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Bridge 1/21
What do you do with your trumps?
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    This is one of the major conundrums of bridge: You are in a trump contract; how quickly should you draw the missing trumps?
    The answer can be immediately, or shortly, or never.
    A basic rule of thumb is that the more trumps you have, the quicker you should remove the opponents’.
    However, especially when you do not have the trump ace, think carefully before leading one. They might win and play a second round with fatal consequences for your contract.
    Or they might find a killing shift. But if you are going to draw some trumps, how many rounds should you pull?
    As many as you can afford — as highlighted in this deal. You take a blind shot at seven spades.
    West leads a trump. How would you continue?
    No one knows how to bid a hand like yours. It is sensible to open six no-trump, but if you are going to gamble, try seven spades for the reason highlighted by this deal. (Yes, you could start with two clubs and rebid two spades over partner’s two-diamond response. If you get lucky, partner, with five-plus diamonds, will rebid three diamonds, which you would raise to seven diamonds. But you take a slight risk that partner, hating his hand, breaks discipline and passes out two spades.)
    You have 12 tricks and must ruff your heart two on the board. But since you have only one card to ruff, you need only one trump on the board at that moment.
    So, win the first trick and draw a second round of spades. Then cash your top hearts and ruff the heart two with dummy’s spade four.
    When East discards, you see that your care has been rewarded in full.

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