The act of playing successive rounds of trumps in order to remove the opponents’ trumps. The objective is to stop the opponents from ruffing your winners. Popular folklore says that players who fail to draw trumps end up walking barefoot along the Embankment. The truth is that there are almost as many hands on which you need to do something else before drawing trumps, such as taking ruffs in dummy or setting up a long suit.
You are South, playing in spades, and receive a heart lead to your ace.
On the layout above, you should draw trumps and run the diamonds. Drawing trumps is essential to stop someone from ruffing one of your diamond winners.
On this layout, you should not draw trumps. Instead, you start by ruffing a heart, returning to the ♦K and ruffing a second heart. You cannot afford to draw trumps because you need two of dummy’s trumps for ruffing.