When to run Trump?

[KnuckleCurve]

When is the right time to run Trump when I take the bid, or my partner
takes the bid? Thanks in advance!

[ToreadorElder]

The full answer is too complex.  The short answers:


--declarer leads trump when he wants trump out.  That is:  because he's got a 2nd suit that has extra tricks.  This would be a hand:

HAND 1
 

Declarer can try for 3 or 4 diamond tricks, setting up one or both 10's.  They'll get ruffed, tho, too often...unless declarer works on trump.  So,   then   is plausible.

Switch this to:

HAND 2
 

and there's no real shot at a 3rd trick from diamonds.  If you start with , ,   then you have no likely side-suit tricks...and still a heckuva lot of side-suit losers.  You DON'T want trump out just yet.  Lead a low diamond, in the absence of any other information, to attack the trump suit by forcing ruffs of diamond tricks.  You actually don't even care who ruffs, or which side wins the trick;  your diamonds are losers anyway. 

Another case:  declarer has cashed whatever aces he wanted to cash, then exited.  Both defenders get in, and look to have cashed all their side aces.  At this point, any aces held by declarer/dummy can only get ruffed away...so declarer should recognize that it's time to draw trumps, to avoid this.

--the more trump declarer has (weak OR strong), the more reason there is to get the missing top trumps out

Hand 2 gives a good reason for keeping MY trumps, and trying to use diamonds to remove THEIR trumps.  Change this to:

 

Sweet hand, to be sure.  But those 5 low diamonds are all losers, and it's just not likely that you can do anything about it.  In Hand 2, I'd play as suggested because a)  I don't have great trump length (just average), ergo partner is more likely to have better length, and/or BOTH defenders are likely to have length and maybe I can pull 2 trumps, via ruffing, by leading a low diamond;  b)  I get to lead diamonds 3 times, not just twice.  The timing for using diamonds to attack their trump holding, is better.  Here, it's not all that likely that anyone else has much in the way of trumps, not when I have 9.  And I can only lead diamonds twice, so the tempo is way off.

Soooo....it would be nice to get the lone missing trump ace out, for later on in the hand...I can run trump out completely (I have the top 5 now) if that's indicated.  There's a 1 in 3 chance this will reach my partner, assuming no one melded aces or a spade run, as any of the other 3 hands can have it.  That'd be nice, and nothing else gives me anything better.

--dummy leads trump for...well, pretty much the same reasons.  Either HE wants trump out (he's got a running side suit worth extra tricks beyond just the aces, AND declarer should be able to recognize the situation), OR declarer exited with a trump AND dummy thinks declarer has concealed assets, like Hand 1.  Declarer may exit with a trump because there's nothing any better, say:



My preference would be to cash the 3 red aces off the top.  Then what?  It would be nice to reach dummy;  any red aces he's got, may not hold up if the defense cashes red aces first.  A heart lead is totally out of the question;  declarer does NOT want to be forced to ruff hearts early.  A club lead has very little chance to reach dummy, given that all 4 aces are missing.  In spades and diamonds, only 2 aces are missing, so the pre facto probability of reaching dummy is basically the same.  If a diamond lead doesn't reach partner...it's not constructive.  If a spade lead doesn't reach partner...one can reasonably expect that one of the missing trump aces, which you'll have to extract anyway, is gone now. 

So there's a kind of 'default' trump exit by declarer:  he had nothing better to do.  BUT, I prefer to cash the 3 side aces first.  Note that I said 'declarer exited with a trump AND dummy thinks declarer has concealed assets.'  If declarer cashes those 3 red aces, he *doesn't* have any concealed assets.  Go back to hand 1.  Declarer plays , .  HMMMM...dummy should recognize the potential that declarer has a good side suit.

I actually DON'T lead trump early, as declarer or dummy, without reason.  As dummy, after my side aces, most of the time the only other tricks I can contribute are ruffing tricks.  Do I have a ruffing value...did I start with 2 or 3 cards in a side suit, and preferably that's down to 1 now?  (An original 4 card suit usually doesn't count;  it takes too long.)  I don't want to play trump;  I hope to find declarer with 5-6 cards in my short suit, so my trumps provide tricks, OR force higher trumps from the defenders.  Barring that:  at this point, what I want to do is to get rid of my partner's side-suit losers.  NOT his trumps;  those are (eventual) winners.  I'll re-use hand 2.  Outside trump, declarer has 4 losing diamonds, 3 losing clubs, and 3 losing hearts.  I have, presumably, played off a few of them.  Now, dummy of course doesn't know declarer's side-suit lengths, but there's 2 simple guidelines, and a 3rd occasional one, for picking an exit suit:

i)  How many rounds of that suit have been played?  FEWER is better.
ii)  How many cards do *I* (dummy) have?  Prefer SHORTER suits.
iii)  The occasional one:  remember declarer's meld.  Say declarer melded this:

  

AND, declarer cashed a diamond ace before exiting.  Ergo:  he's probably not sandbagging in diamonds.  OK...well, we KNOW he's got 3 low diamonds.  If you didn't cash any, hey, this is a real good exit suit;  you KNOW it's fairly safe because he's not ruffing a diamond for a while.

The 2 major points are all about helping declarer get rid of the tricks he *has* to lose no matter what, while keeping his trump suit intact as long as possible.

There's more even than this...but hopefully the basic ideas aren't too complicated.  The simplest...and not bad...for declarer:  lead trump when you want trump out.  For dummy:  lead trump when declarer does, and DON'T lead trump if declarer doesn't.  This will take you a surprisingly long way.  But don't take these as absolutes!  These are very general principles, and is subject to the details of any one hand. 

[KnuckleCurve]

Thank you. I have read this over and over. Very helpful, The game is so complex. You gave me a great foundation.

[rakbeater]

This has such great information that I changed the title of the thread from "Trump?" to the current title so members can more easily understand what the topic of this thread is.

[ToreadorElder]

This is perhaps the 3rd major step in improving your results, after reducing the avoidable disasters (bidding when you have NO business doing so) and generally improving your bidding style overall.  And in some ways, this might be the most important step, because declarer-play issues arise quite a bit. 

And declarer play actually feeds the rest of your game.  For bidding, you can start asking, ok, how am I going to play this hand?  If the answer is, "YUCK I really don't want to"...that's a big flashing red neon sign.  You'll recognize, OK, *give* meld if possible, otherwise PASS.  Conversely, if the hand goes, "well I can do this"...perhaps this is the time to be more aggressive.  On defense:  once you're thinking as declarer, you can recognize what an opponent is doing...even if it's really bad.  It's a heckuva lot simpler at that point to consider the countermeasures that will most *mess up* his plan.