Editing Black Lady (section)

== Strategy ==
[[Image:Whist-type trick.jpg|250px|thumb|right|An example trick. South has led {{cards|Jd}} and takes this trick (which includes a 1-point penalty heart). In this case, no other player had any diamonds.]]

=== General ===
With the exception of trying to shoot the moon, players attempt to discard high cards, especially high hearts or spades, and try to avoid winning points. This can either be accomplished by creating a void or playing a high card last in a trick that has no points. Generally speaking, it is advantageous to play the highest card possible without winning the trick. Players particularly concentrate on getting rid of high cards in suits that they do not have padding low cards in. For example, if a player had {{cards|s|A|5|4|3|2}} the {{cards|As}} would not be much of an issue; they can play the four lower cards and hopefully exhaust another player's spades before being forced to play the {{cards|As}}. In contrast, if they only had {{cards|As}}, then they would be forced to play the {{cards|As}} the first time spades were led, with the risk that another player will respond with {{cards|Qs}}.

=== Passing ===
The main objectives of passing are to try to become "short" or "void" in a suit, and thus able to play off-suit when that suit is led; or to rid one's hand of "dangerous" cards that could force a player to take a trick containing penalty points, such as the ace, king, or queen of any suit (especially spades and hearts). {{cards|As}} and {{cards|Ks}} are two of the most important cards to get rid of, because they are not worth any points themselves but are ranked higher than {{cards|Qs}} and as such would force players to take the queen if {{cards|s}} are lead. In addition, high hearts can leave the player defenseless once hearts are broken. When creating voids, it is best to do that in either clubs or diamonds, because players want to avoid receiving high hearts or spades without having any padding.  For this reason, spades lower than the queen are typically not passed unless the player is attempting to shoot the moon. Care must be taken in passing too many high cards which could allow the player receiving the cards to shoot the moon. A simple passing strategy to keep a recipient from shooting the moon is to pass them a single low-value heart, this is especially effective when holding on to the {{cards|Ah}}, because when a player has at least one heart it is impossible to shoot the moon without it. As such, it is often wise not to pass the {{cards|Ah}} at all.

=== Voids ===
A void is when a player does not have any cards of a certain suit. Generally, this is a highly advantageous situation, because it prevents the player from winning any points in that suit, and provides a means to dispose of poor cards. These can be intentionally created with good passing strategy, or appear by themselves.

=== Bleeding spades ===
If a player does not have {{cards|As}}, {{cards|Ks}}, or {{cards|Qs}}, it is to that player's advantage to lead spades to try to force {{cards|Qs}} onto another player. This is also referred to as "smoking the lady/queen", in reference to the [[combat]] action of creating [[smoke]] in a closed area so that any [[enemy]] [[combatants]] hiding there would be forced to come out into the open (the {{cards|Qs}} is forced to be played by its bearer, thus causing the {{cards|Qs}}'s points to be taken by that bearer, and thus evaded by the player actuating the smoking). A player who has {{cards|As}} or {{cards|Ks}} but not {{cards|Qs}}, and with a large number of other spades, may feel insulated from being forced to play {{cards|As}} or {{cards|Ks}} in any subsequent smoking play, and thus could also participate in smoking.  Even the player that has the {{cards|Qs}}, provided he or she similarly has a lot of other spades may decide to "smoke himself" to empty all the other players of their spades, thus ironically insulating himself from being smoked in the future – or perhaps to get the game into the situation in which another player(s) has a "dry" (i.e., solitary) spade that is {{cards|As}} or {{cards|Ks}}, in which case a trick could be started with {{cards|Qs}} in the full knowledge that some other player has this dry {{cards|As}} or {{cards|Ks}} and will be forced to play it, taking the {{cards|Qs}}<nowiki/>'s points.

=== Shooting the moon ===
Attempting to shoot the moon is often a risky strategy, as failure to capture every single penalty card will result in the remaining penalty points (as many as 25, if only one heart is missed) being added to one's score. 
Shooting the moon can rapidly change the direction of a game in a player's favour. A good hand for shooting the moon should contain significant high cards, in addition to a long run of a single suit that can be used to keep the lead once the other players have run out of that suit. Furthermore, it is necessary to either have no hearts, or most/all high hearts ({{cards|Ah}}, {{cards|Kh}}, {{cards|Qh}}, {{cards|Jh}}), as shooting the moon requires a player to win every trick they lead with hearts. Even with {{cards|Kh}}, {{cards|Qh}} and {{cards|Jh}} a moon attempt will invariably fail, because savvy players will not discard the {{cards|Ah}} before multiple people have scored at least one point, so the {{cards|Ah}} will ensure them at least one trick containing points. 

=== Teaming up ===
Because black lady is generally understood to have only one winner when the game ends, some of the general strategies change when one or more players are at risk of reaching 100 points. In such scenarios it becomes strategical for players to work together to ensure the {{cards|Qs}} goes to the lowest score player, in order to close the gap before the game ends. Similarly, when a player is at 87 points or more and receives the {{cards|Qs}}, everyone but the lowest score player can assist that player in shooting the moon (as long as the new moon rule is in play) so that the game does not end immediately, giving everyone a chance to catch up.