Opening Leads against Suit Contracts 8 by Paul Bowyer

We continue with a series on opening leads against suit contracts.

Opening Leads against suit contracts is tricky, and there are many pitfalls.

Basically, there are four strategies:

1. Short suit leads;
2. Sequence leads;
3. Passive leads;
4. Attacking leads.

This series contains a mixture of deals.

You are always South, on lead to East's suit contract.

Question 1

Your Hand
♠ 5
♥ Q 10 8 7
♦ J 10 9 7
♣ K J 5 3

Q: 1 - You are South, on lead to 2♥ after the auction below.

What is your choice of lead?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1♥
P	1♠	P	2♣
P	2♥	P	P
P

A: Lead the ♦J.

No need to lead your singleton as you don’t want a Spade ruff – your four decent trumps are a real pain to declarer.

The ♦J is from a sequence and will get your side off to a nice safe start.

With Clubs and Hearts well placed (for your side) you can afford to sit back and wait.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 2

Your Hand
♠ J 8
♥ Q 9 7 6
♦ J 7 5 4
♣ K Q 4

Q: 2 - You are South, on lead to 4♠ after the auction below.

What is your choice of lead?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1♠
P	2♦	P	2♥
P	3♠	P	4♠
P	P	P

A: Lead the ♣K.

You have nothing better to do with your time than lead the unbid suit here – anything else is revolting.

It is normal to treat these three-card combinations as sequences, so we lead the King from K Q ×, the Queen from Q J ×, the Jack from J 10 × and so on.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 3

Your Hand
♠ 9 8 5
♥ Q 10 6
♦ J 8 5 2
♣ K J 10

Q: 3 - You are South, on lead to 2♥ after the transfer auction below.

What is your choice of lead?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1NT
P	2♦*	P	2♥
P	P	P

A: Lead the ♠8.

It looks best to find a passive lead here rather than open up a can of worms. Leading from a Jack can often open up a frozen suit and there’s no rush to set up tricks when defending a modest part-score.

The house style (popular world-wide) is to lead the second-highest from trash.

In order to prevent partner from believing we have a doubleton Spade and are looking for a ruff we intend playing the Nine-spot on the second round.

In some parts of the world this play, when holding three small cards, revels in the name of MUD (playing Middle-Up-Down).

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 4

Your Hand
♠ A 10 9
♥ A 5 3
♦ J 7 6 2
♣ Q 6 3

Q: 4 - You are South, on lead to 4♥ after the auction below.

What is your choice of lead?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1♥
P	2♥	P	4♥
P	P	P

A: Lead the ♥3.

You have a repulsive selection to lead from with all suits except trumps strong candidates to open up frozen suits. In these cases a trump lead may prove safest.

When leading trumps it is usually best to lead the lowest card.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 5

Your Hand
♠ 6
♥ 9 8 7 6 2
♦ K J 3
♣ K J 5 2

Q: 5 - You are South, on lead to 4♠ after the auction below.

What is your choice of lead?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1♠
P	2♦	P	2♥
P	3♠	P	4♠
P	P	P

A: Lead the ♣2.

East-West have sailed into game and look to have tricks to burn. So, you need to grab what you can, while you can. It looks best to make an attacking lead hoping to set up a Club trick or two before the rats get at them. If you don't, declarer may well be able to dump Club losers on his Hearts or maybe set up dummy's Diamonds to dump losers from his own hand.

The lead of a singleton trump, by the way, is suicidal. What if partner has ♠Q × ×?

Your result so far:

Open Question

Overall Results

Your results: out of Average:

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

Rate yourself:

0 - 40%	We applaud your effort. Review the subject and try again. You'll be surprised how much better you'll do. We're here for you!!
41 - 50%	Buy your mentor a cuppa and ask for clarification on the ones you got wrong. No mentor? Make finding one a priority!
51 - 60%	Nice improvement! One more review and you'll have this down solid!
61 - 80%	What a good job! All that's left is some fine tuning
Over 80%	Wow! It's time for you to become a mentor. Find someone who needs help and share your knowledge!