Passive opening leads against trump contracts

Passive leads are greatly undervalued by novice players. Experienced players have learnt to their cost that leading a suit in which declarer is sure to take a trick is doing no harm and is often preferable to an active or attacking lead which may give tricks away if the lie of the cards is unfavourable.

Generally speaking, the opening lead should be active, if you have one. Note carefully the list of opening leads against trump contracts and the mnemonic for remembering them. Unfortunately, on many occasions we do not have a lead that qualifies as active, and so we must fall back on a passive one. Sadly, they are not easy to find.

The best passive lead is, without doubt, a small trump, although this goes against the grain in the early stages of learning the game, as the tendency is to think that the trump suit 'belongs' to the opposition. Sure, it does, and this is why it is such a safe lead since most of the time, declarer has the majority of the high cards in this suit and you are simply giving her a trick she would make anyway, thus avoiding a mistake.

The second best passive lead is the top of a sequence-even a two-card sequence may be good enough. This is halfway towards being active anyway, as it is paving the way for a trick in this suit.

K Q 5 ,  Q J 3 2 , A K 4 3 ,  Q J 9 6 etc.

Failing these two, a small card from a four or five card suit, or longer, is liable to be harmless, even if the suit is headed by an honour, as someone will be short.

Leading a suit headed by an ace, such as A 4 3 2, A 7 5, etc is bad since the lead of the ace will capture nothing while underleading it may give away a trick to a singleton honour and later on, your ace only catches fresh air.

To summarise, then, passive leads against trump contracts are:

1. A trump
2. Top of a sequence
3. A small card from a long suit not headed by an ace.

Try your hand at this quiz which incorporates questions on trump and no-trump contracts, and also looks at active and passive leads.