Leading low towards your honours
Rationale
When declarer is on lead, an opposition player is 2nd to play and they are described as under dummy, described by their positions relative to the dummy. There are advantages to declarer if the outstanding honours that the opposition hold in a suit are in this hand 'under dummy.'.'Leading low' is when playing the first card to a trick from either declarer or dummy's hand, its playing the lowest possible card. This forces the next opposition player to decide to play equally low or to play their face card.
In the diagram below Declarer is South and Dummy is North. West is 'under dummy' and East is 'over dummy'.
Leading out the King, Queen or Jack from Dummy will result in West covering it with the Ace and you have no chance of winning a trick with it. Instead enter Souths hand and lead a low card up towards the KS,QS,JS and 2S. West must decide to play his AS or the 8S. You save all your high spades to win tricks later. If West holds up and does not play his Ace at your first lead of the suit use your entry cards to ensure that you keep leading low from Souths hand.
Leading low gives you three tricks in spades if the Ace is under dummy.
Exercise: How would you play this hand in order to improve your chances of winning 3 Spade tricks?
North
West
East
South
Answer: If the Ace is 'over dummy' in Wests hand you have no chance of making three tricks in Spades, West will just wait until an honour is played to cover it with their Ace.
By leading a low card first rather than your high card, you increase your chances by 50% of making all three of your Spade honours into winning tricks
Instant Progress Quiz - Check all correct answers
Practice This Lesson
In 3NT if you lead low card first towards your diamonds and spades you will make 10 tricks whereas if you lead out your high honours first you can only make 8 tricks - try it and see
PLAYExtra for Experts
A different game on the same subject as this lesson, with questions for community discussion in the comments area below.
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