Читать книгу The Times Beginner’s Guide to Bridge - Andrew Robson - Страница 48

The length strategy is far less powerful against a trump contract as declarer will simply trump you when he’s run out of cards in the lead suit. At the other end of the spectrum, leading a singleton (in a ‘side suit’, i.e. not trumps) is a powerful ploy. You can void yourself (run out of cards in the suit) in the hope that the suit will be played again and you can trump.

More common than the singleton is the ‘top-of-a-sequence’ lead: when defending against a trump contract, and you hold two or more high cards in a sequence (known as ‘touching’ high cards), lead with the top card in the sequence. For example, if you hold the ace and king in a suit, then it’s standard practice to lead with the ace; if you hold the king and queen, then lead the king; if you hold the queen and jack, lead the queen; if you hold the jack and ten, lead the jack; or lead the ten if you hold ten and nine. Thus, if you lead with the king and hold the queen, this puts you in a win-win position: your partner may hold the ace, in which case your king will win the trick; and even if the declarer or dummy takes the king with the ace you’ll have promoted your queen into a second-round winner.

Useful tip

You defend half of all contracts, and only declare a quarter of them, so learn to love defence – it’s a wonderful co-operative challenge.