might void themselves in those suits and ruff tricks you might have taken. Therefore, in addition to cashing the ace-king of diamonds (throwing a heart) and ruffing a diamond, I cashed the heart ace.

Then the tricks started rolling in. I ruffed a club, ruffed a diamond, ruffed a club and ruffed my last diamond. Then I ruffed a third club for my ninth trick. At this point I could cash the ace-queen of spades and concede the last two tricks.

Was there anything the defenders could do? Sure: lead a trump. But East-West had no idea a crossruff was in their future. And the best a spade lead would do is hold us to 10 tricks.

Crossruffs are just plain fun — unless you’re defending against them.