One of the great difficulties which players only partially acquainted with the game experience, is when to trump or not to trump a doubtful card.
It has been laid down as a law not to trump a doubtful card if strong in trumps, and many players will never trump a doubtful card if they hold only four small trumps, as they seem to consider such a hand is strong.
It must be remembered that refusing to trump a doubtful card is in reality declining to make certain of a trick, in exchange for a possibility that one's partner may hold the winning card of the suit. If { 207} the adversary hold the winning card, then a trick has been actually lost by declining to trump. How, then, can the loss of this trick be recovered? It may be recovered if the player who refused to trump is able to extract the adversaries' trumps, and bring in one or more cards of a long suit, a proceeding which he would have been unable to accomplish had he trumped the doubtful card. Also, the player who refused to trump may get rid of a worthless card of some other suit, which he may then be able to trump should the winning card of that suit be against him.
When, however, no card that is worthless can be thrown away, and when strength in trumps has been indicated against him, a player can with advantage trump a doubtful card, even though he hold four trumps, one of which is an honour.
Another important item in connection with trumping a doubtful card is whether one desires the lead, or does not wish for it. If the lead would be disadvantageous, then the doubtful card should _not_ be trumped, and _vice versâ_.
When one's partner has either led or has called for trumps, then the doubtful card should be trumped without hesitation, and the best trump led to the partner's call or lead of trumps.
One very common and oft-repeated error of the bad player is to refuse to trump a winning card merely because he holds four trumps with one honour. He will refuse to trump more than once, and imagines he is playing a strong winning game by discarding one or more worthless cards of a short suit, which he believes he will be able to trump when this suit is led. { 208}
With a hand of trumps not sufficiently strong to make certain of extracting all the trumps and remaining with the lead, it is advisable to consider how many tricks are likely to be won by the trumps in one's own hand. For example, the trumps held are queen, nine, four, and two. It is not likely that more than one trump will make a trick, and possibly not one. We have the chance of trumping a doubtful card, and we refuse to make even one of our trumps, and throw away a certain trick if our partner does not hold the winning card of that suit. If our partner does hold the winning card of the suit, he may not be obliged to play it on our trump; and it is no severe loss to make one trump out of four, even if the partner does hold the winning card.