Hi. Welcome
to lesson 5.

Here's some more strategy.
Suppose somebody else is
the opening leader and he
leads the ace of clubs.
Which of your clubs do
you think you should play
on that trick: the king,
the 4, or the 3?

Since the ace of clubs is
played on this trick, it will
soon be out of the way, and
your king will become the
highest card in the club
suit. Remember, you held
the K-4-3 of clubs. You
don't want to squander a
trick by throwing the king
under the ace, so you
play one of your little spot
cards, the 3 or the 4.

Notice that just as the ace and king of
spades are equal, because you hold them
both, the 4 and the 3 of clubs are equal.
In other words, touching cards are worth
the same thing. There are two other
pairs of equal cards in this hand: the
3-2 of spades and the 9-8 of diamonds.

Let's try some sample tricks.

Move your mouse over the table to see
the trick. Then tell me who wins the trick.
On each occasion, West is on lead.

Even though South played an honor (the
queen), the ace beats the queen, so
West wins the trick. Why did South
waste his queen? Remember, if
someone leads an ace, it can't be
beaten, so the best strategy is to
play your lowest card.

Perhaps South couldn't help it -- perhaps
the queen is his only spade! Or perhaps
he has the queen and the king and no
more -- he started with two of them.
He must follow suit, so he has no
choice but to waste a high one.

Let's continue with sample tricks.

South wins the trick. The ace beats the
king. Consider this: If South were the
opening leader and started with the ace of
diamonds, West would not waste the
king by dumping it under the ace (unless
he had no choice, because that was
his only card in the diamond suit).

West wins. The ten is higher than the other
cards. This trick is interesting. Why has no
one played an honor after West led
the 10? The answer is probably that this
trick did not take place early in the deal
-- otherwise somebody surely would have
played the ace, king, queen or jack to beat
that ten!

West wins once again! The lowly five of clubs
takes a trick because it's higher than all
the others! This is very unusual, but it
makes an important point. It's not important
how high the card is that wins the trick.
As long as it's the highest card played to that
trick, it wins the trick. And there's more...

North wins the trick. This was what you
might call a ... trick trick question.
(Oh, I was waiting to make that joke!)

Let me explain this trick. West led the
5 of clubs, North played the 8. East
played the 9 of diamonds, which means
that East has no clubs to follow suit
with. East, therefore, had to play another
suit (any suit he wanted to -- if you can't
follow suit, you can play any other card
in your hand!). So why does the C8 win
the trick instead of the D9, which is higher
than the 8? Because a trick usually can
only be won in the suit that was led. Once
West led a club, only a club is
allowed to win the trick. There's one
exception to this rule, which
we will learn about in the next lesson,
when we study "trumps."!

The queen. When you led the king and
somebody took it with the ace, your
queen became the highest card in
the suit. Because the ace and king
are already gone, the queen is the
"master" diamond now. In bridge lingo,
you have "set up" a diamond trick for
yourself. That was your strategy! You
led the king in order to "knock out"
the ace and "set up" the queen.

Wow. This was a long lesson
but a productive one.

We're starting to get into the
game strategies. Here's a
quick quiz today, using just
one illustration. Good luck!