Opening Lead for Intermediates 18 by Andy Hung

A: ♠2.

Spade lead is where it's at on this hand. You may be tempted to lead your singleton Club, but you can see that the trumps are breaking terribly for the opponents. In this case, it is better to try and sieze control in the trump suit by forcing the opponents to ruff your Spades, allowing you to take control.

Usually when you have length and strength in the trump suit, it is often wise to lead your longest and strongest suit, and hope to take control in the trump suit, rather than to lead your singletons and weaken your trump holding.

Your result so far:

A: ♦6.

Not a good choice of leads on this hand, so this is a time where a process of elimination works best.

The ♠A can be a safe lead if partner has the ♠K, but if he doesn't have it, the ♠A lead may give up a trick if declarer has the ♠K. Since there doesn't appear to be any rush to cash our Spade trick(s), we can rule out a Spade.

Secondly, there's nothing going for a singleton trump lead, so we can rule that out also.

Between Diamonds and Clubs, since East opened 1♣, we'd do best to avoid the Club suit so by a process of elimination, Diamonds is probably the best choice on this hand. We don't love it, but everything else seems worse.

Which Diamond? Going back to the standard lead from three small cards, we should lead the second highest, the ♦6.

Your result so far:

A: ♦Q.

It is usually not a good idea to lead a singleton if you only have a singleton trump also because if partner doesn't have the Ace to give you an immediate ruff, the opponents will be able to draw (at least) a round of trumps. However, on this hand, partner has opened 1♦. Partner therefore is a favorite to hold the ♦A so now's a good chance to lead your singleton, and on a lucky day, you may get a ruff with your singleton trump also!

Your result so far:

A: ♠8.

None of the other three suits outside of Spades is particularly attractive, so it is most likely best to lead a Spade here (which can't be that bad since partner did respond 1♠).

With three small cards, again, it is best to lead your second highest card. Although we have a sequence of 987, we usually lead top of a sequence but the lowest 'sequence' you can have is down to the 10. That is, we would consider 109x as a sequence to lead the 10, but 987 or 876 etc. should not be considered as sequences. The reason for that is because there's not much need to show a very low sequence, so it is best not to confuse a high-spot-card-lead of the 9 or 8 with a "top of a sequence 987 lead" with a doubleton/singleton lead. In other words, it's best to rid of that doubt.


Your result so far:

A: ♦4.

Here, we face a common question - should we treat the 10 as an honor card or a spot card? The general consensus is that it's best to treat it as an honor card, so with ♦1064 here, lead the 4.

Your result so far: