Once the auction is over, Mexico turns into a two-against-one game. The caller has chosen trump, looked at the talon and thrown two cards away. The other two players, the Gangsters, have one shared job: keep the caller below the number of tricks they promised. A caller who bid 7 and took 6 does not score 6; they lose the bid. That swing is the biggest single event in a deal, and it is the defence that makes it happen.
This guide is about defending well without a single word across the table. Everything here follows the rules used at Mexico Club: follow suit if you can, trump if you cannot follow, and play any card only when you have neither the led suit nor a trump.
1. What the defence is playing for
Each Gangster writes down the tricks they took, whatever happens to the caller. So there is a small personal reward for every trick. The large reward is shared: if the caller falls, they lose the full bid in Easy scoring and twice the bid in Normal scoring, and a made bid would have given them every trick they took. Against a bid of 7, breaking the bid is worth more than any one trick you could grab for yourself.
That gives the defence a simple test for every card: does this card make it harder for the caller to reach the bid? A trick taken by your partner counts exactly as much as a trick taken by you. The caller needs a fixed number; every trick the two of you take together brings them closer to the fall.
Count from the start. If the caller bid 7, the defence needs 4 tricks between the two of you. If they bid 8, you need 3. Keep that number in your head and count down as tricks come in.
2. Know where the caller sits
Three players means the caller is always either right after you or right after your partner. That one fact decides how you lead.
Leading through the caller
When the caller plays directly after you, your partner plays last. Lead a small card from a suit without honours, preferably one your partner has not thrown away. The caller has to commit before your partner, and your partner then wins as cheaply as possible or saves a high card when the trick is already lost.
Your partner saw the jack and won with the queen. If they also hold the ace, it is still in their hand for the next round of clubs.
Leading through your partner
When your partner plays right after you and the caller plays last, the caller sees both of your cards before choosing. A small lead now hands them a cheap trick. Lead the top card of your strongest suit instead, so that the caller has to spend a big card or a trump to win it.
This is the trick to avoid. With K♦ 9♦ in your hand, leading the nine let the caller win with a jack. Leading the king would have forced out the ace, or won the trick.
3. Second hand low, cover when it counts
When the caller leads and you play second, your partner plays last, after seeing the caller's card. That makes your partner the better player to win the trick. The old rule second hand low works in Mexico too.
The caller led a jack. Two cards beat it besides your ace: the king and the queen. If your partner holds either one, they win the trick and your ace still kills a later spade. By playing the ten you turned one defensive trick into two. Had you taken the jack with the ace, your partner's king might never have scored.
The lower the caller's card, the more cards your partner can beat it with, and the better ducking works. A queen led by the caller is different: only the king can cover it apart from your ace. If you duck and your partner does not have the king, a trick the defence should have had goes to the caller. Take a led queen with the ace.
When your partner is already winning
- The caller has already played: the trick is yours as a team. Play your smallest card and keep your honours.
- The caller still plays after you: add strength only if the caller could beat your partner's card but not yours. Otherwise play low; overtaking your own partner wastes a high card.
- The caller is winning: take the trick with the cheapest card that does it.
- The trick is lost anyway: give your smallest card, never an honour.
4. Never lead from a tenace
A tenace is a pair of honours with a gap in the middle: ace and queen without the king, or king and jack without the queen. Such a suit is worth two tricks only if someone else leads it and you play after the missing card. If you lead it yourself, you usually get one.
Hearts (A-Q) and spades (K-J) are both tenaces. If you lead the ace of hearts, the caller's king wins the next heart over your queen. If you wait, and the caller or your partner leads hearts while you sit behind the king, you take the king with the ace and the queen becomes a winner. The lead that hurts nobody is in diamonds:
- Leading through your partner (the caller plays last): the 10♦, the top of your sequence.
- Leading through the caller: the 8♦, a small card your partner can beat or let go.
The single trump stays where it is. More on that below.
5. Leave the trumps to the caller
The caller usually holds most of the eight trumps. Leading a trump as a Gangster does the caller's work for them: they win it with a high trump and, on the way, your partner's trumps fall. Those trumps were the defence's best weapon, because the caller's side suits can be ruffed as soon as your partner is void in them.
There is one exception worth knowing. If the caller is planning to win tricks by ruffing a short suit in their own hand, a trump lead takes away one of those ruffs. That is rare in practice; in most deals, lead side suits and let the caller spend their own trumps.
6. Discards are your only signals
In Mexico you must trump when you cannot follow suit. So when a player throws a card of a third suit, it tells everyone two things: they have none of the led suit, and they have no trumps left. Watch for that card. When your partner discards, it says even more.
A player throws away cards from a suit they do not intend to keep. If your partner discards two diamonds, they are not guarding diamonds at the end of the deal. That makes the job split itself:
- Keep the suit your partner threw away. If you hold K♦ J♦, those two cards now guard diamonds for the whole defence.
- Throw from the suit your partner keeps. When you have to discard, throw clubs, the suit your partner did not touch.
The worst ending for a defence is two Gangsters guarding the same suit while the caller runs a different one. Reading each other's discards prevents that.
The caller leads a spade you cannot follow. Throw the 8♣, as shown faded above: your partner kept clubs. Your diamonds are the only guard in that suit, so if you throw one of them the caller's small diamonds can win.
Make your discards easy to read. Throw from the suit you are giving up, and keep the suit you are guarding complete. A random discard confuses your partner more than it confuses the caller.
7. Easy and Normal scoring change the defence
Public tables and mini games at Mexico Club use Easy scoring: a Gangster who takes no tricks scores 0. You can sacrifice freely, for example by throwing your only winner under your partner's to keep them on lead, because a zero costs you nothing.
Tournaments use Normal scoring, and private rooms can choose it. There a Gangster with zero tricks loses the amount of the bid: against a bid of 7, zero tricks costs you 7 points. Each defender should make sure of at least one trick. If you hold one sure winner, cash it at a good moment rather than giving it away in a clever sacrifice. A fall is also twice as expensive for the caller in Normal scoring, so the shared reward for breaking the bid is larger too.
On a Mexico call (all ten tricks without the talon), every trick the Gangsters take counts double. A single trick breaks the bid, so play for any trick at all: one ruff or one stray king is enough.
8. A short checklist
- Count how many tricks the defence needs: 11 minus the bid (against a Mexico call, just one).
- Before you lead, find the caller: right after you means lead low, after your partner means lead high.
- As second player, play low and let your partner cover; take a led queen with the ace.
- Win the caller's tricks as cheaply as possible; never overtake your partner without a reason.
- Do not lead from A-Q or K-J; wait for the suit to come to you.
- Do not lead trumps.
- Read your partner's discards, keep the suit they gave up, and throw the suit they keep.
- In Normal scoring, secure at least one trick for yourself.
The other side of the table is covered in playing as the caller, and the bidding decisions that come before all of this in how to bid. The full list of rules is on the rules page.