The discard from weakness is of no material help to your partner in discarding, as you may hold a high honour in your weak suit, while with the strength discard, your partner, when he is forced to protect his hand, does not fear to unguard honours in your suit.
If you were to play a hundred deals of “no-trump” hands, making the first discard from the weak suit, and then replay the hands making the first discard from strength, the result would be overwhelmingly in favour of the strength discard. It is impossible to make the first discard from weakness uniformly without unguarding honours in the adversaries’ suits, and only the novice attempts to do so.
To say that one should always make the discard from weakness or from strength is wrong both in theory and in practise. No hard-and-fast rule can be followed without loss. With confidence that an intelligent partner will read your discards, you can allow common sense and reason to dictate the occasions to deviate from the rule.
You should aim first, to protect your hand; second, to give your partner information; and, third, to keep your long suit. In the majority of hands, it is immaterial whether you discard from strength or from weakness, but in those which show a difference, the strength discard does not in any hand lose more than one trick, while the loss occasioned by the discard from weakness varies from one to four tricks in a hand.
If you use the strength discard and find it advisable in any particular hand to throw away your weak suit, you can always do so by using the reverse discard. This is also true when the weak discard is used, but, unfortunately, in the latter case, two cards from your strong suit must be thrown away.
No matter what system of discarding you may use, occasionally a trick will be lost, but after an analysis of over ten thousand deals the writer is of the firm opinion that the discard from strength at “no-trump” will lose less than the discard from weakness.
HINTS ON DISCARDING
If three suits have been led or shown, do not attempt to discard from strength. You question your partner’s intelligence. If your only four-card suit contains but one honour, do not indicate strength unless you are particularly desirous of having that suit led to you.
When you have no suit that you are anxious to show, discard from the suit led originally by your partner, or even, when it is obviously established, from the adversary’s suit. This implies that you have no strength to indicate, but you are protecting your hand.
It is bad policy to discard all the cards of one suit, as it betrays any strength your partner may hold.