[Liversidge]

In Eddie Kantar's Modern Bridge Defense he says that with an almost perfect sequence you should lead the top card. He gives AKJ as an example Later on he says that a lead of the ace announces possession of four honour cards and asks partner to unblock the missing honour if he holds it. So where does that leave a holding like AKJ7? It is an almost perfect sequence so partner should lead the ace. If I have Qxx and unblock we might lose a trick to the 10. I guess it's about probabilities?

[Stephen Tu]

It depends on lead agreements. With AKJx in most cases you want to lead a top card, as it avoids losing a trick to Qx in either dummy or declarer's hand, and if declarer has Qxx/Qxxx you can switch and hope partner can win a trick and lead through declarer.

As for which of A/K to lead, it's somewhat arbitrary. Normally one of these is designated as the "power" lead, asking partner to unblock an honor and give count otherwise. You'd lead the power lead from AKJT, so partner unblocks the Q and it's OK. Without the 4th honor card you lead the other card.

Kantar's book is giving the old American standard of the ace being the power lead. So from just the AKJx you'd lead the K instead, and from Qxx partner should just encourage, not unblock. Also playing this sort of lead you normally lead Q from KQT9 so partner will unblock A/J as appropriate.

But this is somewhat old fashioned; these days I believe a majority of advanced/experts have switched to using the K as the "power" lead. Then you lead the A from AKJ, K from AKJT/KQT9/KQJT/AKQT, Q from KQT(x)/KQx. From QJT/QJ9 in this style some also lead the Q, others do Rusinow style and lead J, and T from JT combinations. The main advantage of this style is it avoids ambiguity when partner leads an honor from AKT(x), 3rd hand knows the Q is worth encouraging but the J is not.

A third different way to play is to not have a "power" lead, lead top of touching honors, if you have a 4 card honor sequence lead the card above the card you want partner to unblock (K from AKJT, Q from KQT9).

Note that holding AKJxx it's not 100% that you'd want to lead high. Particularly with no outside entries, sometimes 4th best can work out better depending on the auction. E.g. imagine the suit splitting xx xx QTxx with declarer holding QTxx, or Qxx xx xxx with the Qxx in dummy.

[msjennifer]

This topic needs detailed discussions between partners.What Kantar has argued and said is generally OKay for most of us.We lead the Ace from AKx if we have no other good lead against NT contracts.This lead of Ace asks partner to show if he wishes the suit to be continued for developing HIS suit or not.If he discourages then we make the appropriate switch on seeing dummy and imagining openers likely hand.We lead the Queen when we wish partner to unblock.Our lead of 10 promises one higher honor.When we lead the King we ask partner to play the second highest of his holding in the suit.Many times from the dummy's holding in the spot cards of the suit we can make out partners and declarers holdings.These methods of us may or may not be to the likings of many.Whichever way you decide to lead there are problems that can be asked.In fact, I seriously doubt if there is a foolproof method that can be adopted by all.

[The_Badger]

hi Liversidge,

In total agreement with Stephen Tu (and thanks also to a reply from MrAce on a previous post detailing modern udca leads).

However, there's a big difference between leading against a 1NT [2NT also] contract or 3NT with this holding. And also what must come into consideration is how the opponents have bid. And other potential entries in your hand. And whether playing at matchpoints or IMPs?

I'm not keen on leading high from only a 4 card suit against no-trumps. I'm not advocating leading the 7 from that holding, what I am advocating is maybe not leading at all!

It all depends on a number of factors as listed above. There's a big difference between leading an ace or king against a suit contract, or an ace or king against a no-trump contract.

The high card will at least keep you on lead while you plan you next move but it may also give the declarer valuable information to plan avoidance plays and throw-ins. Especially at no trumps.

[1eyedjack]

If you are playing attitude signals the compulsion to unblock at trick 1 normally only arises when you hold precisely Hx.

On the other hand, if you are compelled to unblock I suppose it frees you up for affording a count signal on those occasions that you don't unblock.

Vinje came up with a sort of hybrid solution:

With fewer than 3 cards in dummy, give an attitude signal. With Hx you have to choose between encouraging with x that may block the suit, or unblocking with H which may establish a winner in declarer's hand. Which is more likely to cost may be apparent from the auction.
With 3 cards in dummy your primary duty is to unblock, but give count if not having anything to unblock.
With more than 3 cards in dummy you need to focus on dummy's highest spot card, but it can get uncomfortable, particularly if you have Hx, but then it would get uncomfortable in any method.

[Stephen Tu]

msjennifer, on 2016-September-13, 00:39, said:

This topic needs detailed discussions between partners.What Kantar has argued and said is generally OKay for most of us.We lead the Ace from AKx if we have no other good lead against NT contracts.This lead of Ace asks partner to show if he wishes the suit to be continued for developing HIS suit or not.If he discourages then we make the appropriate switch on seeing dummy and imagining openers likely hand.We lead the Queen when we wish partner to unblock.Our lead of 10 promises one higher honor.When we lead the King we ask partner to play the second highest of his holding in the suit.Many times from the dummy's holding in the spot cards of the suit we can make out partners and declarers holdings.These methods of us may or may not be to the likings of many.

Yeah, this method seems bizarre to me. Can you give an example of when you are leading king asking for partner's 2nd highest card, and this provides you an easier decision vs. say a simple attitude signal? I fail to see how this is useful information vs. an attitude signal showing posession of a crucial honor. If I lead a top honor from KQTxx, I want to know if partner's say 7 is from A7x or J7x, if he has 97x or 87x continuing the suit is going to be unwise. Attitude and count seem to be the most useful signals. Showing 2nd highest card to me seems random. Can you provide an example where this helps you?

Quote

In fact, I seriously doubt if there is a foolproof method that can be adopted by all.

The modern expert near standard of K = unblock/count, A from AK, Q from KQ seems to work reasonably well from my perspective.