[JLilly]

Hi all, I have two questions about leading a suit headed by AK against a NT contract.

1) How good does the suit have to be for you to lead the A or K instead of low (fourth, fifth, depending on your agreements)? AKJx? AKJxx? AKJTx? How does this depend on whether you're defending against, say, 1NT versus 3NT?

2) What is your policy on what the lead of the A versus the K asks for from partner? A lot of people (in my area) play "Ace for attitude, King for kount". It seems like the reverse makes more sense if you normally play attitude signals on the first trick, since from KQJ(x..) or KQT(x..), giving count just tells declarer when to take their ace.
Thanks!

[Cyberyeti]

A for primary carding method, K for unblock is fairly normal

[nige1]

We lead A and Q for attitude, K for count.


Against notrump,

• From long strong holdings like AKQTx.., AKJxx..., KQJxx.., KQTxx.., we lead K for partner to unblock the A, Q, or J, .., (Provided the unblock doesn't obviously cost a trick). Without one of those honours, partner gives count.
• We lead the A or Q when we want attitude, not an unblock. e.g. from Ax..., AKx..., KQx..., or QJx.... But partner might play the higher honour of 2 or more, e,g from QJ.., JT.., and T9....

Another popular scheme at notrump, is that an honour lead asks partner to unblock the immediately lower honour, e.g K form AKJxx. Q from KQTxx