Mix and Match 6 by Ben Norton

A: ♠6. Your minor suit honors are well placed for declarer, underneath dummy’s length in the suits. Therefore you can expect him to be able to pitch his Spade losers relatively quickly. You should kick off with an active Spade in order to take the tricks you’re owed in the suit. If it turns out that you’ve given up a cheap trick, then declarer will likely have made his contract no matter your lead.

Your result so far:

A: ♦7. It’s not very attractive to lead dummy’s suit, since there might well be a source of tricks there and you only have a doubleton, meaning that any tricks partner has in the suit probably won’t go away. The same is not true for the red suits. Dummy and partner have the vast majority of the strength between them, so it’s very likely that by leading through dummy you’ll either be picking up an honor in front of partner’s tenace, or you’ll be promoting a trick for partner. This is going to be your only time on lead so you must try a red suit now, but which one?

There’s not much between them, but you should pick a Diamond. The reason being that you have five of them and six Hearts, thus you can expect partner’s Diamond tricks to stand up more often than his Heart tricks.

Your result so far:

A: ♥10. Your poor minor suit holdings strongly indicate that declarer will be able to run both of those suits. At best partner will only have one stop in one of them. Therefore you must get busy and lead a major. As discussed in the previous quizzes, you shouldn’t often lead from Axxx against 3NT. You can easily give away a trick to declarer’s stray honor, and most of the time if you need to attack the suit you will can still do so later on. For example, if you’re cashing four tricks in the suit then you need another outside trick, which will often be an entry that declarer has to knock out. Then you can turn to the Axxx suit at that point.

Here there’s more of a case to lead from Axxx, since it’s possible that you could be beating the contract off the bat if partner has five of them. That wouldn’t give declarer much of a 3NT bid though, since he could have investigated other strains at a comfortably low level. Declarer most likely has good stoppers in both majors, probably with the ♠K.

Therefore you need to lead a Heart, hoping that partner can win the ♥A and switch to a Spade, through declarer. Thus you hope to take a Heart and four Spades. To this end you should spurn the normal lead of the ♥4 for the Ten, to discourage partner from continuing the suit. If he can see the Nine, either in his own hand or dummy, he will think you’re leading from 10 x and will get the message to switch to Spades.

It’s not often that you can plan (and mastermind) the defense on the opening lead, but here you can see that declarer won’t have much trouble bringing the minor suits in, so you need to hope to take five quick tricks.

Your result so far:

A: ♣Q. It could be the case that a Heart trick isn’t standing up, so then by leading a Heart you’ll be giving up what may well be your only time on lead. What’s more your poor pointed suit holdings suggest that declarer’s finesses in those suits are going to work, so there’s a danger that declarer will get dummy’s Club losers away on his Spades. If by leading a Club you give declarer the chance to pitch a heart loser, then that means declarer has Clubs controlled and he probably won’t be going off.

Make the best of your time on lead by placing the ♣Q on the table, hoping to pick up dummy’s King underneath partner’s Ace, or to at least set up some tricks for partner. If you do choose to lead a Heart the King is a stand-out, so that you, the weak hand who has no effective tenaces, can retain the lead and switch from your side of the table at trick two, into partner’s strength.

It could even be that partner has a singleton Club, so if he also has the ♦A he could enter your hand with the ♥K to take a ruff. It's unlikely, but it adds an extra string to your bow.

Your result so far:

A: ♠K. When you’re on lead after your right-hand-opponent has pre-empted, you can afford to lead aggressively, since he doesn’t rate to have much side-suit strength. Therefore the ♠K is your best shot, hoping to score some ruffs. If partner has the Ace then you will probably be able to get him on lead at trick two to give you a ruff. Even if he doesn’t have the ♠A it’s not impossible for him to hold the ♥A, in which case you’ll still get your ruff. Either way you won’t be giving anything away, because declarer is very unlikely to hold the ♠A. Also, if the ♠K holds you’ll be in a good position to judge which minor suit to switch to, whereas you’re not currently.

Your result so far: