[gurgistan]

The weakest part of my game is defensive cardplay.

What do I do when having to make the opening lead and holding a singleton King?

I tend to lead something else and hope that declarer finesses against my King at some point.

Is there anything else to consider?

Any and all help much appreciated.

[aguahombre]

gurgistan, on Aug 16 2010, 11:23 AM, said:

The weakest part of my game is defensive cardplay.

If you got honest answers from experts or the rest of us, you would find yourself in the majority, by far. More specifically, opening leads must be the admittedly weakest part of nearly everyone's game.

Too many factors involved in the rest of the question for me. Will sit back and enjoy the answers.

[Stephen Tu]

The factors are the auction and the rest of your hand. Certainly you'd probably lead the stiff K if partner overcalled the suit, and perhaps if it's an unbid suit and other suits are unattractive because of the auction or your holding in it.

If your defense is weak, get either/both Bill Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand" or Eddie Kantar's "Eddie Kantar Teaches Modern Bridge Defense"/"Eddie Kantar Teaches Advanced Bridge Defense" two book series. The latter two are also available in interactive CD-ROM form, more expensive but some people learn more easily with the interactive format. For focus on opening leads, Mike Lawrence has a good book specifically on the topic, but the above also talk about leads and should probably come first.

[ArcLight]

gurgistan, on Aug 16 2010, 12:23 PM, said:

The weakest part of my game is defensive cardplay.

What do I do when having to make the opening lead and holding a singleton King?

I tend to lead something else and hope that declarer finesses against my King at some point.

Is there anything else to consider?

Any and all help much appreciated.

>>What do I do when having to make the opening lead and holding a singleton King?


Probably not lead it
Unless pard overcalled that suit.


>>I tend to lead something else and hope that declarer finesses against my King at some point.

Me too!


I suggest reading Mike Lawrences book "Opening Leads". He discusses things like listening to the bidding, trying to picture the opponents hands, do they sould like they have a sure game ready to wrap up? Maybe deperate plays are needed.

[nigel_k]

Defence is the worst part of just about everyone's game. Reading books will help but is not a solution by itself. You need to work on building up a picture of the unseen hands from the available evidence in order to figure out which plays will work and which will not. When the evidence is incomplete, as it usually is, you have to defend based on the relative frequencies of the layouts that are possible. It is very difficult.

There isn't a lot you can do with a singleton king except hope that declarer finesses at some point. Sometimes declarer will try to count HCP to figure out where the king is. In that case, you can try to lead declarer astray. For example, if partner has made a limited bid, then once his high cards are revealed, declarer may work out that your partner cannot have another king. So you need to try to defend in such a way that declarer doesn't find out your partner has those other high cards.

[peachy]

gurgistan, on Aug 16 2010, 12:23 PM, said:

The weakest part of my game is defensive cardplay.

This is very a insightful comment and IMO shows that you have great promise as a player. Just my humble opinion. I am 100% confident it is true and also 100% confident that it is true for most players who care to be honest about their self-assessment of abilities.

For opening lead there is lots to consider.
- is this IMPs or MP's? The goal at IMPs is to set, MPs to limit any overtricks though setting is of course a nice bonus.
- is aggressive or passive lead indicated?
- did partner bid at any time, and if yes, was it an opening or an overcall etc?

I would suggest you get a good book on Opening Leads and another on Defense and study them. Or analyse hands you played and see how the chosen opening lead and defense worked/didn't work. Nothing comes at no cost, and the defensive skills cost "a lot of time and practice".

[aguahombre]

Another source would be Vugraph, where the top players make the unsucessful opening lead on a regular basis.

[awm]

Evaluating which part of one's game is weakest is a tricky thing.

Obviously everyone (even world class players) makes a lot of "mistakes" on opening lead. Due to the nature of leads, you have very little information and it's virtually impossible to get them all right. There are certainly players who are relatively "good" on opening lead, but even they won't get them all (or even that high a percentage of them right).

As for singleton kings, they are usually not a good lead. You often pick up a guess for the opponents by leading them, and partner can't really overtake with the ace to give you a ruff (and you need to somehow get partner in for a ruff in any case).

Of course, there are times when you really need to make an aggressive lead (like if the opponents seem to have a strong side suit), or when partner is very likely to have the ace or queen (like if partner opened or overcalled that suit), and in these cases leading the king is fine.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

#1 lead the king, if it is p suit.
#2 lead it, if the auction asks for a trump lead, and we are talking about
the king of trumps.
#3 otherwise, lead something else

In general - decide, which suit to lead, before you pick the specific card,
but of course a suit with single king is usually a suit, you dont want to lead.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

I think opening leads are perceived as the weakest part of everyone's game because they so often turn out to be wrong. But when even experts often make leads that turn out badly, it doesn't mean that there is much room for improvement. Rather it means that even when making full use of the limited information available, opening leads remain, in many cases, guesswork.

So it is important to realize that even if your opening lead turns out badly, it might have been the best lead, given the information you had. And the converse, a lead that turned out well might have been a poor lead.

As for singleton kings: yes, in most case I wouldn't lead it. Unless partner bid the suit or the auction otherwise suggests that partner is much more likely to hold the ace than declarer is.

[jukmoi]

Usual reasons for leading singleton king are 1) trying for a ruff 2) trying to develope defensive honour tricks (when the suit seems to be indicated by the bidding) 3) by default: anything else seems worse.

[WellSpyder]

Anyone remember "Tickets to the Devil" by Richard Powell? I seem to recall the lead of a singleton K resulting in divorce....