[nemojames3]

I am confused as to when an Ace both on the first play and throughout the game and am reading lots of conflicting information. Here is one thing I read

When leading to a suit contract, AVOID:

1 Leading an unsupported ace if you have another safe lead.
2 Underleading an ace (don't lead a small card from a suit headed by the ace).
3 Underleading broken honor combinations (KJxx, Q10x) unless it's in partner's suit.

By "unsupported ace" I assume they mean another honour card ?

I don't know what "underleading means" or another phrase I have heard is "don't lead away from the ace"

Anyway the first and second points seem to contradict each other.

[CSGibson]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-28, 02:13, said:

I am confused as to when an Ace both on the first play and throughout the game and am reading lots of conflicting information. Here is one thing I read

When leading to a suit contract, AVOID:

1 Leading an unsupported ace if you have another safe lead.
2 Underleading an ace (don't lead a small card from a suit headed by the ace).
3 Underleading broken honor combinations (KJxx, Q10x) unless it's in partner's suit.

By "unsupported ace" I assume they mean another honour card ?

I don't know what "underleading means" or another phrase I have heard is "don't lead away from the ace"

Anyway the first and second points seem to contradict each other.

The first and 2nd points do not contradict each other. They suggest leading another suit entirely if you have an unsupported ace. By unsupported, they mean that you do not have the king of the suit. Usually there is no rush to take your aces, they will usually be tricks later also.

Point 3 is much less of a no-no than the first two. Frequently underleading broken honor combinations is your best lead, as those aggressive leads often build defensive tricks before declarer can use his tempo to knock out your aces (aren't you glad you didn't lead them?!).

These things are guidelines for opening lead only, though in general you have to have a good reason to lay down an ace, rather than to use the ace to capture one of declarer's high honors in a suit.

[Cyberyeti]

The first is a good basic principle against all but slam contracts on auctions where it sounds like opps are not short of tricks and where one trick might get you a good score (pairs) or partner might have the K.

The second is sound unless you're desperate and/or you're sure the K is in dummy. Where the auction says opps have plenty for their game and you feel you need miracles to beat it at teams, finding partner with Kx or Qx when you lead from Axxx can be an option.

The third is very auction dependent, if opps look to have a second long suit, so will have a load of discards once they draw trumps and establish it, you might want to get active and lead from this sort of combination. Also giving away an overtrick is much less important at teams, so you're more likely to find such a lead in that form of bridge where if partner does have help for you, you might defeat the contract.

[nemojames3]

so is underleading the same as "leading away from"

[Zelandakh]

Hello James. An unsupported Ace is one where you do not also have the King in the suit. Leading from an Ace-King combination is very often a very good lead; leading the Ace from Axx/Axxx less appealing since your Ace will only capture small cards from Declarer and potentially set up her/his King-Queen.

Underleading an ace means leading a low card in a suit headed by the Ace. This is often a bad lead in a suit contract because, for example, Declarer could have the King and a singleton and thereby lose no tricks in the suit.

As with most guidelines in bridge there are exceptions. Sometimes leading an ace is indicated because the bidding tells you you need to cash your tricks quickly but you do not know in which suit they will come. Or the bidding lets you know that partner has a singleton and an immediate ruff is beneficial. Another common situation occurs when partner probably has the King in a suit and you want to retain the lead.

Similarly for underleading the Ace. Perhaps you can be sure partner has a void and you want to retain control of the suit. Or you can be fairly sure partner has the King and want to lose the lead. And leading a low card from, say, Axxxx would be completely normal against a NT contract.

The last category of leading away from broken honours is interesting. Leading away from KJxx will usually be very good if partner has the Ace or the Queen. Similarly, leading away from QTx might work well if partner has the King or Jack. These are risky leads which can easily cost a trick in the suit if partner does not have a fitting honour. But if partner has what you hope (s)he has then they can be the only way of setting the contract. Again, listen to the auction and try to determine if you need to make an aggressive lead or if a more passive defence is indicated.

[BunnyGo]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-28, 03:05, said:

so is underleading the same as "leading away from"

Yes, you are "leading a card under the Ace" and are "leading a card away from the Ace", they are different slang for the same thing.

None of these are "never do", but the first two rules are "only do if you're sure it's your best option, because it usually isn't." Basically, if you have a suit: Axxx, don't lead any of those cards.

If you have AKxx, you should often strongly consider leading the A or K.

Cheers,

BunnyGo

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

first you decide, which suit you want to lead, than you decide what card
in the given suit you lead.

#1 => This is a point to consider, when you are deciding, which suit you should lead.

#2 => Having decided, which suit to lead, if the suit is headed by a unsupported Ace,
lead the Ace.

#3 => This is a point to consider, when you are deciding, which suit you should lead.
Leading from broken honors is risky, but may well be best, you will go for such a
suit, if you need to develop your tricks fast, because those suits, need the least
help from partner.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[ArtK78]

This post is a little flippant, but this actually happened.

When to lead an ace? When the opponents are in 7NT and you are on lead after doubling.

Recently, playing in an ACBL Robot Tournament, I made the mistake of playing my partner for a better hand than it had after it opened the bidding and I had a 23 count with a solid 7 card spade suit. I shot out 7NT after my robot partner rebid 1NT. This was doubled, and the robot on lead led the J from a JT9xx suit rather than the ace of my robot partner's first bid suit.

+2470.

[Fluffy]

When do you lead an ace?

whenever you have the king of that suit also. Leading from AK is top priority, leading something else is very rare.

What other cases?

Never else in a suit contract is a good rule to start with. Later on you will learn the exceptions*, in No trump contracts you can underlead aces as long as you want, lead from your longest suit.


When do you "cash" an ace on the middle of a contract?

when it is apparent that you need to cash tricks on this suit as soon as possible, normally because of some threat like a long suit in dummy wich will make a lot of tricks.




*There are many exceptions, but all are slim, most important ones are:

-from ace doubleton when you wan to ruff
-from partner's suit or your own when partner has raised and you see no other good lead avaible
-from other leads are even worse, althogh AQ or AJ are awful leads, Axxxx(+) is only bad, so you might find it useful from time to time.

If you need to lead from a suit with the ace in a suit contract remember that leading the ace is the standard lead, low one is very very rare.

[nemojames3]

Sorry but still confused


Marlowe says
#2 => Having decided, which suit to lead, if the suit is headed by a unsupported Ace,
lead the Ace

but on my first post it says

avoid
1 Leading an unsupported ace if you have another safe lead.

ALSO
fluffy says to lead the ace if you have ace king but I was recently that with ace king you are supposed to lead the king first

[Cyberyeti]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-29, 01:10, said:

fluffy says to lead the ace if you have ace king but I was recently that with ace king you are supposed to lead the king first

Most people lead ace from AK and others, K then A shows AK alone, but certainly other systems of honour leads exist.

[BunnyGo]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-29, 01:10, said:

I was recently that with ace king you are supposed to lead the king first

You can play that way too--you just have to agree with your partner whether you lead A from AK or K from AK. As cyberyeti says, it's now popular to lead the A from AK, but I've played otherwise too.

[Stephen Tu]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-29, 01:10, said:

Marlowe says
#2 => Having decided, which suit to lead, if the suit is headed by a unsupported Ace,
lead the Ace

but on my first post it says

avoid
1 Leading an unsupported ace if you have another safe lead.

Rule 1 is saying, vs. a suit contract, to not lead from a suit with the ace not holding the king, *if you have another safe lead*. Although "safe lead" is not the best wording. "reasonable lead" is a better wording.

Basically it's that you look for something better first, and that it's "a lead of last resort". But sometimes, everything else still looks worse. The opponents have bid other suits, shown strong side suits, it seems if you don't lead this suit they may be able to pitch their losers in it. Your partner has bid the suit, you have something like Ax and might be able to get quick tricks and a ruff. It takes some experience to recognize when leading the ace is your "best choice of a bunch of unattractive leads", but generally it's most frequent when
- partner bid the suit, other leads seem worse.
- vs. slams at matchpoints vs. a confidently bid slam (preventing the overtrick is often worth a lot)
- when RHO made a high preempt, and is relatively unlikely to hold a guarded K outside, and other leads unattractive
- unbid suit in a high level contract, particularly vs. the opps 5m contract, since if they had stopper in this suit they likely would have tried 3nt instead.

Marlowe is just saying, if you end up deciding to lead the suit with the ace *anyway*, after dismissing other leads as inferior, lead the ace, not a small card, basically always. This avoids debacles like opponent winning with stiff K or K opposite stiff, or K with a doubleton and being able to discard the loser before you can cash your ace. It also avoids the debacle of partner *ducking* his K (or Q in some cases) and declarer winning an undeserved trick, because partner normally assumes that you don't have the ace if you don't lead it, and caters for other holdings where ducking is better.

Quote

fluffy says to lead the ace if you have ace king but I was recently that with ace king you are supposed to lead the king first

This is completely up to partnership agreement. Generally if you agree to lead one particular card from AK(xxx), some number of x's >= 1, you lead the other card from AK doubleton, so that when you follow with the other card partner knows you are doubleton, and can signal suit preference, so that you can hopefully cross to him and obtain a ruff in the suit.

Which card is standard depends on what country you are in, and sometimes how old a person you are playing with.
With standard leads, the K is led from KQ. The "old standard" lead from AKx was *also* the K. This leads to ambiguity for partner, if neither dummy nor he has the Q. So with some holding like Jxx and xxx in dummy, you don't know whether to encourage or not (one is supposed to assume partner led from AKx and discourage, usually.)

Thus, to solve this problem, some people switched to the "new standard" of the ace, which in my observation is currently more popular, at least in America. However, although it solves the ambiguity of the lead of the K, now it pushes the ambiguity to the lead of the ace! Now you don't know if partner has the K, or only has the ace and wants to know if YOU have the K. Now, by the rule 1, partner should rarely be leading the ace without the K, so again you assume partner has the K and signal accordingly. But it does hurt your signalling accuracy for the times partner decides to bang down an ace without the K.

Some important rules to learn, if using the new standard of leading ace from AKx, that many beginners neglect to learn properly:
1. It only applies on trick one, the very first opening lead! In the middle of the hand, it is often right to bang down a bare ace without the K, way more often than on opening lead (you have more data available from seeing dummy and some # of tricks). One needs to be able to get an accurate signal from partner in this context, with you *not* having the K. So you should go back to leading the K from both AK and KQ in the middle of the hand.
2. In opening lead situations where it is fairly common to bang down the ace without the K, most experts think it is best to revert to the older std of K from AKx. These include mainly when leading partner's suit, the 5 level and higher, and when declarer opened a high preempt.

My personal preference, if playing a std scheme, is to play the old way.

Advanced players sometimes utilize other schemes, like Rusinow (2nd from touching honors), but you should probably ignore these for now as a beginner since your peers will be playing standard.

[SteveMoe]

It is very hard to answer this question in the absolute. Much depends on the bidding, what you expect declarer to do, whether you need to make an attacking lead, and what cards you hold in your hand. Bidding informs whether to be active or passive and the choice of suit to lead. The right card depends on 1) What you are trying to accomplish, and 2) What you are trying to communicate to partner.

Active defense is called for when we expect opponents have enough assets to make their contract and we have to establish our tricks as fast as possible. Passive defense means we suspect declarer has stretched a bit and we do not want to help declarer establish tricks ahead of time. Often this means leading trumps or a suit where they are already solid.

With Aces, the reasons to be careful are that 1) Playing them first allows opponent to play low cards wasting the power of the Ace. 2) Leading a small card from under the Ace gives away a trick and is much worse in a suit contract than it might be against NT.

Against a suit game where you expect declarer to be cross ruffing a lot it is often important to lead 2-3 rounds of trumps so we reduce the number of trumps they can take singly (each trump we lead kills collapses 2 tricks to one). Holding Ax in this situation leadin A then x allows us to draw 2 rounds of trump reducing declarer's crossruff count by two tricks. Holding Axx in trumps in the same situation it can be right to lead x, intending to lead A then x next (this assumes you will get in early - sometimes this dies not happen).

Often against high level contracts we need to lead our Aces in search of partner's Kings - that weay we can cash our top tricks - this leads to standard advice to lead A from AK EXCEPT at the 5 level and above - This lets partner know that at the 5 level and above our lead of an Ace is specifically looking for their King, and not from our AK.

Underleading an Ace can be useful if you see dummy has Kxx and expect declarer has J10x. Partner stands a good chance of scoring their Q.

So you see the real answer is about what you are trying to do on defense. Themes you mention are good line of thought but the need to feed your analysis of what you need to do to beat the hand based on the evidence presented by your partner and the opponents and your hand.

One common error newer players make is "Flying with the Ace". When there is a Q or K on the dummy and you hold the Ace, ducking when declarer leads x from under Kxx, ducking is more often right than wrong. You want to save your Ace to take dummy's honor.

[nemojames3]

thanks for you help everyone. I think the problem is I am learning in a small village where everyone has been playing for many years. Half the time whatever I do in this situation my experienced partner will tell me it's wrong and then another experienced played will tell me I was right so I never know where I am half the time.

[P_Marlowe]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-30, 11:59, said:

thanks for you help everyone. I think the problem is I am learning in a small village where everyone has been playing for many years. Half the time whatever I do in this situation my experienced partner will tell me it's wrong and then another experienced played will tell me I was right so I never know where I am half the time.

Yes, that is a problem.

The solution - decide for the time being, whose the one, you trust most, and take his words
as written in stone.

Quite often you have the choice to go left or right, both direction will be t,reasonable.

But if you decide on one occassion to go left and on the other to go right, this wont be
reasonable anymore.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Stephen Tu]

nemojames3, on 2012-September-30, 11:59, said:

thanks for you help everyone. I think the problem is I am learning in a small village where everyone has been playing for many years. Half the time whatever I do in this situation my experienced partner will tell me it's wrong and then another experienced played will tell me I was right so I never know where I am half the time.

Some very experienced players are still terrible. Unfortunately as a beginner it will be hard to determine who is worth listening to. Generally you will want to ask your partner *why* it is wrong, and decide if his/her logic makes sense. If explanation cannot be offered, or the logic doesn't make sense, you'll want to discount the validity of the advice. If two players can both make logical arguments for their case but they are conflicting, it is possible it is one of the areas of the game where both options are playable, and maybe it doesn't matter much either way. The best players are usually aware of multiple options in certain areas and the pros/cons of each option.

One way to avoid this problem is to get some good books & learn from them. The better authors are proven players, winners of multiple national championships, have credibility & explain their reasoning well. Bill Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand" is among the best for beginners/ints IMO. His "How to Play a Bridge Hand" for declarer play is maybe even better. An alternate choice would be Eddie Kantar's "Eddie Kantar teaches Modern Bridge Defence".

[nemojames3]

There lies another problem. I am learning what must be the hardest card game in a country (croatia) that has one of the hardest language (which I am also learning). So if the explaination were in English I would probably struggle but in Croatian I get an instant headache.

I do have some books and excellent computer programs but I will take a look at the ones you mention.

[P_Marlowe]

maybe you watch the thread
http://www.bridgebas...at-do-you-lead/

I am not sure, the Ace lead is best, for teh hand in question, but maybe you get a feeling
regarding the pros and cons, given a typical seq., and a typical hand.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[SteveMoe]

Having swum in circles for many years chasing WHAT I did wrong in a given situation, WHO recommend the right way never seemed to help. (Think: Bridge polls are NEVER unanimous). Now I know the real answer comes from understanding WHY an action is poor or best. So when I go to a WHO to get help I focus on the WHY and not on their opinion. If they cannot tell me WHY I look for another WHO until I get a focused answer.

You've eprobably figured out that BBO can be a rich place to have these discussions, but you sometimes have to bring people back to the WHY!