Complete. From “Card Essays.”

DO not confuse your mind by reading a parcel of books. Surely you’ve a right to play your own game, if you like. Who are the people that wrote these books? What business have they to set up their views as superior to yours? Many of these writers lay down this rule: “Lead originally from your strongest suit”; don’t you do it unless it suits your hand. It may be good in some hands, but it doesn’t follow that it should be in all. Lead a single card sometimes, or, at any rate, from your weakest suit, so as to make your little trumps when the suit is returned. By following this course in leads, you will nine times out of ten ruin both your own and your partner’s hand; but the tenth time you will perhaps make several little trumps, which would have been useless otherwise. In addition to this, if sometimes you lead from your strongest suit, and sometimes from your weakest, it puzzles the adversaries, and they never can tell what you have led from.

  2.  Seldom return your partner’s lead: you have as many cards in your hand as he has, it is a free country, and why should you submit to his dictation? Play the suit you deem best without regard to any preconceived theories. It is an excellent plan to lead out first one suit and then another. This mode of play is extremely perplexing to the whole table. If you have a fancy for books, you will find this system approved by “J. C.” He says: “You mystify alike your adversaries and your partner. You turn the game upside down, reduce it to one of chance, and, in the scramble, may have as good a chance as your neighbors.”

  3.  Especially do not return your partner’s lead in trumps, for not doing so now and then turns out to be advantageous. Who knows but you may make a trump by holding up, which you certainly cannot do if all your trumps are out? Never mind the fact that you will generally lose tricks by refusing to play your partner’s game. Whenever you succeed in making a trump by your refusal, be sure to point out to your partner how fortunate it was that you played as you did. Perhaps your partner is a much better player than you, and he may on some former occasion, with an exceptional hand, have declined to return your lead of trumps. Make a note of this. Remind him of it if he complain of your neglecting to return his lead. It is an unanswerable argument.

  4.  There are a lot of rules to which, however, you need pay no attention, about leading from sequences. What can it matter which card of a sequence you lead? The sequence cards are all of the same value, and one of them is as likely to win the trick as another. Besides, if you look at the books, you’ll find the writers don’t even know their own minds. They advise in some cases that you should lead the highest, in others the lowest of the sequence; and in leading from ace, king, queen, they actually recommend you to begin with the middle card. Any person of common sense must infer from this that it doesn’t matter which card of a sequence you lead.

  5.  There are also a number of rules about the play of the second, third, and fourth hands, but they are quite unworthy serious consideration. The exceptions are almost as numerous as the rules, so if you play by no rule at all you are about as likely to be right as wrong.

  6.  Before leading trumps always first get rid of all the winning cards in your plain suit. You will not then be bothered with the lead after trumps are out, and you thus shift all the responsibility of mistakes onto your partner. But if your partner has led a suit, be careful when you lead trumps to keep in your hand the best card of his lead. By this means, if he go on with his suit, you are more likely to get the lead after trumps are out, which, the books say, is a great advantage.

  7.  Take every opportunity of playing false cards, both high and low. For by deceiving all round you will now and then win an extra trick. It is often said: “Oh, but you deceive your partner.” That is very true. But then, as you have two adversaries and only one partner, it is obvious that by running dark you play two to one in your own favor. Besides this, it is very gratifying, when your trick succeeds, to have taken in your opponents, and to have won the applause of an ignorant gallery. If you play in a common-place way, even your partner scarcely thanks you. Anybody could have done the same.

  8.  Whatever you do, never attend to the score, and don’t watch the fall of the cards. There is no earthly reason for doing either of these. As for the score, your object is to make as many as you can. The game is five, but, if you play to score six or seven, small blame to you. Never mind running the risk of not getting another chance of making even five. Keep as many pictures and winning cards as you can in your hand. They are pretty to look at, and if you remain with the best of each suit you effectually prevent the adversaries from bringing in a lot of small cards at the end of the hand. As to the fall of the cards, it is quite clear that it is of no use to watch them; for, if everybody at the table is trying to deceive you, in accordance with Maxim 7, the less you notice the cards they play the less you will be taken in.

  9.  Whenever you have ruined your hand and your partner’s by playing in the way here recommended, you should always say that it “made no difference.” It sometimes happens that it has made no difference, and then your excuse is clearly valid. And it will often happen that your partner does not care to argue the point with you, in which case your remark will make it clear to everybody that you have a profound insight into the game. If, however, your partner choose to be disagreeable, and succeed in proving you to be utterly ignorant of the first elements of whist, stick to it that you played right, that good play will sometimes turn out unfortunately, and accuse your partner of judging by results. This will generally silence him.

  10.  Invariably blow up your partner at the end of every hand. It is not only a most gentlemanlike employment of spare time, but it gains you the reputation of being a first-rate player.