[kesari41]

I am of the opinion that,
I should lead the highest card in the suit bid by my partner, when I am defending a contract and on lead.
This convention/practice/rule seems to have changed over the time.
please let me know the new system/practice and how ?

[mcphee]

I am not aware of any methods of opening leads that coinsider leading a high card from 3 or longer length is reccomended because partner bid the suit.

[Stephen Tu]

Quote

I should lead the highest card in the suit bid by my partner, when I am defending a contract and on lead.
This convention/practice/rule seems to have changed over the time.
please let me know the new system/practice and how

I doubt this rule ever "changed over time". I think it's always been a bogus idea concocted by players who confused it with other rules like leading high from doubletons in partner's suit, leading high from honor sequences.

From single or broken honor holdings, low has always been recommended, and it's easy to see why, just consider suits such as:

---

,

---

etc. and leading high just hands declarer a trick outright.

The purpose of leading high cards is to unblock or to hold the lead. From doubleton you usually lead high otherwise the suit will be blocked, and besides you can't trap declarer's honors anyway since the low card would be gone if you lead low. From 3+, you can unblock 2nd round if necessary, or win the trick & lead a third round, and leading low retains the possibility of trapping declarer's possible honors so it's usually just better, retains your trick taking options. The only rare exceptions are if you think such honor holdings by declarer are unlikely & that you need to retain the lead for trick two. E.g. you have Kxxxx & a ten card fit, you might lead K in case you need to shift trick two.

[Codo]

I think it is not as easy as they other poster said:

First I know quite some old players who still believe, that this rule is correct. But these are quite social players, no good ones.

And second: There are some merrits to this approach- You can unblock a suit and you are sometimes able to switch to another suit because you may stay on lead.

But these advantages are of MUCH lesser value then the downsides:
- Quite often you blow a trick, f.e in the examples Stephen gave you.
- Pd cannot read your lead. It is very useful to judge wheter you lead from Kxx or KQx or from Qx or Qxx to give just two examples.

I guess, that your apporach was more popular in the times of Cubertson, where a lot of people liked to open just "real" suits with some values in that suit. In that case, the downsides arer smaller, because you are not so likely to blow a trick. But as an opening nowadays does not promise any values in the suit bid, it is too dangerous.
And as a last thought: There is a big diference between a suit which was opened and one which was bid in competition. In the later case, it is quite common to have a good suit, so that the risk is getting smaller. But even then you need a good reason to change your normal set of rules for an inspired lead.

[P_Marlowe]

kesari41, on Dec 3 2006, 09:35 AM, said:

I am of the opinion that,
I should lead the highest card in the suit bid by my partner, when I am defending a contract and on lead.
This convention/practice/rule seems to have changed over the time.
please let me know the new system/practice and how ?

Hi,

there are several lead systems out there,
you should simply pick one (discussing the choice
with your partner) and practice it.

I doubt that it makes a lot of difference, which
system you choose.

One place to look for a description of a lead system
would be Bill Root "How to defend a Bridge hand".
There are other books out there, Kantar, ..., if you
have a favorite author, take one of his books).

How to practice? Together with your partner playing
online, one great option would be to use BBO and GIB
as opponents.
If you do not have a regular partner, ... you have no real
chance, because there are differnt systems out there, and
who knows, what your pickup partner is playing?

With kind regards
Marlowe