Mix and Match by Ben Norton

A: ♠A. It’s important to kick off with a top Spade in case you can give partner a ruff.

It’s usually right to lead from an Ace-King sequence against a suit contract, and here is no exception, as it will help you to better plan the rest of the defense. If partner encourages on your ♠A lead you can give him a ruff, but even if he discourages you’ll be able to make an informed switch at trick two thanks to being able to see the dummy.

A lead from either red suit is hardly attractive and leading a trump could give away the position or lose a tempo. It could be that the sixth trick for the defense is a Spade ruff and by leading another suit declarer may be able to draw trumps. It’s true that a top Spade lead could concede a tempo if declarer needs to establish dummy’s Spades for discards or if partner is ruffing with a trump trick, but both of those eventualities are unlikely given that declarer rates to have length in both red suits on the auction.

Your result so far:

A: ♦2. No lead is at all appealing here and you no doubt wish that you could give partner a kick and have him lead for you. Unfortunately you must pick a card, and perhaps counter-intuitively, a Diamond rates to give away a trick the least often.

A trump from J 9 x wouldn’t be as bad a choice as if you held J x x, but it could still either give away the trump position or pick the suit up entirely, for example if there’s Q x in dummy, K x x in partner’s hand and A 10 x x x with declarer.

A Club may look safe from three small cards, but the Ten could prove to be very useful. In fact because declarer has shown length in Clubs leading away from the Ten will often pick up a stray honor in partner’s hand which would otherwise have taken a trick, for example if dummy has J x x, partner Q x x and declarer A K 9 x. Or even if partner has A J x and the King and Queen are divided between the opponents’ hands.

A Heart lead away from the Ace will go wrong too often, especially when you take into consideration that because declarer has promised nine black cards he won’t have length in Hearts. Even if a low Heart lead gains double dummy, partner won’t place you with the Ace and could well go wrong now or later on in the play. It’s for this reason that if you’re going to lead a Heart the Ace is much safer than a small one.

A Diamond is best not only because it’s safest but also because it harbours more offensive potential. Since you hold the Ten a Diamond lead will blow a trick less often than if you had K x x, mainly because you won’t give up a trick when partner has A J x or Q x x when the Ace is in dummy. Even if you do give up a trick by leading a Diamond it could be that declarer could get his Diamond loser away on a Heart anyway, and in this way it could even be necessary to lead a Diamond to establish a trick or two there before declarer gets dummy’s Hearts going.

Your result so far:

A: ♦4. Again this is a matter of finding a safe lead. You will probably beat the contract if you leave declarer to his own devices, since you have a good chance of making three tricks in the black suits.

A singleton trump is usually not a safe choice, as it often picks up partner’s long holding there, but here the opponents rate to have a ten-card fit and you won’t do any damage. A Heart lead could give up a trick if partner has the Queen and dummy the Jack, for similar reasons as to why a Club lead on the previous question wasn’t a good idea.

A Spade lead would be disastrous if declarer has the King, and there’s no reason that partner should hold that card instead, having only responded to your take/out Double at the one-level. A Club lead is equally dangerous because declarer could have the Queen. All in all there’s no reason to rush on this hand, you can wait for the tricks to come to you, thus a passive lead is in order.

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. It’s traditional to kick off with a major suit lead against the auction 1NT-3NT, but here there aren’t any particularly strong indications that you’ll be able to set up a lot of tricks in the majors.

Holding x x x in each major, you’ll need to find partner with a very good four or five-card suit for it to work, which is hardly likely considering you have a nine-count and the opponents have bid a game. Even if partner does have five cards in a major, you don’t know which one. In fact the suit that you are most likely to have tricks in is Diamonds, thus the best choice is the ♦A. It could allow you to cash the first five tricks if partner gives an encouraging signal, even if he doesn’t then at least you’ll be in a good position to find an effective switch at trick two.

Your result so far:

A: ♣3. You need to lead actively here, since all partner has done is made a pre-emptive raise, thus it looks like declarer has his contract on power. In this way your choices are the ♠K and your singleton Club.

A Spade lead could well be necessary if both dummy and declarer have two cards in the suit, for then there’s a fair risk that a non-Spade lead could give declarer the tempo to dispose of his losing Spades. However, this isn’t very likely. Declarer will probably have a singleton Spade, so there’s hardly any rush to cash a Spade. In fact, because in this case you only have one Spade trick, you’ll most likely need a ruff, after all partner can hardly be expected to produce three more tricks by himself.

You should lead your singleton Club in the hope of taking a ruff or two. If partner has the ♣A you’ll strike gold. He’ll give you a ruff and you’ll play to his hoped-for pointed-suit Ace to take another ruff, depending on his suit-preference signal at trick two. If not then your lead could still work if partner has the ♥A and another Ace, because he’ll win the first round of trumps, give you a ruff, win his side-suit Ace and give you another ruff. In this way you can’t afford to lead a Spade first, because it could force partner to use his entry too early, when he can’t give you a Club ruff, or it could allow declarer to draw trumps before you take your ruffs.

Your result so far: