When it’s safe to lead a trump (in defence)

Say you, on opening lead, have nothing very appealing such as a singleton or top of a sequence. In fact all your suits contain broken honour(s) such as Qxxx or KJxx. Yuk – these are very dangerous leads. It may be best, especially if dummy has shown weakness, to lead a trump, giving little away.

However, you must be careful you do not butcher you or partner’s trump holding by leading the suit. Say you are leading v 4 ♥. Which of the following trump leads are safe and which not?

• a)    ♥ 7 5 2
• b)    ♥ A 5 2
• c)    ♥ Q 5 2
• d)    ♥ J 5 2
• e)    ♥ 2

• a)  ♥752 is pretty safe; you may pick up partner’s  ♥Q4 but probably declarer would have picked up  ♥Q for himself.
• b)  ♥A52 is also fairly safe, although a holding of  ♥Jx in partner’s hand would likely be squashed.
• c)  ♥Q52 is most certainly not safe, for you would lose your protection for  ♥Q. Don’t lead a trump, instead wait for declarer to cash  ♥AK, promoting your  ♥Q.
• d) ♥J52 will be safe if partner has no high card. However, it is not completely safe. Take this layout:
• Dummy.

• e) ♥2 is not at all safe. Indeed this is much misunderstood, “Surely my ♥2 is worthless, so why not lead it?” I hear many say. But think of partner, who is likely to hold a useful holding such as ♥Qxx, ♥J10xx. Your trump lead will severely compromise partner’s holding. Make the lead of a singleton trump a very rare occurrence in your repertoire: it’s very, very dangerous. You could almost say, “never lead a singleton trump.”