Source: Mr Bridge Want to read Part I Click here
In the last article we discussed which card to lead from any given suit. This time we will try to decide:
Which suit to lead.
Always have a very good reason if you do not lead a suit bid (or suggested) by partner. The simplest reason for leading his suit is that then you cannot lose the postmortem! If it was wrong to lead his suit, then it was his fault for bidding . . .
However, there is a large difference between an opening suit-bid and an overcall. The quality of the suit has no bearing
on whether you open it or not: if it is your longest suit, you bid it. However, when you make an overcall you should be expecting partner to lead the suit, and should therefore have good suit quality.
Look at these two hands. Hand 1 would open the bidding 1
, but if there was a 1
call before, it should double for take out rather than overcall. Conversely Hand 2, although weak, should overcall a 1 opening with 1. Why bid with just 8 points? To tell your partner what to lead! If you have a hand with such a strong suit that it would certainly make a good lead, then try to bid it if you can do so safely, since it makes your partner’s choice of lead so much simpler. So if your partner’s bid is an overcall, then you should almost always lead the suit, but when it is an opening bid or a response, then there are occasions when you might choose something else.
Reasons for not leading your partner’s suit are:
(a) A dangerous holding in the suit such as A-x-x (see Leads to Avoid, page 20).
(b) An especially inviting other lead, like a singleton or solid suit.
(c) When a trump lead seems correct.