This is aHand:

Bidding.

North, holding a pesky 4∙4∙4∙1 hand, chooses to open the bidding with 1♦.

East overcalls with 1♥ and we bid the obvious 1♠, raised to 2♠ by partner.

With 13 points (an opening bid in its own right) we are full value for a shot at game. 4♠ it is.

Play.

West dutifully leads his partner’s suit against 4♠ and – following the modern style of leading second highest from trashy suits – he selects the ♥4.

We survey the dummy and apply the principle of Count – Plan – Execute. We can count five Spade tricks, one Heart trick (the ♥Q is certainly not going to win trick one!) and the ♦A K. That totals eight tricks. So… should we draw trumps or not?

This deal is a ruff-in-the-dummy hand. We are two tricks short of our contract and the best way of making those tricks is to ruff losing Hearts in dummy – in the short trump hand. Note that we cannot afford to draw trumps before ruffing Hearts – we need ruffs on table and cannot afford to take out three rounds of Spades. Sure, trumps might be 2-2 (in which case drawing trumps would be fine) but they could be 3-1 or – as here – even 4-0.

So we take the ♥A and immediately ruff a Heart in dummy. This is a risk-free play, note, as East cannot over-ruff this (he bid Hearts, after all!) We need to return to hand to repeat the dose so we lead a Spade to the ♠10 in order to ruff another Heart. The 4-0 trump break comes as a surprise but our trumps are powerful enough to withstand this split. We ruff another Heart, cash the ♠K, come to hand with the ♦K and complete the job of drawing trumps.

Ten tricks come from seven Spade tricks (five in hand and two ruffs on table), the ♦A K and the ♥A.