The Times-News – 7 Mar 1981 by Alan Sontag and Oswald Jacoby
The standard lead from a long suit is the fourth best. Sixty years ago, the auction bridge writer would show how declarer could count the whole hand when a deuce was opened against his notrump contract. Today, there are many players who open eight from 10 8 7 2 and reserve the deuce or other very small card opening lead to guarantee that they hold at least one of the four top honors. This is known as «Attitude.»
We don’t particularly like this — in fact we don’t like it at all, although we have been known to lead deuce from A Q 9 7 2 to conceal the fact that we were leading a five card suit against no trump. There is one time when attitude leads become important.
You are in back of dummy and in front of declarer. Dummy holds 9 4 3 and you hold 8 6 5 2. You are going to lead the suit through declarer and definitely should not lead the deuce. If your partner holds K J 7 and declarer A Q 10, you want your partner to know that you can’t stand a return of the suit. So lead the six or maybe the eight.
Where count becomes really important is in following suit. There is the standard notrump situation where dummy shows KQJxx and you hold 7 5 or 7 5 2. In following suit, play the seven from 7 5, but the deuce from 7 5 2. If partner holds A 10 8 he will hold off twice if you play the seven first; if you play the deuce, he will know you have an odd number and will grab the second lead.
When your partner has led the suit and you can’t win the trick, or deliberately don’t want to win the trick, the strength signal (high for strength, low for weakness) takes precedence. But you also may want to give count. In other words, you may want to give count and should do so. Also just to show how easy it is there are also those rare occasions when you may want to give suit preference.
Defense is not easy. In fact It Is the toughest part of bridge.
