The intricacies of leading against NTs ♠

The idea against no trump contracts is to establish your suit and get it ‘running’ before your opponents do; this is known as ‘tempo’. Often the saying of ‘fourth down of your longest and strongest’ is a great rule to stick with for two reasons. One, according to the information you have it looks like the best chance your side has of developing tricks and two, the rest of the room will generally make the same lead so it rarely costs many match points. Sometimes leading the second card from your longest suit is right when you don’t hold any honours in the suit. These leads are called ‘seconds and fourths’ and it gives your partner the information that you hold long cards in that suit but no top honour (I would consider anything above a Nine as a ‘top honour’).

The rule of 11

The ‘rule of 11’ is a method of working out how good your chances are of winning tricks in a suit that partner has led (assuming it is the fourth card down, it will be obvious if it isn’t as something won’t add up!). The maths behind it are complicated but the main rule is easy:

Subtract the number of ‘pips’ from your partners lead card from 11 and the result is the amount of cards higher than the lead card in the dummy, your hand and declarer’s hand.

Example 1:

You are west and deal and the bidding goes:

P-1NT*-P-3NT
P-P-P

*12-14

Partner leads the Four of spades and you hold:

♠ KJ8
♥ A62
♦ Q752
♣ 1094

On dummy is:

♠ Q9
♥ KQ4
♦ AK94
♣ Q863

According to the rule of 11 there are 7 cards higher than the Four, in dummy, your hand and declarer’s hand. You can see 5 of them so you know declarer has 2 in the closed hand. Based on the points, you can see that partner can’t have the Ace of spades (if (s)he did then the defence would have 14 points and therefore declarer could only have 10 points maximum which we know (s)he hasn’t got!) Therefore you know declarer has the Ace of spades and one pip card higher than the Four (note that it can’t be the Ten as partner would not have led the fourth down without one of the top honours, in this case the Ten).

So from all that detective work you can work out that declarer has spades stopped once and only once, so you need to unblock the suit for your partner to win their long spades (partner can’t have another entry outside because then they’d have too many points again!) You cover whatever is played from dummy and return your highest spade back, retaining the Eight to put partner in, in the case (s)he started with 5+ spades. The full deal:

First thing to note, well done partner! (S)He’s led the only suit that can beat the contract! Secondly all your detective work was spot on, and you are duly rewarded in this case, look what happens after the opening two tricks. Declarer plays the Nine from dummy, you play your Jack, which holds (good declarer technique to try and induce you to block the spades, not today mate!)

Now if you play the King of spades, you eventually have to come to a trick in a red suit and that carefully kept 8 of spades provides your entry to enjoy partner’s long spades, 2 down! (at least! could be 3 down if declarer chooses to knock out your Queen of diamonds as then you win the Ace of hearts as well!) Now in not such a bright world where at trick 2 you return the Eight of spades instead of the King, the spades are blocked and declarer can knock out your Ace of hearts can collect 10 tricks in the form of 3 hearts, 4 clubs, 1 spade and 2 diamonds (diamond finesse not required).

Example 2:

Same auction as before:

P-1NT*-P-3NT
P-P-P

*12-14

This time you hold:

♠ 1065
♥ Q2
♦ 109874
♣ Q92

That’s more like a normal hand! Partner leads the Seven of spades and dummy (must be playing against me, he’s a gambler!) holds:

♠ 43
♥ KJ5
♦ 653
♣ AKJ107

On the opening trick declarer plays the Two on your Ten, and then inserts the Eight on your return of the Six of spades, partner wins the Nine and switches to (unfortunately) the Six of hearts, dummy’s Jack is played and your Queen is snaffled by declarer’s Ace and declarer takes the (losing haha!) club finesse. Now it’s time to get out your magnifying glass and start adding some clues up Sherlock!

The rule of 11 tells us that there are 4 cards between dummy, your hand and declarer’s hand higher than the Seven in spades. You can only see 1 therefore declarer has 3, we’ve already seen 1 (the Eight) so declarer still holds 2 higher than the Seven. More specifically than that we’ve seen the Eight, Nine and Ten, so declarer has 2 of the Ace, King, Queen and Jack and partner the other 2. Even more specifically than that(!), partner has switched to a heart implying that (s)he didn’t want to play a spade into declarer’s hand. Partner can’t therefore hold AK or KQ as they would just continue spades so they most likely hold AQ or KJ and want a further spade through. If declarer had KJ8x then I’m pretty sure they would have won the opening lead as the suit is too risky, hence after all that you can be fairly sure that declarer has AQ and partner KJ.

Now playing a spade might potentially generate a further spade winner in partner’s hand, however declarer looks like (s)he can get home on all those lovely set up clubs. On a point count declarer has 12-14 points, dummy has 12, you have 4, so partner started with 10-12. Assuming that they have 4 point in spades (King-Jack), they’ve shown none in hearts and none in clubs therefore partner has at least 6 points in diamonds. Its right to switch to the Ten of diamonds when in with the Queen of clubs and kill the contract when the layout is (as you know from being so clever!):

If you play a spade when in, declarer can roll home with 1 spade (they play the Ace on your last spade) 4 clubs and 4 hearts, whereas the 10 of diamonds switch from you has declarer down 2 and probably an outright bottom! Note also that if declarer takes the 10 of spades with the Queen you have much less information when in with the Queen of clubs and you might not find the killing diamond switch.