[The topic to be discussed below is quite controversial, and there are persuasive arguments for both sides. After you finish this article, see the commentary by Master Spades.]

A running debate has been ongoing for some time. Should we lead the Ace or the King from Ace-King? It seems that confusion exists regarding which is the better lead. Why do some of the veteran players lead the King, while others are leading the Ace? I doubt many have any really good reason but they have adopted a style that just leads the Ace from Ace-King combinations and also from Ace-small combinations. First I will discuss the method of leading the King from Ace-King.

Your partner leads the King of diamonds and you hold:

An ambiguous situation exists. Partner will lead the King from Ace-King, but he will also lead it from King-Queen. This presents a tremendous problem for me, his partner. How should I signal my pard? Remember that when pard is leading a suit the first card you play is an attitude signal. It says to your pard either (1) "I like your lead pard! Bring em on!" or (2) "Please shift to some other suit, this one stinks."

In this case if partner has the Ace-King we may want to indicate that this suit is not our favorite by playing the 2 of diamonds. This 2 is the smallest card in the deck and will have the desired affect of having pard stop leading that suit. On the other hand, if partner has led from the King-Queen of diamonds we want him to continue now. We have an equal honor with the Jack. Now we would like to signal with the 4 concealing the 2. Even though the 4 is a very small card it is still a massive one when the 2 is concealed. When pard regains the lead he will return diamonds if he read your signal correctly.

Do you see the problem? How do we know which way to signal? The experts some time ago came up with the Ace lead from Ace-King to help with this problem.

Suppose your pard leads the Ace of clubs and you hold:

It is clear to signal with the 7 of clubs to say to pard "Bring those bad boys on, pard. I love clubs." He will dutifully return the King with you completing the echo with the 2 clubs. When he sees the 2 of clubs a perfect signal has been given to pard. Either (1) you started with only the 7 and 2 and now can ruff the next one, or (2) you have the Queen and want the suit continued.

This method is in my opinion a superior approach but it has limitations too. Way too many people lead unsupported Aces. If you bang down an Ace from A92 I may encourage you to continue when I hold the Queen thinking you have the King. The key here is that leading an unsupported Ace has hurt us already. It not only has hurt us with signaling it probably has cost our side a trick too. Aces are meant to catch Kings, Queens, and Jacks, not 2's, 3's, and 4's. I know some of you will immediately start thinking of bagging hands. I'm not talking about those situations. I'm simply discussing strategy for taking all the tricks we can get.

With this method what do you suppose it would now mean if pard led the King, and then followed it with the Ace? When you agree to lead the ace from AK, the lead of the king followed by the play of the Ace indicates these are the only two cards you hold in that suit and a ruff is what you desire.

Now I am going to really confuse you. I prefer a third method! I actually lead the Ace from Ace-King, and I also lead the King from Ace-King. Why do I do this? Is it complete insanity? No! If you re-read previous articles of mine you will see that I talk frequently about odd-odd-odd-even, and even-even-even-odd distributions and how we can get count on the hand quickly and efficiently. I prefer to lead the Ace from Ace-King when I have an even number of cards in the suit, and lead the King from Ace-King when I have an odd number of cards in the suit. I'm sure this will not be for most but at least I have covered all three methods and the methodology behind each.

Enjoy them!

Regards,
Ruffkid1 (Jay Tomlinson)

Read the commentary to this article by Master Spades.