Dear Ed and Peter,

Once my partner has discarded and I understand he wants a higher ranking suit, spades; I hold ♠AKx. Which card do I play first? Do I play the ♠K and switch to the ♠x and hope he will return the suit to my ♠A? Then what?
Partner was very upset I did not lead the spade suit.
Thanks for a prompt reply. We use Lavinthal discards.

Alla Westbrook

Reply Ed Hoogenkamp (South) and Peter van der Linden (North)

Dear Alla,

It always helps if you give us the complete hand, making it possible for us to judge the situation. We will try our best with the information we've got.
If we understand correctly, you didn't play spades at all, but you seem to agree that you should have. So do we: if partner asks for spades to be played, you should do so unless you have a good reason not to. Since you hold the ♠AK, we think it highly improbable that not playing a spade can be correct here (but see *).
So let's go to the second part of your question: which spade to play?

The logical sequence in this situation seems to be the ♠A, followed by the ♠K, followed by the small card.
- In a notrump contract the idea behind this play is not to block the suit if partner has more than three spades.
- In a suit contract the idea behind this play is that partner may be able to ruff the third round. Whether this is likely or not in your case, is impossible to say without seeing your hand and dummy.
We said 'the logical sequence in this situation seems to be...' since top players handle this differently. As our English editor Barry Rigal points out: 'Always cash the king from ace-king in mid hand... (so this advice does not concern the opening lead) '...so the ace denies the king. The ace asks partner for attitude, the king for count.'

Although it is not clear whether the following applies in your case, we want to say a bit more about playing from the holding of Ace and King. Since you know you will win the first trick (with KQ or QJ you don't, therefore in those cases you always begin with the higher ranking card) you can consider starting with the King and playing the Ace in the second round. This 'strange' sequence (assuming you normally start with the Ace from AK) conveys a message to partner. Which message is a matter of partnership agreement and/or the situation. An example: it shows the bare AK and asks partner for a suit preference signal in the second trick, i.e. on the Ace.

* We beg everyone who submits a question: please send the full distribution.

Un saludo desde Barcelona and en hils fra Orkanger