Experienced players are unanimous in admitting that it is an advantage to inform your partner of strength in your own suits, though some advise concealment of strength in suits in which the adversaries have shown strength. Thus, with ace, king, second hand, the usual play is to put on the king. The third hand does not win the king, and hence the leader is able to infer that the ace of his strong suit is against him. But, if you put on the ace second hand, you prevent the leader from discovering where the king of his suit lies. It is, however, found that two honours in the adversary's suit constitute sufficient strength to make it advantageous in the long run to proclaim your force; while, with less strength, it is not easy to mystify the opponents prejudicially; so that, on the whole, it seldom happens that a balance of gain results from the adoption of deceptive play.
Occasionally, however, a false card may be played with a special object. For instance: ace is turned up to your right, and, when the dealer gets in, he leads a small trump. If you, second hand, have king, queen only, you would be justified in playing the king, in hopes of inducing the trump leader to finesse on the return of the suit. Or, take this case: your left-hand adversary leads originally the five of his strong suit, from king, ten, seven, five. Your partner plays the six; third hand plays ace. You, holding queen, knave, nine, eight, four, three, play the three. Your right-hand opponent now leads trumps; all the trumps come out. The player to your right next returns the deuce of his partner's suit. The original lead being from a four-card suit, king, ten, seven, remain in the leader's hand. If you play knave, the original leader will place queen in your hand, and will hesitate to go on with the suit. But, if you play queen, he will put knave and at least one small one in his partner's hand. Then if, under this impression, he continues the suit, you bring it in.
It is in most cases unquestionably disadvantageous to you that the whole table should be aware of your being very weak in a particular suit, and, consequently, information of weakness should be withheld as long as possible. If you are led up to fourth hand in such a suit, or if your partner opens the suit with a small card, of course the disclosure is inevitable; but until one of these events happens your poverty can generally be kept out of sight. It may happen that you are occasionally forced to lead a weak suit yourself; and in this event the least disadvantage, on the whole, is to tell the truth at once, by first leading the highest of it. Your partner apprised of the state of your hand, by the fall of your smaller card in the subsequent round, will probably deem it prudent to strive by defensive tactics to avert total defeat in that suit, rather than to contend single-handed against the combined strength of the opponents. But, at critical points of the game, it is often right to conceal weakness. Thus, towards the end of a hand, it is necessary that your partner should make a couple of tricks in an unopened suit, of which you hold two or three little cards. You should lead the lowest. If you lead the highest, the adversaries will suspect your weakness at once, and will be sure of it on the second round. Their efforts will then be directed to preventing your partner from making the required tricks in that suit. Your left-hand adversary will not finesse; and if your partner is led through, your right-hand adversary merely covers, or plays the lowest card he has, higher than the one you first led.
When your partner has exhibited weakness in one or more suits, you would frequently be justified in playing a false card. You are driven to rely solely on yourself, and are entitled to adopt every artifice your ingenuity can suggest in order to perplex the other side. The consideration that you may mislead your partner will no longer influence you, as you know him to be powerless for good or for evil.
You inform your partner by following the recognised practice of the game, as by leading from your strong suit originally, by leading the highest of a sequence, by following suit with the lowest of a sequence, and so forth. If you adhere to this you will soon acquire a reputation for playing a straightforward intelligible game; and this character alone will counterbalance the disadvantage which will sometimes attach to the fact that you have enabled the adversaries to read your hand. If your partner knows that you play at random and without method, he will be in a state of constant uncertainty; and you almost preclude him from executing any of the finer strokes of play, the opportunities for which generally arise from being able to infer with confidence the position of particular cards. The extreme case of two skilled players against two unskilled ones amounts almost to this, that towards the close of a hand the former have the same advantage as though they had seen each other's cards, while the latter have not.
It follows that when you are unfortunately tied to an untaught partner, especially if at the same time you are pitted against observant adversaries, you should expose your hand as little as possible, particularly in respect of minor details.
It will become apparent, on consideration, that the question of the advisability of affording information is more or less intimately connected with every card that is played. It is, therefore, of extreme importance to ascertain whether the practice is advantageous or the reverse. The arguments just adduced are doubtless in favour of the practice of affording information by the play; but it must be admitted that by far the strongest authority for it is that experienced players, by their settled opinions, reject the opposite course.
The instructed player frequently selects one card in preference to another with the sole object of affording information. When the principle is carried thus far, the play becomes purely conventional. For example: you naturally win a trick as cheaply as possible; if, fourth hand, you could win with a ten, you would not waste an ace. But suppose you hold knave and ten, which card should then be played? The knave and ten in one hand are of equal value, and therefore to win with the knave would be no unnecessary sacrifice of strength. Nevertheless, you extend to such cases the rule of winning as cheaply as possible, and you play the ten for the mere purpose of conveying information. This is a simple instance of pure convention. Again: the system of returning the higher of two losing cards (see p. [80]) when they are both small cards, is purely conventional. To take another case: after two rounds of your four-card suit, you are left with two losing cards, say the six and the seven, and you, having the lead, are about to continue the suit; you should lead the six, not the seven, in accordance with the rule that you lead the lowest card of a suit, except with commanding strength. This being the convention, if you lead the seven, your partner will infer that you cannot hold the six, and will suppose that you led from a three-card suit, in consequence of exceptional circumstances; if he is a good player he will miscount all the hands, probably to your mutual discomfiture.
Whist conventions, it will be observed, are in accordance with, and are suggested by, principle. Indeed, all the established conventions of the game are so chosen as to harmonise with play that would naturally be adopted independently of convention. The aggregation of the recognised rules of play, including the established conventions, constitute what in practice is called the Conversation of the Game of Whist.
It must not be overlooked that unsound players often deceive unintentionally, and all players sometimes with intention. It is, therefore, necessary to be on your guard against drawing inferences too rigidly.