When you can't follow suit and don't want to cut, you discard — throw off a card from another suit onto a book you're losing. What you throw sends a signal. Choose carelessly and you either strand yourself with a bad card or accidentally tell opponents what you have.
Throw off your danger cards first
The best card to discard is the one you least want to be stuck with. Middle cards in weak suits — a Jack of Hearts with no King or Ace behind it, a 9 of Clubs with no support — are prime candidates. They're not big enough to take books, but they're big enough to lose books to.
Get rid of them onto books where nobody's counting the discard. Now you're shorter in that suit and closer to a void.
Don't discard from your longest suit
Your longest non-spade suit is your safety net — you can play into it forever without getting into trouble. Don't shorten it unless you have to.
Discarding from your longest suit tells opponents you're planning to void yourself there, which telegraphs a cut coming later. Keep the misdirection alive by throwing from your medium-length suits instead.
Signal to your partner
Some players use discards as signals: throw off a high card in a suit to say 'lead this to me, I'm strong here.' Throw off a low card to say 'lead me anywhere but here.' Discuss with your partner whether you're playing signals.
Even without formal signals, patterns emerge. If your partner discards two hearts in a row, they're void — don't lead hearts through them expecting them to take a book.
