Drawing trumps

Drawing trumps has been the subject of several books. Usually, declarer draws trumps to prevent the opponents from ruffing one of his winners. Sometimes, declarer will hang onto his trumps to do some ruffing of his own.

South played dummy’s queen of hearts on the opening lead for a successful finesse. Off to a good start, declarer next cashed the ace of hearts and the ace of diamonds, before ruffing a heart in his hand. A diamond was ruffed in dummy, another heart was ruffed in hand, and another diamond was ruffed in dummy.

Declarer had taken seven tricks and he still had the ace-king-jack of trumps. South could have tried the spade finesse, but there was no rush. The opponents had more trumps remaining than he did at this point and they would have to play trumps for him eventually. A club was led from dummy. East rose with his ace to lead a trump, but West was in trouble. West was down to four trumps and the king of clubs. Declarer spurned the trump finesse. He played his ace of spades and exited with a club to West’s king. West had to lead a spade into declarer’s kingjack and the contract was home safe.

This was a well-played hand and a good example of when not to draw trumps.

(Bob Jones welcomes readers’ responses sent in care of this newspaper or to Tribune Content Agency, LLC., 16650 Westgrove Dr., Suite 175, Addison, TX 75001. E-mail responses may be sent to tcaeditors@tribpub.com.)