Should You Draw All The Trumps?

It’s tempting for declarer to draw all the trumps when on lead, but is this always the best approach?

Imagine this is declarer’s combined holding (with dummy) in trumps:

Drawing Trumps in Bridge

Once declarer gets on lead, s/he will usually play A & K hoping that trumps have broken 2-2 and that two rounds will draw all the outstanding trumps.

Statistically, it is more likely that there will be a 3-1 split.  Playing K & A will then draw 3 of the outstanding trumps, leaving the Q still with the opponents.

Should you play a third round of trumps to draw the outstanding one if it’s a winner?  Usually, it will be better to switch to playing on the side suits.  This leaves declarer with the possibility of using the 2 trumps in dummy for ruffing or perhaps for setting up a suit to discard losers.

At some stage the opponents will use their winning trump, but leaving it outstanding may allow declarer to make better use of their remaining trumps.