HIGH CARD LED FOLLOWED BY LOW CARD.
When you open a strong suit with a HIGH CARD, and next lead a LOW CARD, lead your ORIGINAL FOURTH-BEST.
When ace is led from ace and four or more small cards, after leading the ace, lead the original fourth-best, i.e., the card you would have led if opening with a small card. Thus, in trumps, with ace, knave, nine, eight, seven, an advanced player would begin the eight. In plain suits, the ace would be first led. The second lead of an American Leader would be the eight, the original fourth-best, and not the seven.
By following this method, you inform your partner that you invariably remain with exactly two cards higher than the second card led, as shown by the following tabulated example:—
| Lead | Then | ||
| From Ace, | Knv, 9, | 8, | 7 |
| " Ace, | Knv, 9, | 8, | 7, 5 |
| " Ace, | Knv, 9, | 8, | 7, 5, 3 |
| " Ace, | Knv, 9, | 8, | &c., &c., &c. |
By leading in this way you not infrequently tell your partner what your remaining high cards are. Thus, with the above combination, if king, queen come out on the second round, and your partner holds the ten, he knows to a certainty that you command the suit, a fact about which he would have been in doubt had you continued with the lowest.
The same rule, when a high card is followed by a low card, applies to king led from king, queen, and small ones, when the king wins the trick; and to ten, led from king, knave, ten and one or more small ones, when the ten wins the trick. These are all the possible cases. With king, knave, ten, nine, if the nine wins the first trick, the leader goes on with a high card.
HIGH CARD LED FOLLOWED BY HIGH CARD.
When you remain with TWO HIGH INDIFFERENT CARDS, lead the HIGHER if you opened a SUIT OF FOUR; THE LOWER if you opened a SUIT OF FIVE or more. (See Analysis of Leads in Detail, p. [64]).