I'll say a bit more about agreements about leads of the A and K against NT since I think some readers might be unaware of this.
Imagine the auction as it was: 1
- 1
-1NT -3NT.
Imagine you are on lead and imagine you have a strong diamond holding. Often (although not the case here) neither opponent will have four diamonds. Declarer opened 1
, dummy responded 1
. Not conclusive but at least a hint.
Ok, now I will present two possible diamond holdings.
A: AKJx
B: AKJTx
Where is the Q?
On holding A, you would like to lead a top diamond and have partner signal possession of the Q. If he has it, you will lead an x to the Q and then partner will return a spot to your two winners. If he does not have it you will switch to another suit and hope partner can get in and lead a small
to your tenace.
On holding B. the situation is different. If he has the Q, and now it mighty very well be Qx, it will be fine if he just throws it. You run the suit. If he does not have it, and of course if you don't see it on the board, then declarer has it. But did declarer start with Qx or with Qxx?
So: With this second holding you are fine with partner dumping the Q if he has it, and you really want him to play a count card if he does not.
Well, you have both the A and the K. In BWS, and I regard this as traditional, with holding A you lead the King and with holding B you lead the Ace. Thus, on the lead of the King, partner gives attitude. Encouragement if he has the Q, discouragement if he does not. One could discuss the J. On the lead of the A, partner dumps the Q if he has it and gives count if he does not. Again one could discuss the J.
In reality, it is not always so simple, which is why bridge is such an interesting game. But at any rate, many people play the lead of an A to ask for unblock or count, and the lead of the K to ask for attitude. But some reverse these meanings, the K for unblock/count, the A for attitude. It can cause confusion.
After writing this I checked in
Opening Leads by Mike Lawrence. On page 12 he gives the hand AKJT5 and and says to lead the A, asking partner to drop the Q if he has it or otherwise give count. So BWS and ML agree on this, but experience shows that you will sometimes have a partner who thinks differently and he will be able to find support for his views. My view is that it rarely matters which of these two approaches you take, as long as you are both taking the same approach.
[Added: Clearly on the posted hand the lead of the A was not intended to suggest dropping the Q, so as I say not everyone plays that it does. As mentioned, I regard it as the traditional way. It is widely cited in the literature, I think going as far back as Goren. But my sources are mainly from my side of the Atlantic.]
I repeat that we are only speaking of leads against NT contracts here. Also, against a gambling 3NT these conventions are off (at least most would say so).
A vaguely related sidebar: Joe and I were playing and chatting about Bergen raises. We agreed that they were on over a double. A kib was participating (we encouraged this) and said that he did not think of Bergen as on over X. I replied that this was fine, that the problem came only when he did not play them on over a double and his partner did play them on over a double. This brought a chuckle, but in fact it is a common problem even in somewhat regular partnerships and a very common problem online. I am not all that fond of Bergen (fond of the convention I mean, Marty is a perfectly good person no doubt) but it has it's pluses else nobody would play it. Playing it w/o discussing when it is on/off is asking for trouble.