At times the information that you give your partner may benefit the dealer by enabling him to mark the distribution of a suit, but more often is it of greater value to your partner. The dealer knows from the start the exact cards that are held against him; while your partner needs all the information you can give to combine with you in defending the dealer’s attack.
There are players who claim that you should not lead the fourth best card against a trump declaration, asserting that the information it gives may benefit the dealer, and that, should a card lower than the one led be played, your partner may think it a short lead. These players make the distinction of leading their lowest card against a declared trump, and the fourth best only against a “no-trump” declaration. This may appeal to those who neither count cards nor apply the useful Eleven Rule, but it does not satisfy the clever player, who wishes to count his partner’s suit, and to determine the exact combination of cards it contains.
If you deprive your partner of the information to which he is entitled, you rob Bridge of much of its intellectual pleasure. How can he know when the weak hand can “ruff” your suit? How can he tell whether a lead will force the strong hand or give it a discard? How can he count your hand or the dealer’s? How can he make correct end plays without knowing the position of the cards?
Without this help to partnership play you are in no position to combat the dealer. It is not difficult to win tricks from adversaries who neither give, nor make use of information.
HOW TO DRAW INFERENCES
Bridge is in this respect a much easier game than Whist. In Bridge the declaration and the exposed dummy hand, both absent in Whist, lend enormous assistance in locating the cards.
The beginner invariably becomes interested in his own cards, or those of the dummy, and plays without paying any particular attention to the card that is led or to the one that wins the first trick; in other words he knows nothing about the location of the cards in that particular suit, and his disregard of the fall of the cards continues throughout the entire hand.
A notice which nothing escapes, the ability to count cards, and absolute confidence in your partner’s play, is the sine qua non of correct inferences.
Notice particularly the card that your partner leads; if it be a high card, understand what it indicates; and, if it be a low card, ascertain whether it is led from a long or a short suit.
Watch the cards as they fall, the adversaries’ as well as your partner’s, with unceasing attention, and make a mental interpretation of each play, with due allowance for the dealer’s false cards.