Should the queen come from your right in a lead with ace or king, ten or another, pass it; this gives you a ten ace; if your partner have either ace or king, you make three tricks in the suit.
Some players, however, think it best to cover the queen.
It is bad policy to lead up to queen or knave, the contrary with respect to the ace or king; the same may be said with reference to leading through those several cards.
If your partner leads trumps and you have four high trumps, endeavour to make sure of three rounds in that suit; should his lead, however, be a nine, pass it; you will then have the lead after the third round.
When the lead comes from your right hand opponent, play your queen, should you hold ace, queen, and ten.
Independently of Whist being one of the best in-door games that have ever been introduced, it is certainly the finest exercise of memory that, in this form, we could have. Beginners frequently are quite discouraged by their repeated failures, which arise from no other cause than simply the forgetfulness of the player. No one, however, need be disheartened; a knowledge of the game will create in the player such a love for it that he will be anxious to cultivate any deficiency he may have as regards his memory in order that he may become a proficient Whist player, and thus his character as a whole will, no doubt, be benefited by the exercise, because in Whist one great maxim is that no allowances should be made for forgetfulness.
Not beginners only, who have had no confidence in their memory, but many long-established players, have been known, in sorting their cards after the deal, to arrange them in such perfect order that a sharp-sighted adversary with very little difficulty can take a glance at the whole hand.
Even Hoyle, in a plan laid out by him as a kind of aid to the memory, recommends that the trumps should be placed to the left of all the other suits, the best or strongest suit next, and the weakest last on the right hand.
Instead of that, most people find by experience that the best plan is to take up the cards just as they happen to fall, and hold them in the hand without sorting.