Trump use. General trump tips
A reminder of the general accumulated wisdom first, in potted form:
The obvious ones
- Get rid of danger trumps if the contract is otherwise safe
- Pull trumps if important winners in other suits might otherwise be trumped
- Don't pull all the trumps when you need to create extra tricks from shortages
- Use trumps from the short hand to ruff
- Don't pull outstanding winning trumps
- Ruff high, when enemy are also void and still have trumps
The less obvious ones
- Don't lose trump control
- Hoard trumps in your hand
- Think split before you start - expect bad splits (4-2, 5-1 etc, or 4-1)
- Finesses can be dangerous if they fail and you lose trump control
- Play a loser on top of a loser - or even a winner on top of a loser
- Don't ruff if as a result you lose trump control - try throwing a loser
- rather than promoting their trumps by ruffing, play a loser on a loser ("transfer the ruff")
- Don't pull out the remaining high trump winners, unless you want to run a second suit without interference
- Establish your side suit
- With side suits, think split
- ruff a low one of yours in dummy to use up one of theirs
- Don't cover a lead with a winner when it's very likely to be ruffed
- Throw away your winners if they can be ruffed - in order to create a void
- Lead up to the high cards when the enemy have a 4-1 split including the Ace
