the card to follow the King is the six, if the King wins the first trick.
The Fourth-best. From any combination of cards, if you have not the best, or both the second and third-best, in your hand for the second round, lead your original fourth-best. From all the following, the proper lead on the second round would be the fourth-best, in each case the four of the suit:
Leading Trumps. A trump lead is sometimes adopted when all the plain suits are bad ones to lead away from, such as A Q, or A J, or K J in each and no length. If a player holds high cards which are not in sequence, such as the major tenace, ace and queen, it is very probable that the declarer holds the king. By refusing to lead such suits, and waiting for them to come up to the tenace, the declarer’s high card may be caught and a valuable trick saved. When a good player opens his hand with a trump, right up to the declaration, his partner should lead his best supporting cards boldly up to dummy’s weak suits.
The Pone’s Leads. When the pone gets into the lead, if he does not return his partner’s suit, he should open his own suits according to the rules already given for all the high-card combinations. If he has no high-card combination, it is usually better for him to lead some card that will beat Dummy than to lead his fourth-best. Suppose he wishes to lead a diamond, in which he holds Q 10 8 4 3; Dummy having the 9 and 6 only. It is better to lead the ten of diamonds than the fourth-best, because if the declarer does not follow with an honour, your partner will not have to sacrifice an honour to keep Dummy from winning the trick with the 9.
After the opening lead, when Dummy’s cards are exposed, the knowledge of his cards may change the aspect of the game greatly; but the proper cards to lead to and through Dummy will be better understood in connection with the play against no-trumpers.
No-trump Leads. The chief difference in the leads against no-trumpers is, that there is no hurry to make your aces and kings, the chief thing being to make some of the smaller cards good for tricks. When you are long in a suit, if you lead out the winning cards first, your partner may have none to lead you later on, and if you cannot make every trick in the suit before you lose the lead, you may never make anything but your one or two high cards.
The difference in the leads at no-trump is covered by a very simple rule; if you have only two honours in sequence, do not lead either of them, but begin with the fourth-best, even if your honours are the Ace and King. But if you have three honours in the suit, two of them in sequence, always lead an honour against a no-trumper.
The exception to this rule is, that when you are so long in the suit that you may catch some high cards with your high cards, you lead them first. With six or seven in suit to the A K, for instance, lead the King, on the chance of dropping the Queen. With seven in suit headed by the Ace, lead the Ace, but never with less than seven without the King. With six in suit, you may lead the King from K Q, without either Jack or 10; but with less than six in suit never lead the King from K Q unless you have the 10 or the J also.
THIRD HAND PLAY. The leader’s partner must do his best to inform his partner as to the distribution of his suit. The method of doing this is entirely different when there is a trump from that which is adopted when there is no trump. In the first case, all your partner wants to know is, who is going to trump his suit if he goes on with it. In the second case, what he wants to know is his chance for getting his suit cleared or established.