[32519]

The opening lead is invariably the most difficult decision as it is made before dummy is exposed on the table. Once the opening lead has been made, partner can signal a continuance or discontinuance of the suit. Additionally, a poor opening lead is often the deciding factor whether declarer makes his contract or not (or makes an overtrick or not). So how does one decide what to lead from amongst the myriad options available?

In no order of preference, below is a list of some options available. Kindly add others not currently listed here.

1. Ace, for Attitude:
...a. What would the suit typically look like when leading the Ace for Attitude?
...b. Does it differ when leading against a suit contract versus a NT contract?
2. King, for Count:
...a. What would the suit typically look like when leading the King for Count?
...b. Does it differ when leading against a suit contract versus a NT contract?
3. When partner has bid:
...a. The highest card in partners suit when holding a doubleton
...b. The lowest card in partners suit when holding 3-cards topped by an honour (Queen or higher)
...c. The middle card in partners suit when holding 3-cards without an honour, then up, then down (MUD or Middle/Up/Down)
4. Singleton (I often hear BBO commentators say, “the only reason not to lead a singleton is because you don’t have one”)
5. Top of nothing: The problem here is declarer is given the same information as partner allowing him to play the suit better as the hand unfolds
6. 2nd highest of a weak 4-card suit, followed by the lowest. Partner needs to workout whether you started off with 4 or only 2.
7. Against a NT contract: 4th best or the Rule of 11
8. 3 / 5 lead:
...a. When and why do you lead 3rd / 5th in a suit?
...b. Probably only against a NT contract?
9. Top of touching honours or top of a sequence
10. Top of an interior sequence, typically against a NT contract
11. Dummy’s first suit bid or an unusual lead after a Lightner Slam Double from partner
12. Journalist Leads: What are they/how do they work?
13. Slavinsky Leads: What are they/how do they work?
14. A trump lead when the bidding suggests declarer will be cross-ruffing the hand
15. The “Sucker-Punch” Lead: Sucker-punch is the only name I could come up with here for this lead. So, what is it or how does it work?
Against a 6NT contract the player on lead holding an Ace in any of the 4-suits and a small doubleton in any unbid suit e.g. 32 in an unbid suit, leads the 2. Normally declarer would read this as 4th best; small card from dummy, small card from RHO and declarer winning the trick with the smallest card necessary. To make the contract, a finesse is required in the suit led. Declarer was suckered by the opening lead, taking the finesse through LHO, and horror upon horrors when RHO produces the card setting the contract by one trick.
On BBO I have already been suckered 5 or 6 times by this lead; always by someone labelled an expert in their profiles. Which leads me to this question: Has the sucker-punch lead become expert standard against a NT contract or were these guys just having fun against a less experienced player? Murphy’s Law says the next time I need a finesse to make a 6NT contract, remembering past bad experiences, I will take the finesse through RHO only to find out that this time LHO did in fact lead 4th best. Down one again.

What are the most common or most effective methods for partner to signal a continuance or discontinuance of the suit led? How does partner signal which suit to switch to if a discontinuance of the suit led is required? This is probably even more important when defending a NT contract?

Thank you.

This post has been edited with the following lead possibilities:
16. Busso (added, see post below)
17. Rusinow (added, see post below)

[mich-b]

It is important to realize there are two separate issues here:
1. From which suit should I lead ?
This is a complex issue , and of course the "right" answer is usually to try and listen closely to the bidding and figure out which suit is their "weak spot".
There are some general "rules of thumb" tested by time , like leading a long and strong suit against NT , or leading trumps when the opps are about to crossruff.
Sometimes looking at the particular holdings in various suits in your hand may provide a good clue : A singleton often works well against their suit contract , a KQJ sequence is very often a good lead whatever the bidding etc...
Of course there is much more to it than this - many books have been written about this subject.

2. Once I have decided on a suit - which card should I lead ?
This is a more "technical" issue , which usually calls for afreements with pd , rather than judgement. Some pairs agree to lead 3rd/5th , some lead 4th best.
Some pairs lead top of two touching honours , some the bottom card (Rusinow). The idea here , is try to select an agreement that will enable leader's pd to "read" the holding better most often.
No agreement will be easy to read always. So while some agreements may be marginally better (make it easier for pd to read more often) , imo it doesnt matter that much. Just make a set of agreements and follow them.

[Zelandakh]

1.+2. ace attitude, king count: Why did you pick out this particular leading method? It is standard in many parts of England but international standard is attitude for both. It is also not uncommon to reverse these two, so ace count, king attitude. In this leading style there is a clear difference between NT and suit contracts. Typically the count lead against NT is a strong lead asking for the unblock of an honour as first priority and count as second. Traditionally the ace was used for this purpose but in modern leading styles this is often the king instead. Against a suit contract you simply ask for the signal which you think is more useful. You still have to decide whether a doubleton should signal positive or negative attitude. Not knowing if partner led from AKxx or KQxx causes some difficult problems sometimes, although incorporating Rusinow (see below) can help.

3. partner's suit: For me it is clear that 1/3/5 leads are the best to use in partner's suit. However, we need to make a clear difference here between suits that we have supported and suits we have not supported. If we have supported partner then we can afford to lead a high card without an honour; if not then it is best to show immediately that we have length here by leading 3rd or 5th. I would not recommend using MUD leads in partner's suit, ever.

4. another very good reason for not leading a singleton is having no trumps! There is another rule for leading: "God dealt you an AK so that you would lead it" or variations to the same effect. You have to weigh up the chances of partner getting in before your trumps are drawn against the chances that you are setting up declarer's side suit. Obviously a singleton is often a good choice of lead though.

5. you cannot play bridge scared. All of the signals that you make convey information to declarer. But it is usually more important to transfer information to partner, especially at the start of a hand. If you are leading top of nothing you are usually either a) leading passively to avoid blowing a trick, b) leading a long weak suit, or c) trying to find partner's suit. In a) you do not necessarily mind if declarer runs the suit. You presumably have tricks elsewhere and are playing a waiting game. In the meantime, if partner happens to have an honour they know what to do. Once you led this suit declarer was probably picking it up regardless of whether you led a high or low card. In b) you are presumably either looking for a ruff in partner's hand or attempting to create length winners in NT. In neither case is the information as to who has the outstanding honour the critical thing for declarer. In c) there is a better case for leading a low (3rd/5th) card rather than a high one, treating it similarly to a suit that partner has bid. If you choose to lead the high one here it is because you do not want to mislead partner should it be unclear what you are trying to achieve.

6. this is just the corollary to 5. If you are playing 4th highest leads then you can afford your "high" card to be second best, if 3rd and 5th then not. It is generally clear whether a lead is high or low when there are (at least) 2 cards in-between.

7.+8. The theory of 4th best is that this is low enough to give partner a clear message but not so high as to waste useful cards in the suit. It dates back to pre-bridge (whist) days. The disadvantage is that count information is not as accurate. For this reason many pairs play 4th best against NT and 3rd/5th or 3rd/low against suit contracts. Another leading style which you have not mentioned is Busso, or attitude, leads. This is another method which is slow in giving count information and thus most suited to NT contracts.

9. I am not sure what the difference is between top of touching honours and top of a sequence. They sound the same to me. The main alternative to this is Rusinow, or Roman, leads where you lead the second highest from touching honours although Slavinsky/Combine leads use a more complicated method which differentiates between 2 and 3 card sequences. If you are asking why you lead touching honours then the answer is simply to drive out declarers stoppers in the suit and create tricks for our side.

10. similar to 9. We lead the interior sequence to drive out declarer's stoppers while giving up the minimum number of tricks in the suit. Some methods such as Journalist leads, coded 9s/10s, etc, use special leading rules with interior sequences in order to make it easier for partner to know what to do in third seat. Naturally such methods also give the information to declarer too.

11. as with any lead expecting a ruff you should lead a suit preference card here.

12. Journalist leads are: against a suit contract honour leads are Rusinow and pip leads are 3rd/5th. Against a NT contract the ace is a strong lead requesting unblock/count; king shows the ace or queen; queen shows the jack or from a suit headed by KQT9 - partner unblocks the jack if they have it; jack shows the ten but no higher honour; ten shows the jack or 9 plus a higher non-touching honour (interior sequence); 9 shows the ten but nothing higher. Pip leads are Busso.

13. Slavinsky leads and signals are quite complicated. I recommend reading this as a starting point. This is not a method I would recommend to a non-expert.

14. there are many situations where a trump lead is useful. Beginners almost always lead trumps too infrequently.

15. not sure what to say about this. The first of these I remember is Garozzo leading the small from Jx against a slam causing a cold contract to fail. Of course when he does it he has a very good reason. I suspect on BBO the reasons would not stand up to closer analysis most of the time (unless you are having particularly revealing auctions anyway). I would note that leads from Kxxx or Qxxx are not especially common against a slam so you might consider alternative lines of play to taking a simple finesse where these are available to you.

16. signals come in many forms and I would recommend reading the threads started by Ben (inquiry) for some basic information. Generally, if an attitude signal is called for then a high (standard), low (udca), odd (Roman) or even (DODDS) card is encouraging. If wanting a switch then standard and udca give no direct suit preference information but the size of the odd card in Roman or DODDS is used as a suit preference signal. Of course, if it is already clear that we will want a shift then we can give a sp signal on trick one instead of attitude. Otherwise we will need to make this signal on later tricks. Very often it will be obvious which suit is best to switch to. There are of course lots of additional signals that can be used here, most of which Ben has outlined. Smith Echo and substitute count are two that get talked about quite often on these forums for example. A discussion about signalling is really a thread all of its own (or more likely more than one).

[daveharty]

I agree with most of Zelandakh's pretty comprehensive post with a couple of exceptions:

14. I disagree that most beginners lead trumps too infrequently, I think rather the opposite is true. The old saw "When in doubt, lead trumps" seems to have gained a lot of traction and leads to a lot of dubious contracts coming home. Obviously there are good reasons to lead trumps, but doubt is not one of them.

15. I would also point out that a lot of people probably don't lead aggressively enough against small suit slams; leading from Kxx(x) or Qxx(x) is often the defense's best shot to build a second trick to go along with whichever keycard they are holding.

[32519]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-March-07, 03:14, said:

13. Slavinsky leads and signals are quite complicated. I recommend reading this as a starting point. This is not a method I would recommend to a non-expert.

Zel: How does one imbed the url link underneath a word as you have done here. Usually I just copy/paste the url into whatever document I am working with. This is obviously much neater.

[inquiry]

 32519, on 2012-March-08, 09:21, said:

Zel: How does one imbed the url link underneath a word as you have done here. Usually I just copy/paste the url into whatever document I am working with. This is obviously much neater.

When you post, there is a row of icons, starting with bid "B" for bold, then an i, u (underlined), etc... about in the middle is a big yellow smiley face, and to right of it is a chain with a green plus. That is for hyperlink. Click it and new window opens. Put the http thingee in the first field, and then type what you want to show up (Zel typed "this"). Then hit the insert link button. Easy.

[Statto]

 32519, on 2012-March-07, 00:26, said:

1. Ace, for Attitude:
2. King, for Count:

I prefer the reverse to avoid the Bath Coup.

[inquiry]

OP #15, THE SUCKER PUNCH

Just so you know, a lot of people online play opening lead of low from doubletons. So with 32 they will naturally lead the two. So in some of your cases, it could be an attempt to trick you, but in others, they were making their normal lead from that holding. Be sure you know your opponents methods... that will not stop you from being suckered punched by a tricky-dicky, but at least if this is their normal lead and you find that out, you will not be punching yourself,.

[nigel_k]

 Statto, on 2012-March-09, 23:08, said:

I prefer the reverse to avoid the Bath Coup.

When I play K for count, partner is expected to play the J if they have it. So you lead Q (or small) from KQ alone, but K from KQ10.

[32519]

Can someone kindly explain to me what an "Alarm-Clock" lead is? I saw reference to this type of lead elsewhere and have no idea what is being referred to.

[r_prah]

 32519, on 2012-March-20, 23:27, said:

Can someone kindly explain to me what an "Alarm-Clock" lead is? I saw reference to this type of lead elsewhere and have no idea what is being referred to.

An alarm clock lead is an unusual lead intended to alert partner, typically to obtain a defensive ruff. Here are a couple of examples:

1) Playing A from AK leads, leading the King and and shifting to a new suit shows a singleton in the suit that you shifted to.
2) After you have preempted, leading your lowest card (as opposed to a normal 4th best or 3rd/5th lead) should indicate that you have a void in another suit.

[Zelandakh]

 32519, on 2012-March-20, 23:27, said:

Can someone kindly explain to me what an "Alarm-Clock" lead is? I saw reference to this type of lead elsewhere and have no idea what is being referred to.

An Alrm Clock signal is the discard of an unusually high card to "wake partner up" that there is a specific defence needed. Thus one might throw the ♣Q sitting behind the AKJ to show partner that clubs is wrong and they need to switch to a heart NOW. In other words, when you see partner discard an honour and you can see it is not meant to be showing a sequence your nose should be twitching as to exactly what partner is trying to communicate to you. This is the idea behind an Alarm Clock signal.

[32519]

 r_prah, on 2012-March-21, 01:48, said:

An alarm clock lead is an unusual lead intended to alert partner, typically to obtain a defensive ruff. Here are a couple of examples:

1) Playing A from AK leads, leading the King and and shifting to a new suit shows a singleton in the suit that you shifted to.
2) After you have preempted, leading your lowest card (as opposed to a normal 4th best or 3rd/5th lead) should indicate that you have a void in another suit.

Regarding your point 1, isn't this known as "The Singleton Switch?"

[32519]

I have added the link to Robot Leads here for my own benefit. This is currently under discussion in the Expert Forum. Studying more comprehensive threads later helps me to improve my bridge knowledge and my game.

“Obvious Shift” and “Switch-in-time” are two terms mentioned in this thread. I believe they have to do with signalling and not opening leads per se. Can someone provide more detail on these two methods of signalling? When and how are they used?