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In this lesson, we focus on the opening lead when the opponents work their way into a 3 Notrump contract.  As we’ve seen earlier in our Incredible Defender series when playing against Notrump contracts, sound opening leads include top of sequence leads, top of inner-sequence leads, fourth best leads, leading partner’s bid suit, etc.  We also learned the importance of being a good communicator with partner, providing card signals to share information about like-dislike suit continuation attitude, suit count and even suit preference signals. 

Click here to view Part 1 of the video commentary 

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Let’s combine these factors with another key factor – using our deductive skills to make inferences when making an opening lead.  Focusing on the essentials, in this segment for each hand we will have the opener begin with a 1 Notrump contract.  The responder will begin with either a 2 Club Stayman bid showing a 4 card major suit or make a Jacoby transfer bid to Spades (bidding 2 Hearts).  After opener’s rebid, the responder will make a 2 Notrump rebid with the opener denying a major suit fit but accepting a 3 Notrump game.

Inferences – In these classic bidding situations, both defenders know a great deal about the opponent’s assets, both High Card Points and suit hand shape.

–  The opener has a balanced hand with 16-17 points (accepting responder’s invitational bid).

–  The responder has at least one 4 cards major suit when bidding Stayman, or a 5 card suit when making a Jacoby Transfer bid.  And making an invitational 2 Notrump rebid, the responder has 8-9 points – just short the partnership 25 points to make a 3 Notrump contract. 

Building on this information, both defenders are able to make their initial assessment of the declarer and dummy assets before the opening lead is tabled.  Better yet, with a bit of basic detective work the defenders can make a sound initial assessment of their partner’s remaining points and probable hand shape.  As we will see, the opening leader can make good use of this information to make well-reasoned lead on trick one.

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