Mix and Match by Ben Norton

A: ♠3. Your side has the balance of power and you seemingly have every side suit covered. Therefore you should lead a trump to cut down declarer’s ruffs. If you were to kick off with the normal looking top Diamond, it’s likely that declarer will ruff and you will have given away a tempo, but even if you hold the trick, one of the opponents will have shortness, so you’ll have aided declarer in setting up a possible cross-ruff.

Your side surely has a game on, so you need to take as big a penalty as you can. Partner will have a balanced hand for passing the Double, but the opponents, with a maximum of fifteen points between them, must have a lot of distribution to bid to game, making a cross-ruff likely.

Your result so far:

A: ♠J. The most likely way you’re beating this is by taking a Heart ruff, and you have better chances of getting partner on lead in Spades than in Diamonds. To wake partner up you should lead an unusual card, and a high one at that, as a suit preference signal for Hearts. The Jack is best. If partner can see the Ten, which is very likely seeing as you have ten Spades between you, then he’ll know you’re trying to wake him up to give you a ruff.

Your result so far:

A: ♥Q. You’re definitely going to lead a Heart, the question is which one. West is known to have the strong hand, so the ♥K is more likely to be in dummy. Therefore you should lead the Queen. This will pick up the suit for no losers most of the time when declarer has the Jack and dummy the King, instead of giving declarer a second stopper in the suit if you lead a low one.

Your result so far:

A: ♠J. On this auction declarer is very likely to have 1.5.4.3 shape, but even without this inference a Spade lead would stand out knowing East has the strong hand, plus you’re holding low cards behind him in the suits he has length in. There’s little point in attacking Clubs, because declarer’s stops will be sitting over partner. Instead you should attack Spades. It could be that partner has five Spades and you can cash the suit, but it’s more likely that you’ll be setting up tricks for partner.

In terms of which Spade you should lead, the Jack is best. Leading a small one risks blocking the suit, while leading the Ace reduces the amounts of time you can lead through dummy from two to one. By leading the Jack you could pin the Ten in declarer’s hand while keeping the suit unblocked. Also, you’ll get to lead through dummy twice. Imagine partner has ♠K 10 8 x x and there’s ♠Q 9 x x on dummy. You can pick the whole suit up by leading the Jack.

Your result so far:

A: ♦2. You need to lead actively here. It looks like both major suits are lying very favorably for declarer. You have K J x beneath dummy’s five-card Heart suit and three low trumps means declarer won’t have any problems with them. You must lead a low Diamond, hoping to cash three tricks in the suit. You’ll need a fourth trick of course, which could potentially be from any of the other suits, but there’s no need to guess which at trick one. It could even be that a fourth round of Diamonds promotes your ♠9 into the setting trick. Say partner has ♠Q J doubleton.

Whenever you’re on opening lead, try and visualize the hand, mainly where the strength lies and the distribution. Then apply those inferences to your lead.

Your result so far: