Leading as the Picker
As the picker, lead trump early, high ones first, to pull the defenders’ trump before they can use it on your aces and tens. Keep count of what is still out. Once the defense is out of trump, your fail aces and your partner’s cards walk home. If you run short of trump yourself, stop pulling and make the defense spend theirs.
You may not have the first lead
The first trick is always led by the player on the dealer’s left, whoever picked. Unless that is you, your first lead comes after you win a trick. Plan for it: the trick you win to get the lead is often worth winning with a high trump for exactly that reason.
Pull trump, top down
Every trump a defender holds is a threat to every point card your side owns. Leading a high trump makes each defender who has trump play one, two or three at a time. Lead your strongest first when you can afford it, so the defense cannot win the trick cheaply, and keep a count: there are 14 trump, and you know the ones in your hand and your bury.
An example. After the bury you hold six trump, Q♣ Q♠ J♥ A♦ 10♦ 8♦, so eight are somewhere else. You lead the Q♣ and four players follow with trump: four left out. You lead the Q♠ and three more fall: one left, and you know roughly where it is from who followed with a fail card.
Two rounds of trump often strip the table. Watch for a defender who throws a fail card on a trump lead: they are out of trump, and the count gets easier.
Know when to stop
If you are short on trump yourself, pulling trump until you run out leaves you with nothing to stop the defense when they lead their aces. Switch to leading fail cards that cost you little, so the defenders have to spend their trump on tricks with few points in them. The aim is to finish with the last trump on your side, not the most tricks early.
The called suit
At call an ace you may lead the called suit whenever you like, but early is dangerous: a defender who is void trumps your partner’s ace and takes it. In our measurements the picker did best leading the called suit only once at most one trump was still unaccounted for. Then the ace comes home, the partner is revealed, and the two of you can schmear onto each other’s tricks.
Jack of diamonds: let the trump find your partner
You do not know who your partner is, and leading trump is how you find out: sooner or later the J♦ has to follow a trump lead. Until it shows, treat every other seat as a possible defender and do not throw points onto tricks a hidden player is winning.
Small things that add up
- Keep the red jack on a near-empty trick. Last to play, with a trick worth 0 to 4 points going to the defense, the picker who took it with a red jack did about 1.2 units worse than the picker who let it go and kept the jack for pulling trump. Worth 5 points or more, take it.
- Do not lead fail aces early. Until trump is drawn, a fail ace led by the picker is a gift to any defender who is void in the suit.
- Lay them down. When every card you hold is a sure winner, claim the rest. See the endgame page.
About the numbers: they come from our own simulations, in which our strongest computer players play the same deals both ways and the results are compared. A unit is one defender’s base payment. They are measured at five-handed with the live table rules, against strong opponents, and they are averages, not guarantees for any one hand.
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