Exercise 2. North’s Lead against contract of 1NT by West:
You are North holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why? Feel free to opine in the comments.
Category Archives: Exercises: Defensive Play
Eight of us had a lot of fun discussing possible opening leads yesterday morning. It’s not surprising that there was no consensus on which alternative lead would be best. Here is the 1st exercise. I will post the other two later today. Feel free to opine in the comments.
Based on the criteria for opening leads, rate a couple of possible leads for each of these exercises.
Exercise 1. East’s Lead against contract of 1NT by North:
You are East holding:
Bidding:
Your opening lead and why?
Wednesday’s lesson’s emphasis was unblocking on defense. Most players have no problem unblocking as declarer, because in that case they can see the dummy with their own eyes. Unblocking on defense requres you to “see” partner’s suit holding based on clues from the bidding and lead. Here are some examples from the lesson. In each exercise what card would you play and what is your plan from there?
Exercise 1. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the K of diamonds. Declarer calls for the diamond 3 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the diamond suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, so you can assume that partner is pretty weak in the other three suits. Your plan?
Exercise 2. Defense against 3NT:
You are the South defending West’s 3NT contract. Your partner (North) leads the Q of clubs. Declarer calls for the club 2 from East. Here is the layout that you can see with your own eyes in the club suit:
Opponents have reached 3NT effortlessly, and you only have the three points you can see. That means your partner may have an entry outside of the club suit. Your plan?
Exercise 3. Defense against 3NT:
North and South are defending East’s 3NT contract. North opened the bidding with two spades. East overcalled 2NT, and South raised partner to three spades. West bid 3NT, and that ended the bidding.
You (South) hold Q 9 2 of spades. You are going to lead your partner’s bid suit, right? Yes, right! What card do you select and why?
I will put solutions to these three exercises in an update on Friday. In the meantime please give these puzzles a try in comments.
Here is an opening lead problem from yesterday’s game. Your right hand opponent passes in 1st seat, and you open the bidding with one heart holding:
Left hand opponent passes, partner passes, and RHO overcalls one spade. You pass and LHO raises to two spades, which is passed out. Bidding summary:
What is your opening lead and why? Please give me your thoughts in the comments.
Update: Your partner is broke, so best is to go passive and lead a club. Make declarer do all the work. Each time you are in continue to lead clubs unless something else comes to light.