penultimate, or lowest card but one of a five suit. If this original leader had led the lowest card his partner could not have obtained the information described above.
To lead, therefore, the correct card, according to the number and strength of a suit, is one of the first and most important items connected with Whist.
In the most modern game of Whist the number of conventional leads has been considerably increased; and, although only a few of the more advanced players practise these at the present time, those who do so must be reckoned with. It is, therefore, necessary for a player to ascertain the amount of knowledge of the game possessed and practised by his partner, otherwise he may be giving information as to the cards in his hand which his partner fails to comprehend, but which is at once understood by the adversaries.
If the chance be offered, the game of the players who are playing should be watched, so as to ascertain whether they are modern or old-fashioned players. This fact can be discovered by noting the cards they lead. When joining a rubber with strangers, it is uncertain what style of game they play, and the first hand is played under great disadvantage. After two or three hands have been played, a partner's strength or weakness ought to be correctly estimated.
If you find that your partner does not understand the scientific game, it is worse than useless to attempt to play first-class Whist with him. He fails to perceive the information you give him, or draws erroneous conclusions from such information, and does the very thing he ought not to do. With a bad partner and
strong adversaries, it is more likely that success will be gained by playing incorrect cards than by playing those which, with a good partner, would have been played.
Having thus, we hope, established the importance of the lead, we proceed to discuss the subject in detail.
Leads.
In selecting a card for a first and original lead, this card should be from the longest suit as a rule. Numerical strength is the kind of strength which is most to be considered. Thus a suit of five, though headed by a ten, is a better suit than one containing ace, king, and one small card. When a suit is headed by high court cards, the leads are different from those which should be adopted when the highest card in the suit is a ten or a single court card (not the ace). In the case of a long suit not headed by the ace, and with only one court card, the lead should be the fourth best card of the suit, that is, the fourth card counting from the top downwards.
When the suit from which a lead has to be selected is of three cards only, the highest card of this suit should be led, unless such highest card be ace, king, or queen; then lead the smallest. It frequently happens that the leader holds four small trumps, and an honour, say king or ace, has been turned up to his right. The original leader cannot lead from his numerically strongest suit, which is trumps, up to this honour; he must therefore open a weak suit, and he should select that in which he is strongest.