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                Chapter 
                9 Drawing Trumps: All, Some, or 
                None 
                © 2004 - Marty Bergen 
 
                Page 95Drawing Trumps: All, Some, or 
                None
 When in Doubt – 
                Don’t  Perhaps the most 
                popular bridge misconception is: "In a suit contract, declarer 
                should immediately draw trumps." Why do so many believe this? Is 
                it because:  
                  
                  They can’t forget 
                  the contract that was lost when they didn’t draw trumps – and 
                  a defender trumped one of their winning tricks. 
                  Their friends 
                  taught them that the first thing to do is "get the kiddies off 
                  the street." 
                  Their first 
                  bridge teacher gave them very easy hands, in which they didn’t 
                  have to do anything, except draw trumps and take their 
                  tricks.  Is this correct? No 
                way! The truth is: it 
                is usually wrong to draw trumps ASAP. 
                In 
                fact, I would estimate that declarer should draw trumps first 
                only 40% of the time. It would be absurd 
                to say that drawing trumps first is never correct. However, 
                there are many reasons to postpone pulling trump. Here are a 
                few:  
                  
                  You need to ruff 
                  losers in dummy. 
                  You must preserve 
                  trump entries in order to develop a long suit or set up an 
                  endplay. 
                  You are eager to 
                  set up a side suit on which you will discard losers.  
                © 2004 - Marty Bergen 
 
                
                Chapter 10 :Timing 
                Is Everything ...................................
                103 
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