able to form some idea of the style of game you ought to play before a single card is led. Remember that an average hand contains four court cards, of honours, one in each suit. If these four court cards be four knaves, the hand is below the average; if four kings, or two kings, two queens, and a knave, it is about the average.
When the hand has been sorted, and the adversary's score his been examined, a player can estimate his chances (or the certainty) of saving the game. If the adversaries have nothing scored towards the game, and you hold ace, king, queen of trumps, you know that you must win three tricks, and nothing but a revoke can lose you the game. A bolder game may then be attempted than would be advisable if you had not the saving of the game in your own hand. It is always desirable to make certain of saving the game before you attempt to win it. We frequently hear rash players remark, "I never dreamed it possible that we could lose the game; if I had thought so I could have easily saved it." The safer plan is to always think it possible to lose the game, unless you have the saving of it in your own hand.
Although it is correct play to lead from the longest numerical suit, especially when strong in trumps, it is most detrimental to continue to do so when very weak in trumps, and when you have found, by the card your partner has played third in hand, that he has no winning or protecting card in that suit. It frequently happens, if this lead be repeated, that one adversary holds the winning cards of the suit; the other falls short, and is consequently able to get rid of worthless cards on his partner's winning cards.
As we have already had occasion to remark, and
the fact should be persistently borne in mind, the great object at Whist is to win tricks. Many inexperienced players, who have superficially learnt certain rules, seem to imagine that it is better to refuse to win tricks in order to convey information to a partner, or to deceive one or both of the adversaries. This proceeding is most commonly adopted when the unskilled player holds four small trumps, and is not provided with a long suit, and believes it to be good play to decline to trump a doubtful card second in hand. With four small trumps, it is more than probable that not one of these will win a trick except by trumping. To refuse to trump a doubtful card indicates strength in trumps, and this strength ought not to be less than five trumps, with or without an honour or honours, or four trumps with two honours.
Unblocking.
One of the most important results of the modern system of leading is that a player may know when to unblock his partner's suit; that is, to avoid being left with the winning card of a suit of which his partner holds the remainder. The disasters that may result from not unblocking are of frequent occurrence with those players who either do not know the leads, or are incompetent to grasp the situation. The following is a simple example:—
Y holds the ace, knave, 3 of clubs, and four losing cards in spades and hearts. Z (Y's partner) has extracted all the trumps (diamonds), and leads the king of clubs; A follows suit with the 2, Y plays the 3, B plays the 5.
Z then leads the 4 of clubs; A plays the 9. Z,
knowing from his partner's lead that the latter has the queen of clubs, ought to perceive at once that, as regards winning the trick, his ace and knave are equal cards; but that the former may obstruct Y's other clubs, whereas the latter cannot. If Z mechanically plays his lower card (perhaps being even deluded by the belief that he is "finessing"!), he has successfully blocked his partner's suit; because, when he has played out his ace, he must lead another suit, and his partner, who had king, queen, 10, 8, 4 of clubs, and two small hearts, can never get in again to make his two remaining clubs. If Y had won the second round of clubs with his ace, and returned the knave, Z would have taken the knave with his queen, and would then have won tricks with his ten and four. Consequently, Y and Z would have won five tricks in clubs, instead of only three; Y therefore, by not unblocking his partner's suit, lost two tricks in that one hand.