It is not invariably necessary that you open a short suit and play for a ruff. It does seem to be a common impulse. There appears to exist a desire on the part of most who play bridge to do something with trumps, and players are always eager to begin their employment, hoping to see Aces and Kings go by the board. Your short suit lead may establish that suit for your opponent, and bring disaster through an effort to make a small trump trick; while, on the other hand, the lead of your long suit may force and so weaken the dealer’s trump hand as to make it impossible for him to take out the trumps against him.
Tricks are lost by players not showing the correct numerical strength of their long suit. A player who leads the deuce from a six card suit assuredly would not have done so had he confidence in the ability of his partner to read or count his hand.
Frequently the under card of a sequence is led, or the highest card of a sequence is played second or third in hand, and repeatedly that has cost a trick or two because it conveyed misinformation.
One who continually leads the top of long, weak suits against a declared trump, gives misinformation and often leads his partner to believe that he is opening a short suit, and frequently a trick or two is lost by the dealer obtaining discards.
The player who continually refuses to part with the best trump should bear in mind that ruffing with the commanding trump rarely loses a trick, and often gains one.
Remember that the partner who doubles usually has trump strength, and so do not strew his pathway with obstructions by forcing him when it is most fatal to his chances.
There is one type of partner who is particularly trying. He is that persistent individual who, having acquired the notion of establishing his long suit at “No-Trump” keeps at it with a bland faith that would be amusing were it not so vexing. With little or no chance of ever getting in, he sacrifices the only hope of saving the game by refusing to switch off and see what his partner has got.
Think, too, how your partner must feel when marked with a card of your established suit, and in the lead, he witnesses a discard on your part of one of your good suit, and is met with the feeble apology that you had a “King or Queen to protect.”