The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1899-08-13
AROUND THE WHIST TABLE.
THE PUzzLING QUESTION OF A MULE
FOR THE DISCIRD.

StrHtfRy-ImDOrtan OF the
card illustrated from Actual Play.
One Of the things which will probably
never be settled by any amount Of analysis
and investi CATION, even II carried through
the 10 900 deals, Is the question Of finding an
absolute rule for the discard. So far as the
analysis Of these deals has gone, 1t has been
found impossible to arrive at any workable
rule which will apply to all cases, chiefly
because the circumstances under which the
necessity for describing arise are SO va
Fious.
There is probably no point in whist strate-
" which has given rise to SO much dis
cussiou as this same one OF discards, and
certainly there Is none which is still 30 far
from being agreed upon by OUR authorities
The old masters early recognized its diff
6culties. and modern players agree that there
is probably nothing by which experts lose
so many tricks as bad discarding Bridge
players have had the importance OF the dis
card forced upon their attention even more
strongly than whist players, but they have
not been able to establish any definite prin-
ciples which are equally applicable to all
hands; neither have they been able to formu-
late any rules which would be Of much value
70 the whist player.
There are several kinds Of discards, some
Of which are very easy and some extremely
diflcult. The easiest OF all are dscards OF
losing cards which are made when your
partner leads winning cards OF his own for
the express purpose OF giving you discards
The most difficult are those which are forced.
and which leave you guessing as to which OF
two suits 1t will be better to protect for the
end game.
There is no other branch OF whist upon
which the student can get so little satisfac-
ton from writer's on the game as that OF
discarding, as will be seen from the fol-
lowing selections from the best known text
books on the game:
Fisher Ames says: The first discard ia
the most important and the information
given by 1t must be carefully noted" This
is an assumption that the discard always is,
or always can be made informatory and al
30 that 1t is advisable to make it so; both
grave errors. as Fisher Ames has found out
since he wrote that paragraph.
Mathews says 'If weak in trumps keen
guard on your adversaries' suits; IL strong
throw away from them" This assumes that
you have guards to keep. and know what
your adversaries' suits are.
Fenollosa says: When the adversaries
have declared strength in trumps my dis
card and my partners should convey no
definite information" A nice partner for
Fisher Ames.
Proctor says: Your original discard in
dicates your shortest suit II trump strength
Is not declared against you; your longest
suit II 1t Is. Subsequent discards have no
such Significance. This is an absurd rule,
Suppose the short suit is X @, or A X. or
a king guarded; are you to keep Ave cards
to the in preference? BY the time Proctor
could enumerate the exceptions to this rule
the rule itself would be forgotten.
Milton Work says: THE system of dis
carding most conducive to trick making
seems to be always to discard the card
that can best be spared from the player's
hand" 1t is well known that the best
stocks to buy are those which are about to
increase in value, and the best to sell are
those which are about to go down. Many
wise men have spent fortunes guessing
which stocks these are, and many a whist
player has had to guess long and often
which card could best be spared from his
hand Did Work always know? II he did
he left the secret out Of his book, although
Justify several editions.
Cavendish says: 1T is dangerous to un-
guard an honor or to blank an ace, and
also to discard a single card when the
game is in an undeveoped state, as 1t ex-
poses your weakness almost as soon as the
suit Is led" That depends on who leads
the suit. Are we to keep sngletons and
guards to honors and throw away our good
suits for fear some one will find out our
weakness after We have made little
trump by discarding the singleton?
Maynard says: Leads, second, and third
hand plays are mainly governed by readily
understood rules. but in the discard much
must be left to the whist genius OF the
player"
Fosters Hoyle" says "A player having
full command OF a suit may show 1t by
discarding the best card Of It, Discarding
the second best is an indication that the
player has not the best. and in general the
discard of any small card shows weakness
in that suit" Yet many a man has been
trapped into leading a suit up to a player
Just because his discard was supposed to
show weakness.
Miss Wheelock says the discard of a Sc
cond-b best shows no more of the suit. This
Is presumably based on the assumption
that player would keep a second best
guarded which is not always the case, es-
pecally II a player sees from the play that
X will never be led up to.
F. II. Lewis says: THAT side is to be
considered strong in trumps which remains
with the mastery, no matter from which
side came the original lead. II the trump
strength is with the partner, discard the
weak suit. II II is with the adversary, dis
card the strong" Unless the weak suit has