Opening leads Quiz 5
S W N E
1NT P 3NT P
P P
West has the following Hearts & decides to lead one
H: AQ103
Which card is led?
Answer:
You have 3 honours against a No Trump contract and would normally lead the top of touching honours eg: K from KQ10 or J from KJ10
If you lead the 3 declarer may win the first trick with a very low card and you will probably need your partner to lead the suit twice to be of any benefit
So you should lead one of the honours: which?
The Recommended lead is the Q although any honour could work
The Ace will only kill low cards (but see below!)
The big advantage of leading the Queen is that it will nearly always get rid of Declarer’s King whether with dummy or declarer & you should than get 3 tricks
If you lead the Q and partner can see the J in dummy or their hand then (if they have read this advice) they will know you have AQ10 and play accordingly. The Q will knock out declarer’s King (if he has it) and probably leave the J surrounded
This lead doesn’t come up very often; I remember it only once and I led the Q (I read too many books?) and the singleton King won in dummy. It was a match and our opponents led the Ace and they won the match
A partner also led the Q with AQ10 on another occasion and because I had the Jack I twigged! That got us a good result, just friendly home bridge
So you won’t pick up this holding very often and whichever card you lead could be correct or could be wrong BUT if you lead the Queen you can say you have had expert advice!
Well done Amanda, you were correct!
|