Page 31 - ABF Newsletter February 2025

WORKSHOPS WITH WILL with Will Jenner-O’Shea
OPENING LEADS AND BAD OPENING LEADS
The first Workshop for 2025 covered a lot of funda- mentals of bidding, play and defense, to brush off some Christmas and New Year’s rust.
One topic of discussion was opening leads, and we went through the main techniques that everyone knows. The best leads are leading partner’s suit, or a sequence of three touching honours, and perhaps leading a singleton versus a suit contract. The other commonly taught leads are to lead from two touch- ing honours against a suit contract (especially ace- king and king-queen combinations), or fourth-high- est from a suit where you have an honour.
During the workshop, there were several hands where the opening leader didn’t have a nice lead, and had to weigh up several unattractive choices. One holding that we discussed was a suit headed by the ace, but with no king. In general, it is not a good lead. If you lead the ace, it establishes the king as a winner, and more often than not, the oppo- nents have the king between them. Leading a low card in that suit is potentially even worse, since the opponent’s might win their king, and subsequently be void in that suit, or discard their cards, and you might never get your ace.
This leads to a poorly understood phrase, “Don’t lead away from an ace”. That phrase should be ex- panded to include “... against a suit contract” since it is fine against notrumps, your ace can’t be trumped later. The other reason that this is a poorly worded tip is that it is misinterpreted to mean lead the ace, not a low one. That is often a bad lead as well. It is generally good to lead a different suit. If you partner bids one suit and then leads another, you should try to work out why, but often lead back the suit they bid. They often have the ace but no king. Leading from a suit where you have the ace but no king risks giving away a trick to the opponents king.
The other commonly used lead that needed some discussion was the concept of leading a double- ton. Doubleton leads require several things to fall into place before they gain tricks. You need to have a second round of the suit played to create your void. Then you need a third round of the suit to be
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: February 2025
played, and you still need to have trumps left. Also, you don’t want to be trumping if you have moderately good trumps, since they will be winners anyway.
A doubleton lead is fine and
sometimes you manage to trump
the opponents, but be careful
leading from an honour doubleton. If you have a queen doubleton, you might think that you have little to no chance of your queen winning, but the opponents don’t know that your have the queen, or that it would be dropping, and you often win your queen via a failed finesse. Doubleton honours are generally poor leads. Leading a doubleton honour risks you not wining your honour which might have won otherwise.
The other type of lead to be careful of making is a suit where you have several gaps in your own suit, for example the KJ963, This sort of lead is great when your partner has an honour or two in this suit, but will give away a cheap trick when they don’t. Be careful leading from a suit where you have some honours, but some gaps. Leading from a suit with gaps in it risks giving away a cheap trick.
The interesting part of the discussion was to discuss the alternatives to these poor leads. The type of lead that some people know, but most people don’t use enough is leading from a bad suit. Leading from a suit where you have three or more small cards, with no honours, is a fine thing to do. You don’t stand to win any tricks in that suit, but you usually don’t give away any tricks. If you choose to make a passive lead, it is actually fine to lead a suit bid by the op- ponents, preferably a suit bid on your left, not your right. When you do lead from a bad suit, make sure to lead the top, or second highest card in the suit. Leading a high-ish number card sends the message that you are leading from a bad suit, and don’t nec- essarily want to the suit returned.
One final note about opening leads is that if your partner has bid a suit, then leading their suit is a good lead. It doesn’t matter so much if you have an ace with no king, or a doubleton honour, leading your partner’s suit is almost always a good idea.
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