While on the subject of heresy, I may as well refer to another lead which has a special orthodoxy of its own. In all suits of four or more, containing no sequence, unless headed by the ace, you either lead the lowest, or, if you wish particularly to exhibit your knowledge of the game, the lowest but one; but from king, knave, ten, &c., you lead the ten, and if your object is a quiet life, you will continue to do so; if you want to make tricks the advantage of the lead is not so clear: if the second player holds ace, queen, &c., or queen and another, you drive him into playing the queen, and so lose a trick, which if you had led your lowest in the usual way, you might not have done.[8]
Against this you have the set off that by leading the ten you insure having the king-card of the suit in the third round, but it is scarcely worth your while to go through so much to get so little; for such a lead pre-supposes your partner to have neither ace, queen, nor nine, and it is two to one that he holds one of them; if your partner’s best card is below the nine, the tricks you will make will be like angels’ visits, few and far between, whatever you lead; and why you should take such a desponding view of an unplayed suit I am not aware. The advantage of opening a suit in which you hold tenace is not so great as to oblige you to handicap it by sending the town-crier round with a bell to proclaim what that tenace is; late in the hand it is often advisable to lead the knave.
With ace and four small cards and a bad hand, when weak in trumps, I have found, from long experience, the ace to be a losing lead, and being distinctly of the impression that for the ordinary purposes of life, 13/4 = 2, as I am not always anxious to proclaim the exact number of my suit, I generally lead a small one.
I am aware that the suit does not always go twice, or even once; but that is the fault of the cards, not of the equation.
Of course, if, for any wise purpose, you feel you must have one trick, take it at the first opportunity, irrespective of Cocker or any other authority.
N.B.—When you, second, third, or fourth player have won the first trick, whatever you may think, you are not the original leader, and your lead then should be guided by your own hand; if it is a bad one you are under no compulsion to open a suit at all, one suit is already open, go on with that; if it also is a bad one, one bad suit is a less evil than two bad suits, or opening a doubtful one in the dark; return through strength up to declared weakness, or if it was your partner who led, why should you show a suit unless you hold a good sequence or strong trumps? Return his suit, yours will be led sometime; whatever you won the trick with, he is in a better position to defend himself as third player than if he had to lead it again himself.
In returning your partner’s lead, if you had originally three, you return the higher of the two remaining cards; in returning through your adversary’s lead, if you hold the third best and another, play the small one, for your partner may hold the second best single and they would fall together.
Whenever you hold a suit with one honour in it, to lead that suit, if you can avoid it, is about the worst use you can make of it. Should you fail to see this, devote ten minutes—not when you are playing whist, but on some wet half-holiday or quiet Sunday afternoon—to thinking the matter over; even if you have a suit of king, queen to three, why not be quiet? If anybody else opens the suit you will probably make two tricks, if you open it yourself, probably one; there is no hurry about it, you can always do that, but why you should go out of your way to lead a suit in which you hold four to the knave or five to the ten is incomprehensible.
It is not generally known (or if it is, it is never acted on, which comes to the same thing) that neither in the ninety-one laws of whist, nor in any of its numerous maxims, are you forbidden to play the third round of a suit, even though the best card is notoriously held by your opponent. It is a common delusion to fancy that when a suit is declared against you, you can prevent it making by leading something else, whereas you merely postpone the evil day, and do mischief in the interval. Many feeble whist-players are unwilling ever to let their opponents make a single trick; now this is unnecessarily greedy; under no circumstances, at short whist, is it imperative to make more than eleven. Allow your adversary to have two, it amuses him and does not hurt you.
“It is less mischievous, generally, to lead a certain losing card, than to open a fresh suit in which you are very weak.”—What to Lead, by Cam.