Opening Lead when They bid Stayman by Andy Hung

A: ♥6.

One of the golden rules when making an opening lead is to avoid leading the opponent's suit(s). However, we can make an exception here.

Although declarer has shown Hearts with his Stayman reply, Hearts is still our best suit. Furthermore, as the opponents are in game, our 12-point hand indicates that our partner has very little! In that case, our only hope is if partner can contribute a helping honor in Hearts, whether it'd be the Ace (unlikely), the Queen, or the Jack.

Your result so far:

A: ♦3.

This time it's not right to lead a Spade (declarer's suit). Firstly, our Spades are not internally solid (i.e. it is lacking in intermediate cards such as the 10 and 9) like it was in the previous problem. Secondly, we only have eight points so it's not like we hold almost all of the defensive assets.

As it will be difficult to set up the Spades, it is best to lead our second best suit, Diamonds. At least we have the ♦10 so that will make it a little easier to establish the suit.

Your result so far:

A: ♣Q.

Did you forget to take a careful look at the auction? It's always nice when partner is able to help you out on your opening lead, and here, he HAS helped you out - partner doubled the 2♣ Stayman bid!

In that case, there's no reason to override partner's lead-directing double especially when we have ♣Q 4 support for his Clubs! Additionally, it seems as if partner has the majority of the defensive assets so it is partner who has the outside entries - time to set up partner's Clubs!

Your result so far:

A: ♦7.

This time we have reason to override partner's lead-directing double. Here, we have a singleton Club which wouldn't benefit partner at all. Additionally, we have a nice five-card Diamond suit with the ♥K as a potential re-entry. These are signs pointing for us to try and set up our own Diamond suit rather than partner's Club suit.

Your result so far:

A: ♦7.

When the opponents don't go through a Stayman (or a Transfer) sequence, we should aim to lead a major suit since responder (dummy) will not have a major.

On this hand however, a Diamond is preferred. We shouldn't neglect our good Diamond suit as we don't need much help from partner to establish the suit. If we were to lead a major, we would still need to guess which suit to lead as neither are particularly attractive. As our ♣K may prove to be a later entry, we should aim to establish our Diamonds by leading one now.

Your result so far: