Bridge Tips - Play of the Cards, No. 4 - Leads To Partner's Suit
Questions
You are on lead to an opponent's contract and your partner has bid a suit during the auction, or doubled as suit as a lead-directing double. Which should you lead to his suit from the following cards: -
1. Q5
2. 973
3. Q873
4. A4
5. J742
6. A752
7. 74
8. K73
9. J2
10. Q73
Answers
1. The Queen. With a doubleton, you need to lead the honour to avoid getting blocked, even an Ace or King.
2. The Nine. With none of the top three honours in your hand, lead your highest card, however many cards you may have. As partner can see dummy, he can work out exactly the higher outstanding cards that declarer has, and decide what to do - e.g. he may play the Ace and then switch to another suit.
3. With three or more cards and an Ace, King or Queen, play small. In this case with the Queen, if partner has the Ace and declarer the KJ, partner takes the Ace and returns the suit, promoting your Queen. If you had lead the Queen. Declarer would have made both the King and Jack.
4. The Ace, as in 1.
5. The J, as in 2.
6. The two. In this case, if partner has the King and declarer the Queen, you can trap declarer's Queen.
7. The Seven, as in 2.
8. The Three. Again, if partner has the Ace, you trap declarer's Queen.
9. Jack, your highest card and then partner will know that you haven't the A, K or Q.
10. The Three, as in 3.
Summarising: -
- With a doubleton honour, lead the honour to avoid getting blocked.
- With three or more to the A, K or Q, lead small to ensure your Queen wins or to trap
declarer's Queen if you have one of the top two honours and partner has the other.
- With two or more cards less than the Queen, lead your highest, so that partner can work out all the outstanding high cards that declarer has.
If you follow these guidelines, your partner should be able to work out yours and declarer's high cards most of the time. Occasionally, this may be difficult, e.g. if you lead from 32 doubleton - but even then partner may work it out if he watches the cards played carefully, as he should spot that the two is missing!
Finally, I have not included the possibility of you having four or more cards to the J or less. I think that I have seen guidance that suggests you should lead the fourth card. I haven't been able to find any guidance on leads to partner's suit in any of my Bridge books, not even in the Encyclopaedia Of Bridge, so can't be sure. All I can say is that if you lead fourth from four small cards, partner will probably think you have the Ace, King or Queen, and for this reason, Barry & I lead the highest. As I've said on many occasions, it doesn't matter which option you play, as long as you have established your partnership agreement.
(If anybody has a bridge book with guidance on leads to partner's suit, I'd be very interested to see it and will provide follow-up.)