One of the main mistakes I see players make in declarer play is trumping in the wrong hand. When you are the declarer in a trump contract, the way to make extra tricks is to trump in the hand which has the shorter trump holding.
The shorter trump holding is usually the dummy’s hand, although after a transfer bid the shorter trump holding will be the declarer’s hand.
Many players use their trumps in their hand early in the play and find that after drawing trumps they have few trumps left to keep control of the hand later in the play.
When you use the trumps in the long trump hand for trumping, you are said to be ‘forcing yourself’. Many contracts fail because the declarer runs out of trumps and cannot regain the lead late in the hand.
Example: You are north with ♠A642 ♥AKQ954 ♦7 ♣82. You open 1♥, east passes, partner south bids 2♣ and west passes. After you rebid 2♥, partner raises you to 4♥.
East leads ♦K and the dummy south reveals ♠98 ♥32 ♦A963 ♣AK763. If the hearts divide you have 10 tricks with 6 winning hearts, 1 winning spade, 1 winning diamond and 2 winning clubs.
So how can you fail? Many players are good at a ‘trick reduction play’ where they start off with 10 tricks but end the game with only 9 tricks! Many of these players fail because they trump in their own hand.
Here is how a declarer plays the cards incorrectly by trumping in the long trump hand and ends up with only 9 tricks. I see this type of mistake many times in each session.
North wins the dummy south’s ♦A then trumps a diamond in north, the declarer’s hand. North then plays a club to south’s ♣K and leads another diamond, trumping again in north.
North then plays another club to south’s ♣A and leads another diamond, trumping in north. This is the fourth round of diamonds so east overtrumps. Having overtrumped, east leads a trump.
Eventually the declarer will later lose their three little spades so will have lost 4 tricks even though the declarer could have made 10 tricks by just drawing trumps and playing their other winning aces and kings.
So don’t trump in your own hand! You might feel you are doing well but in fact you are only putting your contract in danger.
However, you can make 11 tricks by trumping in the short trump hand.
Here are the hands again: You are north in 4♥ with ♠A642 ♥AKQ954 ♦7 ♣82. East leads ♦K and the dummy south reveals ♠98 ♥32 ♦A963 ♣AK763.
Win south’s ♦A and play ♠8 to north’s ♠A. Now play a second spade, losing to an opponent but making a void in spades in south. If the opponents continue diamonds, trump in north then lead a third spade.
You trump the third round of spades with south’s ♥2. Now draw trumps and you will have 11 tricks when the hearts divide evenly.
There is an old expression in bridge worth knowing – “It rarely gains to trump in hand but often gains to trump in dummy”.
© 2022 John Roberts