Declarations to the Score.—When one’s score is over twenty, club declarations should be made more frequently by the dealer. Spades should be declared with six at the score of twenty-six and with five at twenty-eight. When much behind in the score a risky no-trumper such as one with an established suit of seven or eight cards without a card of entry, may be declared.
Declaring to the score is often overdone; an ordinary weak no-trump declaration carries with it small chances of three by tricks unless dummy holds a no-trump hand.
Doubling.—Practically the leader only doubles a no-trump declaration when he holds what is probably an established suit of seven cards or a suit which can be established with the loss of one trick and he has good cards of re-entry. Seven cards of a suit including the ace, king and queen make sound double without any other card of value in the hand, or six cards including king, queen and knave with two aces in other suits.
Doubling by the third hand is universally understood to mean that the player has a very strong suit which he can establish. In response to the double his partner, according to different conventions, leads either a heart or his own shortest suit as the one most likely to be the third player’s strongest. Under the short suit convention, if the doubler holds six of a suit headed by the ace, king and queen, it is about an even chance that his suit will be selected; he should not double with less strength. Under the heart convention it is not necessary to have such great strength; with a strong suit of six hearts and good cards of re-entry, enough tricks will be saved to compensate for the doubled value. A player should ascertain the convention followed before beginning to play.
Before doubling a suit declaration a player should feel almost certain that he is as strong as the declarer. The minimum strength to justify the declaration is generally five trumps, but it may have been made on six. If, then, a player holds six trumps with an average hand as regards the rank of his cards, or five trumps with a hand of no-trump strength, it is highly probable that he is as strong as the declarer. It must be further taken into account that the act of doubling gives much valuable information to the dealer, who would otherwise play with the expectation of finding the trumps evenly distributed; this is counterbalanced when the doubler is on the left of the declaring hand by the intimation given to his partner to lead trumps through the strong hand. In this position, then, the player should double with the strength stated above. When on the declarer’s right, the player should hold much greater strength unless his hand is free from tenaces. When a spade declaration has been made by dummy, one trump less is necessary and the doubler need not be on the declarer’s left. A spade declaration by the dealer can be doubled with even less strength. A declaration can be rather more freely doubled when a single trick undoubled will take the dealer out, but even in this position the player must be cautious of informing the dealer that there is a strong hand against him.
Redoubling.—When a declaration has been doubled, the declarer knows the minimum that he will find against him; he must be prepared to find occasionally strength against him considerably exceeding this minimum. Except in the case of a spade declaration, cases in which redoubling is justifiable are very rare.
The Play of the Hand.—In a no-trump declaration the main object is to bring in a long suit. In selecting the suit to establish, the following are favourable conditions:—One hand should hold at least five cards of the suit. The two hands, unless with a sequence of high cards, should hold between them eight cards of the suit, so as to render it probable that the suit will be established in three rounds. The hand which contains the strong suit should be sufficiently strong in cards of re-entry. The suit should not be so full of possible tenaces as to make it disadvantageous to open it. As regards the play of the cards in a suit, it is not the object to make tricks early, but to make all possible tricks. Deep finesses should be made when there is no other way of stealing a trick. Tricks may be given away, if by so doing a favourable opening can be made for a finesse. When, however, it is doubtful with which hand the finesse should be made, it is better to leave it as late as possible, since the card to be finessed against may fall, or an adversary may fail, thus disclosing the suit. It is in general unsound to finesse against a card that must be unguarded. From a hand short in cards of re-entry, winning cards should not be led out so as to exhaust the suit from the partner’s hand. Even a trick should sometimes be given away. For instance, if one hand holds seven cards headed by ace, king, and the other hand hold’s only two of the suit, although there is a fair chance of making seven tricks in the suit, it would often be right to give the first trick to the adversaries. When one of the adversaries has shown a long suit, it is frequently possible to prevent its being brought in by a device, such as holding up a winning card, until the suit is exhausted from his partner’s hand, or playing in other suits so as to give the player the lead whilst his partner his a card of his suit to return, and to give the latter the lead when he has no card to return. The dealer should give as little information as possible as to what he holds in his own hand, playing frequent false cards. Usually he should play the higher or highest of a sequence; still, there are positions in which playing the higher gives more information than the lower; a strict adherence to a rule in itself assists the adversaries.
With a suit declaration, if there is no chance of letting the weak hand make a trump by ruffing, it will generally be the dealer’s aim to discard the losing cards in the declaring hand either to high cards or to the cards of an established suit in the other hand, sometimes after the adverse trumps have been taken out, but often before, there being no time for drawing trumps. With no card of any value in a suit in one hand, the lead should come from that hand, but it is better, if possible, to let the adversaries open the suit. It is generally useless to lead a moderately high card from the weaker hand in order to finesse it, when holding no cards in sequence with it in either hand. Sometimes (especially in no-trumps) it is the better play to make the weak hand third player. For instance, with king, 8, 7, 5, 2 in one hand, knave, 4 in the other, the best way of opening is from the hand that holds five cards.
In a no-trump declaration the opponents of the dealer should endeavour to find the longest suit in the two hands, or the one most easily established. With this object the leader should open his best suit. If his partner next obtains the lead he ought to return the suit, unless he himself has a suit which he considers better, having due regard to the fact that the first suit is already partially established. The opponents should employ the same tactics as the dealer to prevent the latter from bringing in a long suit; they can use them with special effect when the long suit is in the exposed hand.
Against no-trumps the leader should not play his winning cards unless he has a good chance of clearing the suit without help from his partner; in most cases it is advisable to give away the first trick, especially if he has no card of re-entry, in order that his partner on gaining the lead may have a card of the suit to return; but holding ace, king and queen, or ace, king with seven in the suit, or ace, king, knave, ten with six, the player may lead out his best. With three honours any two of which are in sequence (not to the ace) the player should lead the higher of the sequence. He should lead his highest card from queen, knave, ten; from queen, knave, nine; from knave, ten, nine; knave, ten, eight, and ten, nine, eight. In other cases the player should lead a small card; according to the usual convention, the fourth best. His partner, and also the dealer, can credit him with three cards higher than the card led, and can often place the cards of the suit: for instance, the seven is led, dummy holds queen and eight, playing the queen, the third player holds the nine and smaller cards; the unseen cards higher than the seven are ace, king, knave and ten of which the leader must hold three; he cannot hold both knave and ten or he would have led the knave; he must therefore hold the ace, king and either knave or ten. The “eleven” rule is as follows: the number of pips in the card led subtracted from eleven (11−7=4 in the case stated) gives the number of cards higher than the one led not in the leader’s hand; the three cards seen (queen, nine and eight) leave one for the dealer to hold. The mental process is no shorter than assigning three out of the unseen cards to the leader, and by not noting the unseen cards much valuable information may be missed, as in the illustrative case given.
With a suit declared the best opening lead is a singleton, failing which a lead from a strong sequence. A lead from a tenace or a guarded king or queen is to be avoided. Two small cards may be led from, though the lead is objected to by some. A suit of three small cards of no great strength should not be opened. In cases of doubt preference should be given to hearts and to a less extent to diamonds.
To lead up to dummy’s weak suits is a valuable rule. The converse, to lead through strength, must be used with caution, and does not apply to no-trump declarations. It is not advisable to adopt any of the recent whist methods of giving information. It is clear that, if the adversaries signal, the dealer’s hand alone is a secret, and he, in addition to his natural advantage, has the further advantage of better information than either of the adversaries. The following signals are however, used, and are of great trick-making value: playing an unnecessarily high card, whether to one’s partner’s suit or in discarding in a no-trump declaration, indicates strength in the suit; in a suit declaration a similar method of play indicates two only of the suit and a desire to ruff,—it is best used in the case of a king led by one’s partner.
The highest of a sequence led through dummy will frequently tell the third player that he has a good finesse. The lowest of a sequence led through the dealer will sometimes explain the position to the third player, at the same time keeping the dealer in the dark.
When on dummy’s left it is futile to finesse against a card not in dummy’s hand. But with ace and knave, if dummy has either king or queen, the knave should usually be played, partly because the other high card may be in the leader’s hand, partly because, if the finesse fails, the player may still hold a tenace over dummy. When a player is with any chance of success trying to establish his long suit, he should keep every card of it if possible, whether it is a suit already opened or a suit which he wishes his partner to lead; when, however, the main object of the hand is to establish one’s partner’s suit, it is not necessary for a player to keep his own long suit, and he should pay attention to guarding the other suits. In some circles a discard from a suit is always understood to indicate strength in the suit; this convention, while it makes the game easier for inferior players, frequently causes the player to throw away one of his most valuable cards.
Playing to the Score.—At the beginning of the hand the chances are so great against any particular result, that at the score of love-all the advantage of getting to any particular score has no appreciable
