The second player plays the three; I play the queen; fourth player plays the six.
What do these cards mean?
My right adversary is not asking for trumps, because asking for trumps is playing an unnecessarily high card (as will be fully explained further on); and the two of spades being in my own hand, the three is the next lowest card. The three may be a single card, but single cards are the exception oftener than the rule.
Having won with the queen, I return the ace of spades. The second player plays the eight, my partner plays the four, and the fourth player plays the ten.
By these two rounds of spades I have obtained a considerable amount of information. My partner led the seven, and his four dropped to my ace on the second round. He therefore led the penultimate of a five suit; and he holds three more spades which I can name—that is, the king, knave, and nine. Neither of the adversaries holds another spade, because, as there are two more in my hand, three more in my partner's, and eight spades played, the thirteen of the suit are accounted for. To lead another spade, therefore, would be folly, as one adversary would make a small trump, and the other would discard a worthless card of another suit.
My partner also would know that—as the eight was played by one adversary, and the ten by the other, whilst he held king, knave, and nine—the two other spades were in my hand.
When, then, my partner obtained the lead, he would avoid playing his king of spades, unless all the trumps were out, or he wished to force out the best trump.
A bad player distinguishes himself by not noticing such details as those given above, and then, by jumping at erroneous conclusions, comes to utter grief. A bad player would not perceive why a third round of spades was not led by his partner, and would almost to a certainty imagine that it must be because his partner held no more. At the very first opportunity, therefore, he would lead his king of spades, and then discover that the second player trumped with the two, and the fourth player discarded from another suit.
Now, how was this information obtained? It was obtained by the original leader starting from a