DAILY BRIDGE CLUB

“Simple Saturday” columns are meant to help aspiring players with technique and logical thinking.

Beginning players are exhorted to draw trumps, lest the defenders use theirs evilly. But there are a dozen good reasons to wait; declarer may have something he must attend to first.

In today’s deal, West leads the ten of diamonds against four hearts. Suppose South wins with the ace and hastens to lead a trump. West plays low, and East takes the king and returns a diamond. Declarer wins, but when he leads a second trump, West takes the ace, leads a spade to East and ruffs the diamond return. Down one.

South must foresee the impending ruff.

He must wait to start the trumps and instead lead a spade to dummy’s king at Trick Two. East takes the ace and returns a diamond, but South can win in dummy and discard his last diamond on the queen of spades. He can then start the trumps safely.

Don’t draw trumps if you see a reason to wait. If you don’t see one, look again. DAILY QUESTION You hold: S K Q 6 H Q 8 6 2 D K 6 5 2 C K Q. North in today’s deal opened one diamond with this hand. Do you agree with that action?

ANSWER: Many pairs use a range of 15 to 17 points for a 1NT opening bid, especially at matchpoint duplicate, but this hand doesn’t look worth 15 points to me. It contains no aces, no intermediate spot cards to give it “body,” and a K-Q of clubs that are stuck in a short suit. I can sympathize with opening one diamond.