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“TRIED and TRUE”

Some of those lessons we learnt many years (well, “very many”) years ago in Beginners’ Classes are still pretty relevant. A couple saved my partnership a lot of anguish this week at Akarana.

Try these two lead problems. Each time you are North.

Board 6.

North

AKQ32

 7

AJ92

Q75

West                  North                 East                     South

                                                          1                     Pass

1                      Pass                    2                       Pass

2NT                     Pass                    3NT                     All Pass

 

Board 8

North

 A9643

 764

 7652

8

West                  North                 East                     South

1                       Pass                    1¹                     2

3                       3                       x                           Pass

5                       Pass                    6                       All Pass

¹ No major

On Board 6, the opposition ground you to silence. There was really no sensible action you could take though I knew I could have bid 2 over 1 which would have been pretty close to the hand I held.

Such thoughts passed through my mind as I was on lead. I had 4 tricks. Where was the fifth coming from? Did partner hold anything more than 13 cards? It looked like we had to lose the lead and maybe could regain it when a diamond was played. There seemed only one sensible place to go to set up a fifth trick: spades. So, a low spade it was…but it was not long before I regained the lead:

 

It is always interesting to watch partner’s face (OK, I know you should not but a quick glance is surely OK) when they win a trick unexpectedly. Since I had led my 2 attitude style, partner had no reason to even blink before returning a spade. He did blink!

There would be no problem here with a 4^th highest 3 lead here, either. That’s what we learnt those few years back and works much better than a high spade (even though here South was blessed with three spades). On the deal, a minor suit lead (other than A) gives declarer their contract while leading a singleton of dummy’s first bid suit is not my style. Imagine discarding as 6 rounds of the suit are played!

So, what about Board 8? Did you adopt the very sound philosophy of leading partner’s suit? If you did, which heart did you lead, top of nothing 7, “MUD” 6 or third highest 4? If you did and partner won the trick with declarer playing the 5, did partner know what to do next?

 

When a slam is bid without the use of an ace-ask, there is a much greater case for leading any ace you can lay your hands on. There is often an element of “punting” in the bidding. Here, there are several good reasons for trying your ace. Partner has been known to hold the cashing king while there may still be time to switch to something sensible.

There was though when partner followed with what looked like a discouraging 10, I had just to hope he was not dealt KT doubleton. Not my fault if he was! As you can see, his hearts were marginally better than his spades…and he was spared of the difficulty of finding the right card to play at trick 2 had I followed that other basic rule of leading partner’s suit at trick 1.

So, lead fourth highest when you hold AKQxx and lead an ace against a slam when partner bid a different suit. Is that what you learnt at Beginner’s Class? No, me neither!

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

 

 

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