How do you play a long suit if an opponent makes an opening lead in that suit? If you have declared a notrump contract and an opponent leads a suit in which you have length then that suit will probably break badly.
Many opponents fail to give the opening lead much thought and just lead fourth highest of their longest and strongest, no matter what has been bid or whether or not the contract is in a trump suit or notrumps.
When an opponent has led your long suit, a bad break is likely so you may have to play another suit to develop tricks from length.
Example: Declarer ♦AK72 Dummy ♦Q65
You are west and the declarer in 3NT. North leads ♦3 and south plays ♦10. You can win ♦A but should not continue diamonds even if this is your best long suit.
North’s lead indicates that diamonds won’t divide evenly. If you play out ♦A, ♦K and ♦Q, you are likely to make a length trick for north. Prefer to try a different suit to establish your length tricks.
If an opponent leads your long suit you can also use the Rule of Eleven to work out the placement of the missing cards in the suit.
The Rule of Eleven is used when you think an opponent has led ‘fourth highest of their longest and strongest’ and you also have length in that suit.
The Rule of Eleven can be used if an opponent leads a middle or high spot card, so the card led should be a 5 of higher.
The Rule of Eleven is: The number of the card led subtracted from eleven will reveal the number of cards higher than that card held by the three players following to the lead.
Example: Declarer ♦A54 Dummy ♦KJ93
You are west and the declarer in 3NT. North leads ♦7. If you subtract 7 from 11 you get 4. There should be 4 cards higher than the 7 in the three hands to play after the lead.
You can see three cards higher than the 7 in the dummy east (KJ9) and have one card higher than the 7 in your hand (A).
This is all four cards higher than the 7 so south should not have a card higher than the 7. You can play east’s ♦9 and win the trick! North’s diamonds are ♦Q1087.
Here is another example.
Example: Declarer ♦A54 Dummy ♦KJ83
You are west and the declarer in 3NT. North leads ♦6. If you subtract 6 from 11 you get 5. There should be 5 cards higher than the 6 in the three hands to play after the lead.
You can see three cards higher than the 6 in the dummy east (KJ8) and have one card higher than the 6 in your hand (A).
This is four of the five cards higher than the 6 so south should have one card higher than the 6. When you play ♦3 from the dummy, south plays ♦10. That is south’s only card higher than the 6.
You now win south’s ♦10 with ♦A and lead back ♦4. When north plays ♦7, you can finesse to win ♦8 as south now has no card left higher than ♦6. North started with ♦Q976.
Amazing!
© 2022 John Roberts