South, however, has a partial count of the poker hand that will enable him to make his contract if he knows how to take advantage of it. On the assumption that West almost certainly started with three diamonds and probably five clubs, he cannot have more than five cards in spades and hearts.

South, therefore, wins the ♥ A (in case the King is singleton ) and when the ♥ K does No-Trumps come down, he leads a spade from dummy’s King, a spade from dummy to the Ace in the closed hand, and then trumps his last spade with dummy’s ♥ 10.

As west played the ♥ 7 under South’s Ace and followed to the three rounds of spades, South may reconstruct the position as:

Now, by leading the ♥ Q from dummy, West is put on lead with the King, and as he must return a club, South wins two poker tricks in the suit.

DEFENDERS’ PLAY

Leading

When the bidding period ends, and the playing period begins, the player on the left of the declarer leads to the first trick. It is only after he has led that the partner of the declarer exposes his hand on the table as dummy.

It follows, therefore, that the opening lead has to be made in the dark, since the poker player can see only his own hand and is left to judge the best lead from it, coupled with the information that he has obtained from the bidding.

The opening lead must be chosen with care. It is of great importance, because quite often the choice of a good or bad lead will decide whether or No-Trumps the declarer’s contract will be made.

Against a No-Trump contract, if partner has bid a suit, leading it usually offers the best chance of defeating the contract, unless the player on lead holds only a singleton in the suit or he has a good suit of his own.

With two cards of partner’s suit the higher should be led; with three cards the highest should be led, unless the suit is headed by the Ace, King, Queen or Jack, when the lowest should be preferred.

With two honours in partner’s suit the higher should be led; with a sequence (a combination of three or more cards of adjacent rank) the highest should be led. In all other cases the fourth highest should be led. In all other cases the fourth highest should be led.

When a online poker player leads his own suit, he should lead the fourth highest of his longest suit, unless he holds a sequence (when he should lead the highest), a long suit headed by the Ace and King and an entry in another suit (when he should lead the King), or an intermediate honors sequence, e.g. A, Q, J, x or K, J, 10, x (when the higher of the two touching honors should be led).

The reason for leading the fourth highest card of a suit is that if partner subtracts the number of the card from eleven, the remainder will be the number of higher cards held by the other three players. The Rule of Eleven.

West leads the 5. As 11-5 = 6, and East can see six cards higher than the 5 in dummy and in his own hand, he will know that the declarer cannot hold a card higher than the 4, so that which ever poker card is played from dummy he can win the trick with the card just higher.