When your combined hands contain fewer than seven trumps, the balance of strength is with the adversaries, and, in this case, unless your trumps or side suits are exceptionally strong, avoid the trump lead.
With but six trumps and an established suit against you, it would be dangerous to lead trumps. One adversary must hold at least four trumps, and it may be that all the remaining trumps are in one hand. The trump lead would only help the adversaries to make their suit.
When the commanding trump is against you, endeavour to discard your losing suit cards from one hand on winning ones in the other before you give up the lead.
UNBLOCKING THE TRUMP SUIT
As dealer, be careful to lead your trumps in such a manner that you will not find it impossible to continue the lead. The simplest method of unblocking the trump suit is to lead or play the high trumps from the shorter hand.
Occasionally to avoid blocking the suit, it will be necessary to “ruff” with a high instead of a lower trump. For instance, with ace and ten of trumps in dummy and king, queen, jack, nine and eight in your own hand, if you “ruff” with dummy’s ten, you will block the trump suit; even a temporary discontinuance of the trump lead may result in loss.
When you lead the queen toward the ace, holding the ace, jack, ten, nine, seven in one hand and queen, eight, four in the other, you must provide for the possible necessity for leading three times through the king by playing the nine of trumps on the queen lead. A careless play of the seven may make it impossible to capture the adversary’s king.
NOT FORCING YOUR STRONG TRUMP HAND
The greatest weakness and the most expensive fault in the beginner’s game is his predilection for trumping in the strong trump hand. When trumps are hopelessly against you, it may be necessary to make what you can by ruffing, but with the advantage of the make, you are seldom compelled to play a defensive game. When you needlessly force your strong hand to trump, you reduce your power to exhaust the adversaries’ trumps, to establish your suit, and to be left with the last trump—which is, par excellence, the dealer’s game.
To trump in the weak hand is always advisable, nor can any objection be raised to a “cross-ruff,” but force your strong hand only as a last resource.