Leads, Signals, Discards

A lot of the training so far has been all about the auction – what to open, how to respond, etc. But half the game will see you on the defending side, so defending well is vital too. There are a few key things that can sharpen stuff up ahead of a more detailed discussion.

Leading

Against a no trump contract, we’ve agreed in the past that the fourth highest of your longest and strongest suit is a winning opening lead. That’s a good rule, and fine. But what about against suit contracts?

Normally your priorities should be as follows:

1)Lead partner’s suit (if she has bid one) – this should be clear.

2)Lead an unbid suit – since you don’t want to just help out the declarer with one of their suits

3)Lead a suit you have a strong holding in (or a good reason to lead)

4)Don’t give anything away!

Within these parameters, there are certain “standard” leads from various holdings, which you’ll just get to used to doing over time. Normally you lead

The top of a sequence
J from JT98, etc
This applies to “interior” sequences too – so you’d still lead the J from KJT9
Small from an honour
With holdings like K764 or Q872 you should lead a small one. Not from an Ace!
Top of a doubleton
In partner’s suit it’s OK to lead, say, K from K2
If not, that’s a very risky lead. T from T6 or something is probably OK in an unbid suit.
Top of nothing
This is if you can’t really think of much else to lead, or you’re just leading partner’s suit. Clearly it may cause trouble if partner can’t tell between a doubleton and three small, but that’s something we’ll have to live with.

Signals

If partner leads a top card in a suit then you have some inferences from the above rules. Unless you’ve bid the suit, the high card led should promise the touching honour beneath it, e.g. if partner leads the King then you know she has the Queen.

To help her out, you can give a signal on this kind of lead – playing a highish card is encouraging, whilst a low one is discouraging. The chap who writes in the Times describes this as “throw high means aye; throw low means no”, if that helps you to remember more easily.

Examples:

Partner has led the Ace, which you’d hope would promise the King too, against a suit contract, in a suit where you hold:

a) Q965You should play the 9. Partner has the AK so you can show the Q safely.

b) 86You should play the 8. If partner carries on this suit you’ll get a ruff

c) J43A small one is best – you have no desire to have partner continue the suit!

d) Q54Regrettably, the 5 is the best you can do here – it won’t always be possible to hold a high enough card to make things crystal clear for partner, but we can try.

Discards

In a similar vein to the signals above, when declarer is playing a suit you’ve

run out of (most often drawing partner’s last trump or something) then it’s nice

if you can help partner out a bit by encouraging or discouraging a suit. As

before, “high means aye” and “low means no”.

Examples:

--Against four spades, partner led a diamond which declarer won.

AK85He drew your two trumps and has played a third round, which
98gives you the opportunity to tell partner what to lead if he gets in.

JT82The 8 is your best shot, and might take the contract off.

--Same situation, but it’s not so clear cut you want a heart.

KJ85Depending on what you can see in dummy, a small club might
Q8actually be best, to encourage partner to find a safe card to

JT82exit with and avoid giving away a trick.

A full hand, with all of these principles:

AKT97

KJT8

J53 2

T9854 KJ62

52 AQ97

K93 762

Q864

643

AQT5

South opened a weak NT, and North transferred to spades before bidding 3NT to give partner the choice; South obviously preferred spades:

WestNorthEastSouth

- -Pass1NT

Pass 2Pass2

Pass 3NTPass4

PassPassPass

West played it safe, leading his top heart, and East could see when dummy played low that there was no point in wasting one of his good cards. Declarer won the Ace, and drew trumps. On the second trump, East had a decision to make. He knew he had a winner in hearts, but he had a bit of a think and realised that the only way partner could get in would have to be with a club trick, in which case there was a risk that partner’s heart continuation would leave East in big trouble (say he throws two low clubs):

KJT8

-- --

9854 KJ6

52 AQ97

93 --

643

AQT

Above, declarer has played the J to West’s King. If West now carries on with a heart, then East can take the K but will either have to cash the A and give up, or play another heart back. In the latter case, declarer will ruff in his hand, throwing a diamond from dummy, and then play three rounds of clubs to get rid of all the diamonds in dummy bar one. East will then still only make one diamond trick with the A, and the contract will succeed.

What East needs to recognise is that the heart trick simply depends on his cashing the top heart whenever he gets a chance, whereas the diamond suit will only yield two tricks if either partner or declarer leads into East’s hand.

So East needs to throw a big diamond, encouraging West to lead the suit if he gets the chance. When West wins the club, a diamond through the KJ seals declarer’s fate: he loses two diamonds, a heart and a club to go off in a decent contract.

Note that most people agree that only the first discard counts – you can’t just keep throwing helpful cards and crippling your hand while you do so! So it’s important both defenders are paying attention if they want to get good scores...