Enlightening Lightner Doubles (Part II) by Ben Norton

A: ♦2. Partner’s Double must be averting us away from the natural lead of our agreed suit – Spades, and towards a minor.

Partner doesn’t want us to lead a Spade, either because he doesn’t hold the Ace or more likely because he has undisclosed extra length in the suit, making it very unlikely that a Spade trick will stand up. If he thought the contract would be beaten on a Spade lead, he would have Passed out 6♥.

So we turn our attention towards the minor suits. Usually in this kind of situation partner’s Double would ask us to lead dummy’s first bid suit, but when we look closer at the evidence available from the auction we can see that a Club lead can’t be right.

Declarer must be short in Clubs to insist on playing in Hearts. His partner freely bid Clubs at the five-level, so with support he would have preferred the Club slam. Thus partner can’t be Doubling with a Club tenace or a Club void, since East must be short.

That leaves us with Diamonds. It’s likely that partner has a good Diamond holding and a trump trick (which is consistent with our trump holding). He must be afraid that on a Spade lead declarer will be able to pitch his Diamond losers on dummy’s Clubs.

There’s just one more small technical point. It’s best to lead your fourth-highest Diamond despite not holding an honor. This is because it’s more important to give partner count in the suit than to show him your strength.

Your result so far:

A: ♠3. With a choice between both pointed suits the only indicator is a small negative inference from the auction.

Partner can’t be asking for a Club lead because declarer cue-bid in that suit, showing a control there. Therefore partner is requesting a Spade or a Diamond. Due to our stronger Diamond holding it may seem tempting to smack the ♦J on the table, but this would be hasty. Our holdings in the pointed suits are largely irrelevant. Partner Doubled because he can see an excellent pointed suit holding in his hand, he can’t be relying on us to bolster the suit.

This makes it seem that there is no way of knowing what partner wants us to do, but there is a subtle pointer. Partner could have easily Doubled West’s artificial 2♦ call for the lead, but he chose not to, whereas if he holds Spades it would have been more dangerous for him to overcall, especially without great length in the suit.

Thus it’s more likely that partner wants a Spade lead than a Diamond. Presumably partner has the ♠AQ and is assuming that the King is on dummy for the 4NT bid (surely West must have a Spade control and a Diamond control to drive his side to a slam).

Your result so far:

A: ♠4. There seems to be some conflicting evidence here. Dummy made an artificial bid in Clubs and Diamonds, but partner didn’t Double either suit for the lead.

Partner would have Doubled 4♣ or 5♦ if he wanted a minor suit lead, and naturally a trump is out of the question, seeing as a Lightner Double asks for an active lead by its very nature. That leaves Spades, which is odd because that’s declarer’s suit.

The only reasons partner could have for Doubling are that he knows it’s going off on any lead, in which case it doesn’t matter what we do, or that he holds the ♠A.

Believing West to have a doubleton Spade for his 1NT response (which is very likely), partner must think that we have a singleton Spade, and he wants to encourage us to lead a Spade and take our ruff. He must have ♠A x x x x and has cleverly deduced that we have a Spade shortage and may not lead it without persuasion. After all, would you really have found a Spade lead, into declarer’s known five-card suit, if you didn’t know partner had the Ace?

Your result so far:

A: ♣7. The key here is to visualise how the play will go.

Partner’s Double would traditionally ask for us to lead dummy’s suit – here Spades, but if we delve a little further into the problem we can conclude that even if partner does want a Spade lead, it can’t be necessary to lead a Spade. Declarer has denied a five-card suit and West has shown 5332 shape, thus there is no chance that East will be able to bring home his slam without at least one trick in Spades.

Knowing that declarer will have to play on Spades at some point anyway, there’s no need for us to kick off with a Spade. Instead we should try a different lead just in case partner’s strength lies there. Partner may be relying on us to figure out from the very revealing auction that he doesn’t want a Spade lead.

Holding five Diamonds it looks unlikely from our point of view that partner wants a Diamond lead, in fact his good holding rates to be in one of our shorter suits. Between the rounded suits, a Heart lead stands out because of our holding – J 10 x is appealing to lead from, but just as in question 2), our cards are not important.

To help us decide between a Heart lead and a Club lead we must examine the bidding more closely. If partner wants a Heart lead he had the opportunity to Double West’s 3♥ transfer bid for the lead. Of course this isn’t much of an inference because he wouldn’t Double at that stage in the auction with for example ♥A K x, for he wouldn’t know that the opponents would go on to play in slam and they could have a Heart fit, but this small inference tips the balance in favour of a Club lead.

Against No-trump contracts the emphasis is on showing our strength in the suit in preference to our count, since unlike against suit contracts there is no element of a ruff, therefore it’s best to lead the ♣7 here, our highest spot card to tell partner we don’t have a Club honor.

Presumably partner either has the ♣A K and is afraid that declarer will be able to make twelve tricks on a non-Club lead with the aid of the five-card Spade suit on table, or he wanted a Spade lead after all, in which case declarer won't have enough tricks outside the Spade suit and the contract will still go down.

Your result so far:

A: ♣8. Partner is asking for a lead of dummy’s first bid suit with his Double.

Had he wanted a Spade lead, partner could have either Doubled 2♠ or overcalled 2♠ himself over 2♣, so the standard assumption that a Double asks for the lead of dummy’s first bid suit rather than its second must be right here, making a Club lead stand out.

The only question left is which Club to lead. Let’s construct the likely layout of the Club suit. Dummy will have five to bid Clubs then Spades, and partner will have five for his Double, leaving declarer with a void. Partner must have the outstanding Club honors, else his Double would just be too risky, missing the ♣K. So he’ll have A Q J x x at the worst.

Knowing this, which is the best Club to lead? The Two would be the standard card, but consider what might happen if we try that here. If dummy’s Club intermediates are quite good, say 10 9 x x x, after the first trick goes to the Ten and Jack, partner will return a Club to our King, but when we fire the ♣8 through, declarer will be able to play small from dummy, blocking the suit. Nor is the ♣K lead any better, since we would only be able to lead through dummy once, leaving the Ten or Nine as a stopper.

Our best chance is to lead the Eight as an unblocking manoeuvre. There’s no need to worry about partner mis-interpreting our lead and placing the King with declarer, because declarer will show out at trick one. This may seem like a double dummy lead, but this is the only Club position for us to worry about, so we should definitely take care to guard against it. If ♣10 9 x x x hits on the dummy with the Seven in partner’s hand, we will be over the moon with our choice of lead.

It’s often hard to decipher partner’s intention when he makes a Lightner Double. But as with everything in Bridge, you mustn’t blindly follow hard and fast rules. Every scenario should be considered in its own context.

When the gleam of a Lightner Double hits your eyes don’t just reach for dummy’s first bid suit, take your time to think about the auction and draw the inferences and negative inferences. Partner may be counting on you to reason that the hand must be an exception to the rule because of the construction of the layout or the fact that he didn’t do something in the auction which he would have done if he wanted a specific lead.

Also, once you’ve figured out which suit partner wants you to lead, be sure to think some more about which card is best, either to give you a better technical chance in the suit or to convey a message to partner about the strength or length of your holding (usually length vs. suits and strength vs. No-trumps, but this of course can change).

Don’t be afraid to take as long as you need to make your decision. After all, a lot of IMPs will be riding on your decision, because partner’s Double suggests that he is afraid the opponents will make their contract if a specific suit isn’t led.

Your result so far: