Determining What Card to Lead After Opening Lead

[ajfonty]

Hi all,

 

I've done some reading into opening leads and have a good idea about them. However, I'm trying to discover what leads to make in tricks after the first but I can't seem to find good sources on the internet.

 

For example, let's say partner and I are defending, and partner leads a low heart. I have a heart tripleton, Ace high. I win with the ace and want to return a heart. This is where my question starts: because I now have a doubleton, do I lead my high card from the doubleton? Or, now that the opening trick is done, can I now make leads that wouldn't fit with the rules of opening leads?

 

I was looking for a resource to explain this on the internet but I couldn't find one.

 

Thanks in advance

[WesleyC]

<doot>

[WesleyC]

Hiya Aj and welcome to the forums!

 

The simple answer is that after you've played to the first trick, you should usually return top from a remaining doubleton and original 4th best otherwise.

 

As an example if you are defending NT and partner leads a suit. After winning the Ace the default return is the BOLDED card.

 

A85

A852

A8532

 

However, as with everything in bridge, there are many exceptions and alternatives.

[Zelandakh]

Hi ajfonty - welcome to the BBO forums! Basically what Wesley wrote is standard for returning partner's suit in this situation. However you should also be aware that spot leads during the play tend to be based more on attitude than count. That is, when you have a choice you tend to lead a low card if you want partner to return the suit but a high one if you want a different suit, even if the standard opening lead would be different. During the play you also need to be on the look out for other special cases - some examples might be leading an honour to force declarer to use up a valuable entry early, "squashing" a dangerous holding to your right, managing limited entries, or just to save partner having to make an unnecessary guess.

[mikeh]

Hi ajfonty - welcome to the BBO forums! Basically what Wesley wrote is standard for returning partner's suit in this situation. However you should also be aware that spot leads during the play tend to be based more on attitude than count. That is, when you have a choice you tend to lead a low card if you want partner to return the suit but a high one if you want a different suit, even if the standard opening lead would be different. During the play you also need to be on the look out for other special cases - some examples might be leading an honour to force declarer to use up a valuable entry early, "squashing" a dangerous holding to your right, managing limited entries, or just to save partner having to make an unnecessary guess.

I'll echo the welcomes to the forum!

 

Bridge can seem like a very complex game, especially when you start asking what sound like simple questions.

 

I work in a firm where two of my business partners have become hooked on bridge, and initially they would routinely ask me for advice, and initially I found myself writing long answers to simple questions (a trait I often exhibit here, btw), and would give them way too much information.

 

At the risk of doing so here, I endorse what both Zel and Wesley have suggested but want to add a little bit to Zel's.

 

It is very common, especially amongst experienced players, to use attitude leads after trick one, as Zel suggests. Many, tho not all, of those who do so will also include 'count' information. So if you normally lead 4th best from a long suit, say K9743, or Q863, and you are going to switch to this suit, and want to suggest that partner should continue to lead the suit if given the opportunity, then lead the 4th best....so with the K9743, lead the 4 and with the Q863, lead the 3. The reason you would do this is so that partner can get an idea of how the suit lies, and whether your presumed high card is likely to cash (against a trump contract) or your suit run (against a notrump contract).

 

Don't worry about count if you are trying to show weakness...just lead a discouraging (highish) spot card. You simply can't combine a high, discouraging, spot with length information.