Thursday, February 09, 2006 12:39 PM

Hand Evaluation - Opening Leads ( Bidding )

 

PITBULLS:

 

            We have written many times that opening leads are a bidding skill and should have nothing to do with looking at your own hand. You make opening leads based on the opponents bidding – simple as that .  There should be “no blind opening leads just deaf defenders “ a wise Bridge player once said.

 

            We have written articles where the bidding suggests you should lead a bare Ace to look at the board and get a signal from partner so we will not discuss that aspect of opening leads. There are standard rules where your opening lead should be active or passive. If the strong hand is to your right , you tend to go passive. If you have a huge hand where you know partner can not contribute anything , you go passive. If they bid a slam in NT , you make a passive lead. If the bidding suggests an unbid suit , that is a natural lead.

 

            The late Mike Chomyn said “always lead trump against partials”. He was not far wrong but his rule needs a little refining. If responder has given preference to openers 2nd suit , she is most likely short in declarers first suit. A trump lead is pretty well automatic in those auctions. When your side has the balance of power in HCP’s , a trump lead is usually warranted as their tricks can only come from ruffing. This is especially so in doubled contracts.

 

            If partner converts partners T/O double at the one level , a trump lead is mandatory. If you do not lead a trump , it means you are void. I converted a one level contract doubled tonight and partner under led a side Ace rather than lead a trump. This resulted in the contract making rather than two down doubled. It’s nice when you have “automatic leads”. If partner doubles a game contract single handedly  , you do not have to think. Just lead dummy’s 1st bid suit and let partner take over from there. Simple ! 

 

            Sometimes you try and find partners suit in NT when you do not have a good hand yourself with no entries. Take into consideration what partner did not do during the auction. She did not overcall when she had a chance nor make a T/O double. This quite often means that she holds the opponent’s suits. Leading responders 1st bid suit is quite often a good idea. You do not have that suit and declarer does not have that suit so partner probably has it . This probably prevented her from entering the auction in the first place. Also be aware when partner had a chance to double a Q bid or a KCB response and did not. Try to strike that suit off your list of possible leads. Partner should stick her neck out for lead directing doubles at every possibility.

 

            There are some standard situations that come up time and time again . I was playing with a tormentee and the auction went

 

1♣-P-1♦-P

1♠-P-3NT-P

 

            The tormentee had a horrible hand band the only face card she had was the Qxxxx of hearts. This is the standard situation where partner has close to opening bid values but did not enter the auction. The auction screams for a spade lead as that is dummy’s 2nd bid suit. You do not have spades , responder denies spades so partner mostly likely has them. My hand was 12 HCP with KQ109 of spades. A spade lead comes close to beating 3NT but the heart lead resulted in –660 and a zero.

 

            The Stayman convention and a final contract of 3NT comes up very often. You use the inference from that auction to assist your opening lead also.  One standard situation came up with a Tormentee last nite .

 

        1NT-P-2♣-P

         2♠-P-3NT-P         and your hand was ♠Kxx ♥9xx ♦K9xx ♣xxx  . This is a hand where you do not have an outstanding lead choice. You have a clue from the bidding though. Declarer chose spades over hearts . The 4 card heart suit is coming down on the board so partners hearts are behind them. I held KJ108 of hearts with an outside entry so a heart lead would have held the contract to 3 for a top. A diamond lead gave up the entire suit so we were –660 for a bottom.

 

            Opening leads should be based on information obtained by translating the opponents bidding into patterns. If that is not enough , there are some standard situations that come up time and time again from the bidding. Those were mentioned above.