A good routine

When drawing trumps, follow this routine:

• (a) Work out how many trumps are missing (typically this will be four or five, perhaps six).
• (b) Think of those cards in terms of their likely split. Thus you would expect five missing cards to split 3-2. You can hope for four missing trumps to split 2-2, but don’t expect it: a 3-1 split is more likely because it can happen two ways (i.e. 3-1 and 1-3).
• (c) Each time you see an opponent play a trump, reduce the number of missing trumps down. When you reach zero, their trumps are “drawn”.
• (d) If, however, you reach “one” (i.e. one outstanding trump), and that opposing trump is higher than yours, it will normally be best to leave it out. Why waste two of your trumps getting rid of a trump that will win a trick anyway?

What happened
Winning ♣ J with ♣ A, declarer cashed ♠ AK and led a third spade. No good. East won ♠ Q, and, with West wisely clinging on to all his four hearts, declarer scored just four trumps, ♥ AKQ and the two minor-suit aces. Looked at another way, he lost ♠ Q, the fourth heart, and the second-round of both minors. Down one.

What should have happened
You as declarer duck ♣ J and win ♣ 8 (to ♣ Q) with ♣ A (the duck is good communication-cutting technique though makes little difference here). You cash ♠ AK, counting down the missing trumps (five become three become one). Because the outstanding trump, ♠ Q, is high, you do not waste two of your trumps (including, crucially, dummy’s). Instead you begin hearts, cashing ♥ AKQ. East is welcome to trump ♥ Q (or not), because you can trump your fourth (losing) heart in dummy (not minding if East overtrumps). This “ruff” in dummy is your tenth trick: game made.

If you remember just one thing...
The “Rule of One”: leave the master trump outstanding.