Which Card? by Ben Norton

A: ♠5. It’s essential to spurn the apparently ‘normal’ lead of the ♠K in favour of your fourth-highest.

Leading the King could so easily block the suit, meaning you can no longer make the full profit from your assets in the suit. For example if partner has A x then banging down the King will cast the suit adrift if it breaks 4-2 in the opponents’ hands. Partner does best to play low (but in reality he’ll overtake with the Ace, placing you with the Ten or Nine), but since you have only one outside entry you won’t be able to both establish and cash a fifth Spade trick.

The same effect will be had if partner has J x. Then declarer would hold up his Ace twice, leaving partner on lead without another Spade to play. Leading a low Spade keeps the position fluid. Partner can freely play his honor, thus unblocking the suit, without having to worry about squandering the strength of your holding. You can later expect to regain the lead with the ♦A and cash your Spades.

If partner doesn’t have a Spade honor, then leading a low card instead of the King will only lose when the ♠J comes down in two rounds and partner has the Ten. Even then you’ll probably need partner to have 10 x x x for the defense to succeed, because if he has 10 x x the suit will be blocked once more, and declarer may take advantage of this by knocking out your ♦A before the ♠10 has been cashed.

Your result so far:

A: ♥4. With no outside entry, in order to beat the contract you have to hope that either partner has enough to allow you to cash the suit immediately, or that he has an outside entry and you’ll be able to cash the suit later on. A small card will help you in both of these endeavours.

In the unlikely circumstance when you need to cash five quick tricks, a low Heart will allow this to happen pretty much whenever it can happen. Moreover if partner has Q x or Q J x then it’s essential that you kick off with a small card instead of the Ace or King, so that you can unravel the suit when it splits 3-3 and 4-1 respectively.

Even if partner doesn’t have enough in the suit for you to cash five tricks straight off the bat, the lead of a low Heart may help you to establish the suit, while maintaining communication between you and your partner. Say partner has ♥x x. When the suit breaks evenly you’ll have four tricks to cash once partner gets in. The same can be said if partner has x x x or Q x x. It’s true that if the suit splits 3-2 then you’ll be fine by cashing a top card to survey the dummy, then continuing with a low one, but if they’re 4-1 then you’ll have blown the suit. In the event of a 4-1 break you’d have to hope that partner has two outside entries (with ♥x x x), enabling you to duck the first two rounds of the suit and cash the last three. If partner has ♥Q x x then you’ll need to duck a round early on too.

If partner has ♥J x x x and the Queen is falling in two rounds, or if partner has a singleton Heart and you’re now cut off from him, then that’s just hard luck. You played with the odds.

Your result so far:

A: ♥Q. With the stronger hand being in the dummy, the Queen is the card that's most likely to help you set up the suit.

You can expect around 18-19 points to hit in the dummy for the raise to 3NT, opposite 6-9 or so on your right. This means that the ♥K is more likely to be in the dummy than with declarer. With this in mind, you need to lead the Queen. Since there can be no more than three Hearts on your right for the 1NT response, the only positions wherein you risk conceding two Heart tricks are when both honors are on dummy to three or more cards, which you can do nothing about, and when they are split between your opponents. In this case the lead of a small card will pick up the suit when declarer has the King and dummy J x x, but will blow a second trick and possibly a vital tempo when declarer has the Jack and K x x is on the table.

Having already established that the ♥K is more likely to be on your left than your right, it becomes clear that the ♥Q lead is the most likely to pick up the suit and thus set the contract. By fishing out the Queen you pick up K x x (x) on dummy with J x (x) in declarer’s hand. You hope that when dummy’s King holds the first trick, partner can then get in and fire back another Heart through declarer’s Jack. Of course declarer can hold up, to good effect if partner only has a doubleton Heart, since it prevents the suit from being cashed as you have no side entry, but then at least you’ll have picked up a second quick trick.

Your result so far:

A: ♦Q. Here it’s best to start off with the Queen in order to pick up dummy’s potential King.

It could be right to lead the Two, but that would only really be when partner has H x. Then he would be unable to overtake your Queen without butchering a trick in the suit, and if he plays low the suit will be blocked, even to the point where you may be unable to pick up the Ten in declarer’s hand. This is a bit of a worry, but not a huge one, for there is a big upside to the ♦Q lead.

If the King hits in dummy and partner has the Ace you could serve to pick up the suit for four tricks. This will be the case when there’s K x in dummy and partner has four, or when partner has the Ten. Thus the lead of the Queen provides you with a real chance of taking four tricks in the suit, which is well worth the risk of blocking the suit if partner has H x.

Your result so far:

A: ♠3. It may seem automatic to fire out the Jack from this holding, but when you think about the positions against which it gains in comparison with your fourth-highest, the latter takes the mantle.

Leading the Jack will gain only when there’s K x or Q x on the dummy and partner has the Ace or King (or there’s K Q x on table and the Nine in declarer’s hand, but then he’d definitely play the King from dummy anyway). Even then if partner has the King you need him to also hold the Nine or a fifth card so you can pick the suit up. Therefore, since you probably need partner to have the Nine anyway, you could try the effect of leading a low card.

This could surrender a tempo if for example partner has K 9 x over Q x x in dummy, since declarer could then duck the Nine, meaning partner would have to cross back to your hand to lead another Heart through, by which time your entry to the fourth Heart will have been spent. But the advantages of leading a low card are manifold. Whenever partner has a doubleton, or indeed some weaker three-card holdings, the ♠3 has a good chance of either allowing you to establish an extra trick in the suit, or preventing declarer from forcibly scoring up another trick himself.

Say partner has Q x x and there’s H x in dummy. By leading a low card you enable your side to take two tricks, but when you lead the Jack you’ll only take one. The same can be said if partner has Q x over H x in dummy, with the emphasis switching to stopping declarer from making four tricks. If partner has A x leading low will not only grant you two tricks by force when there’s H x x on your right, but it will also prevent declarer from taking three tricks on this layout by ducking out partner’s Ace and finessing against your Ten if you lead the Jack. Additionally, if partner has H x underneath two honors on your right you limit declarer to only two tricks by kicking off with a small card.

Thus leading a low card gains when partner has a shorter holding and generally breaks even when he has the Nine, which you need him to have when you lead the Jack most of the time anyway. Not only this but leading a low card is much safer than leading the Jack, because then if partner has a stray honor you give yourself a much better chance of not blowing the suit, due to your Jack-Ten tenace still being intact.

When selecting the specific card to lead from your long suit against a No-trump contract, consider the following factors:

- Which card gives you the best chance of establishing the suit?
- Will there be any chance of a blockage?
- Are there communication issues? (e.g. if you don’t have an outside entry)
- Construct a few likely layouts of the suit and then think about which lead gains more often
- If you’re leading into the opposition’s long suit, which card gives the least away? (In general it’s more important to think about the offensive potential of your lead though)
- When you have a sequence of high honors, usually it's best to only lead an honor when you have a good spot card to support your tenace, e.g. the Nine or Ten, which could aid in picking up a holding in dummy
- With poor intermediate cards, it’s generally a good idea to lead a low card from a sequence of high honors, so as to prevent you from blocking the suit or crashing honors in partner’s hand.

Your result so far: