Leading for a Signal
Sometimes the winning defense is far from clear when you’re picking out your opening lead. Indeed the best line of play may depend on partner’s shape or where his strength lies.
At times like this you can enlist the help of partner by way of defensive signalling. Partner will strive to help you as much as possible by following with a certain card to indicate either his count (if he has an even or odd number of cards) in the suit, or his strength (whether he has a high honor card there). Using standard signals, partner will play high-low to show an even number of cards or encouragement, and he will follow upwards to advertise an odd number or discouragement.
The information he will digress depends entirely on which card you lead. This is subject to partnership agreements but the most common method is to lead the King to ask for count and the Ace or Queen to ask for attitude (strength), so you shall use that here. Of course these methods are only really used when you have either an AK or KQ sequence though.
As South on these five hands try to enlist partner’s help in order to plan the best defense.