Page 23 - ABF Newsletter February 2026

WORKSHOPS WITH WILL with Will Jenner-O’Shea
OPENING LEADS
In a recent Workshop I discussed Opening Leads. Probably the area that most players are the least confident is knowing what to lead at trick one. There are some obvious situations where the lead is quite easy. If your partner has bid a suit, lead that. It is likely to be partner’s best suit, and even if it doesn’t defeat the contract, you will keep your partner happy. If the opponent’s have bid a suit, typically avoid leading that suit, although I would sometimes choose to lead a singleton or a strong three+ card sequence, even if that suit had been bid. If you have a suit headed by the ace-king-queen, ace-king-jack, or king-queen-jack that is usually a great lead. After most players have exhausted those options, they are sometimes in the dark.
Often you try leading a low card, hoping to estab- lish some tricks in that suit. Sometimes you have no good suit, but must lead something anyway. Occa- sionally, your best lead is a singleton or doubleton against a trump suit contract.
A lot of players know many of the rules and guide- lines about opening leads, but don’t always know why those rules exist, or what information they can gain from partner’s lead. If you are the defender not on lead, and your partner plays a card, you need to interpret what partner is trying to do. If your part- ner leads an honour, they are usually leading from touching honours, and denying the card above. If partner leads the [Q, they should have the jack, but not the king. They might have the [A if it is a no- trump contract, where the queen is the correct lead from AQJ+ (called an interior sequence). Partner probably won’t be leading ‘away from an ace’ if it is a trump contract, but many people do, and trick you if you read too much into an opponent’s through pro- cess. If your partner leads a low card, it is often from a goodish suit, but not a suit headed by a sequence. Partner should lead their fourth-highest from a suit with an honour or more, but not a sequence. If you see a low card from your partner you should typically try to win, and typically lead it back. Sometimes you can work out which honour(s) your partner has, and can make an informed choice about what to do next.
Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: February 2026
If your partner leads a high card, it
could be a fourth-highest from
a suit such as ]K987, but usu-
ally it represents a poor quality
suit. Partner should lead second-
highest from a suit with no hon-
ours. Leading the highest card
against notrumps is an option as
well, but this could look like a doubleton if you are defending a trump contract. People often know the acronym MUD, which stands for Middle-Up-Down, and suggests that from three small cards with no honours, it is correct to lead the middle card first, and play the highest card on the second round of the suit. If your partner chooses to lead a heart from [962, they should play the six first and the nine next. This is hard to read, but leading the two first looks like they have an honour, and playing the six or the nine first and the two second looks like they have played high-low from a doubleton. Six-then- nine gives you the best chance of interpreting the lead correctly.
The other question I always get asked is “which card is high, or low, when leading and signalling?”, and the answer is, “it depends”. If your partner leads the three of diamonds, it looks like a low card. If you win the king of diamonds and then play the ace, and partner follows with the two, then the three was ‘higher’ than the two. If you are defending a no- trump contract, this implies that partner lead their fourth-highest card, and started with a lower card, so had five card to begin with. If you are defend- ing a suit contract, they likely have a doubleton and played high(!)-Low. The concept of ‘high’ and ‘low’ are relative to the cards that they were dealt. The clues are the cards that you can see in your own hand, dummy, and the card that declarer plays at trick one, which is usually their lowest card if they aren’t trying to win the trick.
Will is doing Online Lessons on Thursdays at 9:30am AEDT or you can receive the recordings and notes to watch at any time. Check out willjenneroshea.com and click on Online Lessons for the dates, topics and back catalogue of previous lessons. There are four lessons that cover opening leads in a lot of detail.
Page: 23