A big difference between less experienced players and experts is their ability to defend accurately. A major reason for the difference is that experts signal, legally, to their partners to help the defence.
The first shot for the defence is the opening lead. This is possibly the most difficult part of playing bridge, since you have to make a decision on minimum information. After the lead you will get to see dummy and have a greater understanding of the hand.
The only help you have with the opening lead is the auction: listen to it and try to understand what declarer is likely to do.
We play a standard British style of leads:
Standard leads that we make against suit contracts
A K Q 3, A K J 6 4, A K 6 | lead the ace from A K holdings |
A K alone | except lead the K then the A, to show AK doubleton |
K Q J 4, K Q 10 6, K Q 6 5 4 | lead the king from K Q holdings |
Q J 10 5 3, Q J 9 2 | lead the queen from Q J holdings |
J 10 9 6, J 10 3, K J 10 7 4 | lead the jack from J 10 or K J 10 holdings |
10 2, 9 3, 8 4, 7 2 | lead the higher card from a doubleton |
8 7 4, 9 5 2 | lead the middle card from three, play the top card next time |
8 7 6 4 | lead the second highest from a poor 4-card suit and play the bottom card next time |
K 6 5 3, Q 9 8 3, J 7 5 3, K J 5 3 | lead the fourth highest, i.e. the 3, from 1 or 2 honours |
A 6 5 4, A J 10 6 | lead the ace if you must, but better to try another suit, as we don’t normally underlead aces against suit contract |
Against no trump contracts, the main difference is that it is normal to underlead an ace and lead fourth highest in order to set up the suit.
There is often debate about the signal that the partner of the opening leader should give on the opening lead. There are two major camps: those who believe you should give an ATTITUDE signal, namely whether you like the opening lead or not; and those who believe you should give a COUNT signal, showing whether you have an even or odd number of cards in the suit.
My advice is that you stick to ATTITUDE signals. So the priority of the signaller is to show whether they like the opening suit led or not.
If they like the suit, then they should follow with a SMALL card. As they say in Ayrshire, “low = like”. This form of card is known as REVERSE ATTITUDE (in the UK) or UPSIDE DOWN ATTITUDE (in America or on BBO). It is different from “STANDARD ATTITUDE”, where “high=like”, but is the normal expert convention.
For example, if partner leads a king and you hold A86 in the suit, you would play the 6, the lowest card, to say you like the lead. You may wish that you held A82 and could play the 2 as a clear signal, but just play the lowest and hope that partner can see sufficient small cards to understand your signal.
If partner leads a king and you hold 862 in the suit, you play the 8 as a discouraging signal.
When you make a discouraging signal, a corollary is that you believe that there is a better suit to attack and you want a SWITCH.
It does not make sense to show attitude on the suit that declarer leads: declarer would not be leading the suit if it were good for you. There are two possible signals to make:
We discard as we would follow to a suit. So if we discard a low card in a suit, it means we like the suit.
If we discard a high card, it means we dislike the suit.