Leading a Suit: The Role of the Ten

Overview

There are two specific aspects relating to the ten:

• the ten is not treated as an honour. A corollary to this is that if partner leads a nine, either it guarantees the ten or it's from a doubleton or singleton. It should be obvious from the bidding whether it could be from a short suit. If partner can rule out it being a short-suit lead, there's no point wasting the jack when the nine is led.
• strong tens means we lead the ten from suits headed by A J 10 and K J 10. But we would also lead the ten in a traditional sequence like a suit headed by Q 10 9. An important corollary to the use of strong tens is that the lead of a jack guarantees no higher card in that suit - partner can often decide that a switch is called for as a result of this information.