Safe Winners

Not every card that wins is worth the same. Some tricks are locked in the moment you lead them: nothing anyone still holds can take them from you, so the only question left is how many Augen you bank on the way. Everything below works the same whether you're the declarer or a defender. What changes is who the other two players at the table are.

Read the official rule on what wins a trick.

The guaranteed winner

A card is a safe winner once nothing still outstanding can beat it. Say a Spades suit game is running, all four Jacks have fallen and the Ace of SpadesA with them. The Ten of Spades10 in your hand is now the highest trump left in the round: lead it and the trick is yours before anyone else has played a card. The other shape is the top card of a plain suit everyone can still follow, an Ace in a suit nobody has run out of yet. Both are worth cashing while they last, because a safe winner stays safe only until the table changes underneath it.

Winning cheaply

You're last to play and the trick is already yours to take: then there's no reason to spend more than you have to. Say a Spades suit game is running, the declarer led the Nine of Clubs9, your partner followed with the Seven, and you hold the AceA, the KingK and the Queen of ClubsQ. All three beat a Nine. Play the Queen. It takes the trick just as well as the Ace would, and the difference shows up later: the Ace beats every Club there is, the King everything but the Ace and the Ten. The Queen already loses to the King. Spending your smallest winner keeps the big ones for the tricks that need them.

When every card wins

Late in the round it sometimes happens that every card left in your hand wins on its own. Say two tricks are left in a Spades suit game, you're on lead, you hold the Club JackJ and the Ace of HeartsA, and you've counted that no trump is left outside your own hand. Nobody can ruff the Ace and nothing outranks the Jack, so both tricks are yours in either order. Lead the Ace first anyway: it is worth eleven Augen and the Jack only two. If you're not quite sure of your count, reverse the order: the Jack drags out a trump you missed, and the Ace then runs safely.

Doppelläufer

You're on lead, you hold the Ace of SpadesA and the Ten of Spades10, and no trump is left outside your hand. That pair is a Doppelläufer. Cash the Ace: everyone still holding Spades has to follow suit, so the trick and its eleven Augen are yours. Next trick the Ten is the top Spade left and walks home for ten more. Twenty-one Augen out of two cards and a single lead, plus whatever the others were forced to throw on them. The second condition is the one that does the work: Ace and Ten are a Doppelläufer only while nobody can trump the Ten away.

Near the top, late in the hand

You don't always need the actual highest card. Late in the round, once a suit's higher cards have already been played, a card that is merely near the top is safe enough to lead. Say the Ace of HeartsA fell in an earlier trick and you hold the Ten of Hearts10: it is the highest Heart still in play, and leading it collects ten Augen. Check one thing first. If one of the other two went blank in Hearts earlier, discarding the suit instead of following it, the Ten isn't a winner at all: it's a free ruff and ten Augen handed straight over.