When you are in a trump contract, perhaps your first question is: "How quickly should I draw trumps?"

There is no simple answer, but the basic guideline is that the more trumps you have, the quicker you should remove the opponents', especially when you can do it without losing the lead.

When you have only eight or nine trumps, you might delay drawing them; in fact, you might never touch them at all. In particular, if you do not have the trump ace, think twice before leading a trump.

In today's deal, how should South plan the play in four spades after West leads the club king?

Declarer looks at his 13 cards, takes dummy's high cards into account, and counts his losers. Here, he has five: two hearts, two diamonds and one club. The minor-suit losers are unavoidable, so South must ruff his two heart losers on the board.

However, suppose declarer wins with his club ace, cashes the spade ace and top hearts, then ruffs a heart on the board. What happens next?

South cannot get back to his hand. And when he plays, say, a club, West will win and surely return a trump, killing the second ruff. Instead, declarer should immediately take his top hearts, ruff a heart with dummy's spade eight (so the mean and nasty East cannot overruff), play a spade to his hand, and ruff his last heart with the spade king. Then 10 tricks roll in.

Yes, South could also duck the first trick, allowing him to ruff a club in his hand.

This week we will look at various trump-suit techniques.

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