Putting Partner on Lead
🎯 Learning Objective: To recognise when declarer is trying to keep your partner off lead, and to make sure the trick declarer has to lose goes to the defender who can hurt him.
💡 Key Idea: A good declarer plans to lose his tricks to the safe hand and to keep the danger hand off lead. As a defender, turn that round. Work out which of you declarer is afraid of — then do everything you can to put that defender on lead.
Which of you is the danger hand?
Ask the question declarer asks: who can do damage if he gets in? It is usually one of two things. The defender with the long suit, once declarer’s stoppers are going. Or the defender who sits on declarer’s right when declarer has a holding like king-small-small that can be led through. Dummy and the bidding often answer the question for you. Declarer’s play answers it too: if he holds up, ducks, or leads a suit from one particular hand, he is telling you which of you he wants to win the trick.
Get out of the way
If you are the safe hand, a high card in the suit declarer is setting up is often a liability. Declarer will happily let you win with it. The answer is to unblock — throw that card early, while it still costs nothing, so that the trick declarer has to lose falls to partner instead of you.
Example Hand (3NT by South)
♠ 9 6 4
♥ 8 3
♦ 8 7 3
♣ A 9 7 5 2
♠ Q J 10
♥ A J 9 6
♦ 10 9 5 4
♣ Q 4
♠ 8 7 3 2
♥ Q 10 4 2
♦ J 6
♣ J 10 6
♠ A K 5
♥ K 7 5
♦ A K Q 2
♣ K 8 3
South opens 2NT and North raises to 3NT. You lead ♠Q and declarer wins the ace. At trick two he plays ♣K.
Think before you follow. Declarer has shown a big balanced hand, and dummy’s only asset is the club suit, so he must be setting up clubs. He will have to lose one club trick on the way. Which of you does he want to win it?
Look at hearts. Dummy has two small ones, and you hold ace-jack-nine-six. If you lead a heart, you give declarer’s king a trick, if he has it. If partner leads one through declarer, your ace and jack sit over the king and you can take four heart tricks. So partner is the danger hand, and declarer wants to lose his club trick to you.
Follow with the ♣4, and declarer leads a second club. Your queen has to win it, and the play is over: you cannot attack hearts profitably, and declarer’s ♣A then drops partner’s jack, so he makes his contract. Throw the ♣Q under the king instead. Now partner’s jack and ten control the third round. Whatever declarer does now, he cannot make nine tricks: if he plays on clubs, partner wins one and leads a heart, and the contract goes one down.
The unblock costs nothing. If declarer held the jack as well, his clubs would have run anyway, and your queen was never going to score.
The same hand from declarer’s chair. This is Example Hand 2 in The Danger Hand — Hold-Up and Avoidance Play in Course 6. There, declarer ducks your queen on the second round to keep partner off lead — the avoidance play. Your unblock is the only answer to it. Studying the two lessons together shows the same battle from both sides of the table.
Other ways to get partner in
Don’t win a trick partner can win. If both of you can win a trick and partner is the one who can do damage on lead, play low and let him take it. A trick won by the wrong defender is often worth nothing.
Keep partner’s entry alive. If partner’s long suit is set up, his entry is the most valuable card the defence holds. Don’t lead a suit that knocks it out early, and when you are on lead, look for a switch that attacks declarer’s stoppers rather than partner’s entry.
⚠️ Common Mistakes:
Following suit on autopilot. The unblock has to happen the first time the suit is played. By the second round it is too late — so think when declarer first leads his suit, not when you are forced to win.
Being pleased to win a trick. When declarer lets you win easily, ask why. He may simply be choosing the defender who cannot hurt him.
Unblocking after a long pause. A long pause before throwing an honour tells declarer exactly what you are doing. Work out the danger hand while dummy goes down, so you are ready when the suit is played.
🧠 Memory Tip: Who does declarer fear? Get him in. If the answer is partner, get your high cards out of his way before declarer can use them against you.
Summary
Declarer tries to lose his tricks to the safe hand. As a defender, work out which of you is the danger hand — from the bidding, dummy, and the way declarer plays — and arrange for that defender to win the trick declarer has to lose. Unblock an honour that would otherwise win in the wrong hand, let partner take the tricks he can use, and protect his entries. The time to decide is the first round of declarer’s suit, not the second.