When you obtain the lead after one or more tricks have been played, the question arises whether or not you should open a fresh suit.If you have had the lead before, it is generally advisable to pursue your original lead, for you thus take the best chance of establishing the suit, and you open a fresh suit to a disadvantage.
The fall of the cards in the previous rounds may cause you to alter your game. Thus, the previous play may have already established your suit, or may have so nearly established it as to justify you inleading trumps, as hereafter explained; or your partner may have shown a very strong suit, or a strong trump hand, which may modify your game. Again, your partner may prove utterly weak in your suit; you would then often discontinue it, unless holding the winning cards or a strong sequence, because, with these exceptions, your continuing it gives the adversary the opportunity of finessing against you, and of cutting up your suit; or you may sometimes discontinue a suit if you expect it will be trumped (as will be further explained in Sections 13-16); but, failing such indications, it is best, as a rule, to pursue the original lead.
If you have not had the lead before, it is in most cases advisable to open your strong suit, when you possessgreatstrength in any suit, for you open such suit to advantage; but with weak or only moderately strong suits, which you open to a disadvantage, you would, as a rule, do better to return your partner's original lead, or to lead up to the weak suit of your right-hand adversary, or through the strong suit of your left-hand adversary. When in doubt as to opening your own suit or returning your partner's, you should, as a general rule, be guided by your strength in trumps. With a strong trump hand play your own game; with a weak trump hand play your partner's game.
If your partner has had a lead, and you are thoroughly conversant with the system of leading developed in Sections 2 and 3, and with the Analysis of Leads (pp.64-71), you know by the value of thecard he has led whether he is strong or weak in that suit, unless he has led an equivocal card, which is led from both strong and weak suits. In this case, if you have no evidence from your own hand, or from the fall of the cards, you presume, with a good partner, that he has led from strength. But you mostly have some evidence; for instance, if he leads a ten originally, he has led from king, queen, knave, ten; from king, knave, ten; or the highest of his suit. If you hold—or either adversary plays—king or knave, you know that your partner has led the highest of his suit. But, in the absence of these cards, and especially if the ten wins the first round, or falls to the ace or queen, you may conclude that your partner's lead was from strength, and you would do perfectly right to return it.
When you have won the first trick in your partner's lead cheaply, you must be cautious in returning it, as the strength must be between your partner and your right-hand adversary. For example, say A, Y, B, Z, are the four players, and that they sit in this order round the table, so that A leads and Z is last player. If A leads a small card of a plain suit, Y plays a small one, and B (third player) puts on his best card, the queen, which wins the trick, it is clear that Z can have neither ace nor king; A cannot have them both, or he would have led one, therefore Y must have one of them at least; and, if B returns the lead, he leads up to Y's strength, and may cut up his partner's suit.
By observing the card led by either adversary, you can similarly tell whether he has led from strength orweakness; so also you can judge from the card played third hand by the adversary whether he is weak, it being presumed that the third player puts on his best. It is advantageous to lead up to a weak suit, because you compel the second hand to put on a high card, or give your partner the opportunity of finessing. It is generally less advantageous to lead through a strong suit, unless you are sure that the second hand is notverystrong, and that the fourth hand is weak. Otherwise, by continuing the suit, you may be establishing it for the adversary, and getting rid of the command of it from your partner's hand.
In discussing leads from weak suits it was supposed, for the sake of convenience, that the leader had no indication from the play to guide him. But in practice, in by far the greater number of cases, weak suits are opened late in a hand when inference from previous play has given an insight into the strength or weakness of the several players. Thus, you commence with your strong suit; your partner fails to show any strength in it. After several other tricks are played you get the lead again, remaining with (say) king and two others of your first lead. You do not wish to take one of the guards from your king, and you do not deem it advisable to lead a card which your partner may be obliged to trump. You therefore try another suit. By this time you know, either by the adversaries' leads what their strong suits are, or by the players' discards (i.e., by the cards they throw away when not able to follow suit,) whattheir weak suits are, as will be explained under discarding. Guided by these indications, you make choice of a suit for your second lead in which your partner is probably strong, and under such circumstances you would, as a rule, lead the highest of the suit of your second choosing, if numerically weak in it.
When you have led a strengthening card, and it wins the trick, you can rarely do better than continue with your next highest. For example: from queen, knave, and three you lead the queen, which goes round. It hardly requires to be stated that you make the best use of your suit by continuing with the knave. When your strengthening card does not win, the course of the play is the only guide as to whether you should continue the suit. The application of the considerations advanced in this Section will generally inform you where the strong and weak suits lie, and you will act accordingly, giving your partner his strong suit, or, if he has not shown one, leading up to the weak suit of the right-hand adversary, or through the strong suit of the left-hand adversary.
It has several times been assumed that it is advantageous to have the lead at advanced periods of a hand; we now see one principal reason why it is so. The leader knows by observation where the strong and the weak suits lie, and he will generally be able to make use of this knowledge in assisting his partner, or in obstructing his opponents.
The principles explained in the preceding pages apply mainly to the original lead, or to leads early in a hand. They apply also to leads generally; but, at advanced periods of the hand, and towards its close, their application is frequently modified by inferences from the previous play, and by the state of the score. Examples of departure from the rules here laid down will be presented in the illustrative hands.
In the second round of a suit—