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