The San Francisco call., 1896-04-19

delphia, 100 players on side, where it
was publicly announced that Philadelphia
players adopted the play. 1t consisted in
making an irregular opening" from your
strongest and best suit.
The object being two-fold, first. to an
nounce to your partner that you wanted
him to lead trump imm ediately, if he
could get the lead, and the best one he
held, regardless of mum Der; secondly, you
were taking step toward the establish
menr of your best suit. 1t does not follow
that the first card led always procaims an
irregular lead; it may not be possible to
select such card from your suit that will
at once give such information; it may not
develop until the second round. OF course,
you must be very observant and note
the small cards. and without that ability
don't attempt the play. There is no object
in calling for trumps in this way unless
you are quite sure OF preventing the honor
turned of making trick, in other words
catching it; but in trying to ''catch it, be
very careful that you don't lose tricks
enough to lose you the match, if your are
playing one. This generally occurs with
novices.
For trick-winning we hold this lead
should not be made excepting from your
best suit. You can readily see il YOU do
NV 0NOPe uiAiOi Az oOCli- Ol pldyluR IL
You muddle your partner-set him to
guessing. and whoever was known to guess
right in a whist play? It has become a
fashion with many young players who
have heard OF this irregular opening, but
won't read whist book, to make it from a
short suit of one, two, or three cards, and
II they succeed in catching the honor, no
matter how many tricks they lose in so
doing, they are as tickled as boy with
his first pair of pants.
Everything that comes from the pen of
Milton G. Work is worth giving to the
whist world. In recent litter he says
commenting on the above play: To-day
in this country, however, this lead is con-
ventionai, in spite of the fact that there
are still some conservative players who be-
leve that it is better when you want
trumps out to lead right up to an honor.
over which you have tenace, rather
than risk an irregular card which your
partner may either fail to recognize as
such or may be unable to win even if he
does distinguish the irregularity.-'
This sometimes results in the leaders
being forced and then being compelled,
after all, to lead up to the honor with a
weakened trump suit. OF course, this sell
dom happens, and the best PLAYERS of to-
day heartily indorse the play under dis
cusslon; but no matter how enthusiastic
the player may be in its favor he must ad-
NIT that there are times when the play is
not as effective as it might be, because the
partner fails at first glance 10 positively
! recognise the card led as an irregular one.
we suggest to our readers possible i'm
provement in this articular. Our idea is
that when an honor is turned the lead OF
| queen or jack should be a command to
lead trumps through the honor. This can
oe easily accomplished by varying the fol-
lowing lead when it is not the desire oi
the leader that his partner should lead
trump.
Instead OF queen, from combinations oil
| FIVE cards with king, lead the king. tenn.
porarily not showing the number; lead
KING also from king, queen, jack and more
than one other.
! Under this system the lead of queen o.