A leads a club; Y and B play small clubs. Z, knowing that B holds the second best trump guarded, takes the only chance of saving the game, by winning the first trick in clubs with the ace, and returning the queen. Y, seeing his partner's anxiety to get rid of the lead, rightly conjectures him to hold the major tenace in trumps. He, therefore, wins his partner's queen of clubs with the king, and saves the game.

It being known that the remaining trumps lie between B and Z, Y would be right to win the second round of clubs under all circumstances of the score.

For another illustration of this coup, see Hand XXXIII.

On a similar principle, the leader not infrequently leads a losing plain card, or a losing trump, at the end of a hand, in order to place the lead. For illustrations, see Case II, p. [138], and Hands XVI, XVII, and XXXV.

THE GRAND COUP.

The Grand Coup consists in throwing away a superfluous trump. At the first glance it appears impossible to have a superabundance of trumps; but cases sometimes happen where a player has a trump too many. To get rid of this trump—as by undertrumping a trick already trumped by your partner, or by trumping a trick which he has won, or which you know he may win—is to play the grand coup.

The opportunity for playing the grand coup generally happens in this way. Two rounds of trumps come out, leaving five trumps in, two in the hand of (say) B, and three in the hand of Z (the player to his left). If B has the best and third best trumps, or the second best guarded, and trumps are not led again, nor used for trumping, it is clear that at the eleventh trick Z must obtain the lead, and must lead up to the tenace in trumps. If, before the eleventh trick, Z trumps a trick of his partner's (or, in the case of only seven trumps coming out in two rounds, undertrumps a trick already trumped by his partner), and the lead at the eleventh trick can thus be kept in—or put into—Z's partner's hand, the grand coup comes off, as in the following example:—