Getting those Trump Out
Getcher trump out! Okay, there are a lot of reasons for not drawing trump right away and occasionally reasons for not drawing trump at all. And I could probably give you 10 reasons for not drawing trump at your first opportunity, and only one for doing so. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the frequency of putting off drawing trump should be about 10 times as great as jumping to that task rather quickly. I have added this category in the same week that I added finessing, and I can say pretty much the same thing about postponing the drawing of trump as I said about declining a fairly natural finessing position, which is that you should put off drawing trump only for a positive reason. You have a reason that you can articulate to your partner, which isn't the same as saying you must be right, but that you felt it was the better line of play. Otherwise, you'd do well, both for your partner's nerves, as well as your score, to hop to that task quickly.
When I wrote that book for "bright beginners" almost 20 years ago, I had not thought to include a chapter on getting out your trump any more than I had a chapter on finessing. But those two advisories stem from seeing players -- too many players -- butcher contracts by failing to pay heed to them. So I backtracked a little and added these categories.
I don't have a large number of illustrations here as I do in some other categories, but that's not for lack of frequency. For it's a rather common error. Rather, there's not much to say after pointing out that declarer should have drawn trump, as opposed, say, to negotiating a squeeze, how a defender should have known not to cover, or a declarer should have seen the advantage of playing a dummy reversal.
Here are some illustrations: