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 Leads with a weak hand by Matthias Huberschwiller

It’s your lead and you have a near-yarborough hand. (A hand with no card higher than the nine.)

How will this affect your way of leading?

It’s your lead!


Question 1

  Your Hand
 J 7 6 5 3 2
 9 8 7
 6 2
 7 4
 
Q: 1 - What do you lead as West?
SouthWestNorthEast
1 NTPass3 NTPass
PassPass


 Your choice:
A: 9 – You might want to lead from your six-card spade suit, but, without a miracle, how would you get on lead to get spade tricks? IT’s impossible.

It’s your partner’s suit that you need to establish. As your opponents’ bidding sequence has denied any length in the majors, your biggest chance to find partner with something is hearts.

Therefore you need to lead “Top of Nothing” in hearts.


Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 2

  Your Hand
 7 6 3 2
 9 4 2
 6 2
 J 9 4 2
 
Q: 2 - What do you lead as West?
SouthWestNorthEast
1Pass2Pass
2 NTPass4Pass
PassPassPass



 Your choice:
A: 6 – What is the only chance to get tricks in this deal?

You’d need your partner to let you ruff a diamond. For this, you need to lead your doubleton diamond, in order to establish tricks for you partner and hope to get a ruff.

The weaker your hand, the more you need to lead from short suits.


Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 3

  Your Hand
 J 10 9 8
 6
 8 6 3 2
 10 9 4 2
 
Q: 3 - What do you lead as West?
SouthWestNorthEast
1Pass2Pass
4PassPassPass


 Your choice:
A: 6 – You have a certain trump trick, so this could tempt you not to lead your singleton heart.

But as you have only one jack, your partner must have some points. So, if you lead your singleton heart, you have good chances to ruff more than once. That’s why you need to lead your heart.


Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 4

  Your Hand
 6 4 2
 10 6 4 2
 9 6
 J 6 4 2
 
Q: 4 - What do you lead as West?
SouthWestNorthEast
1Pass2 NT*Pass
4 NTPass5**Pass
7PassPassPass


* 2 NT Jacoby: At least 12 points, four card spade support.
** 5: 2 keycards without the spade queen.

 Your choice:
A: 2 – Do you have an idea what declarer’s game plan will be? Not really. The only thing you know is that your partner has a singleton trump. Thus, a trump lead will never give a trick away.

What about the other suits? If your partner has an honor in the suit you lead, you risk giving an advantage to the declarer.

Therefore, you need to choose the neutral lead, a trump. This is very often the case against a slam.


Your result so far:
Open Question

Question 5

  Your Hand
 9 6 2
 9 8 6 5 2
 7 4
 10 6 2
 
Q: 5 - What do you lead as West?
SouthWestNorthEast
1Pass2Pass
2 NTPass3 NTDouble
PassPassPass


 Your choice:
A: 10 – Your partner has doubled 3NT, why? He thinks that the contract can go down, but not with any lead. What can he have, given that he has passed in the previous round? Clubs!

His double is a Lightner double, asking for a lead in dummy’s suit.

So the best is to lead the 10, which may help for executing a forcing finesse, but you should give yourself half the points if you led the 6.


Your result so far:
Open Question

Overall Results

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What next? You may enjoy playing our prepared hands series.
More informations on our website: www.VuBridge.com

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