Children's television shows teach you a few important things; You always have to be wary of quicksand, banana peels are the slipperiest subjects known to mankind and at some point in your life, you are likely to bump your head and develop amnesia.

Most of us have never slipped on a banana peel (I tried, once), or fallen into quicksand, but too often at the bridge table we suffer amnesia. This can take the form of forgetting what cards have been played or forgetting the auction. It can also happen because we forget that we know how defenders think.

If we put ourselves in a defender's seat, we know that against notrump we (or partner) like to lead the top of a three-card honor sequence. Against suit contracts, we only need two cards in a sequence to lead the top card.

Those leads usually help set up tricks for the defense and normally don't give away too much. Unfortunately, if declarer is able to recognize those leads, declarer can take advantage.

We've all fallen victim to this combination:

We choose to lead the K from KQx against a suit contract. We are distraught to see dummy's Jxx with declarer winning the ace. Oops. Had we led something else, declarer would have two losers in this suit. That certainly can happen, particularly with two card sequences.

Typically, though, a three-card sequence lead like the J from J109x is a great, safe play. Against good declarers, nothing is safe. Let's see if we can be a good declarer on this deal.

We have a 1NT-3NT auction and receive the lead of the J.

Vul:None Dlr: S	DUMMY K87 A63 876 KQ82
LEAD J
	DECLARER AQ32 975 AQ3 A65

As declarer in notrump, we start by counting our sure winners. We will take three spade tricks, one heart trick, one diamond trick, and three club tricks: 8 winners. We can take a 9th trick in either spades or clubs if the suit breaks 3-3. We can also take an extra trick in diamonds if the finesse wins. Which path should we go down?

There's no rush to take a finesse. We could try playing spades from the top, but I'd rather not reveal that I have four spades yet. I would win the first trick with the ace (East contributing the 4), and play a club. If West plays low, what do you do?

Play the 8! We would only lead the J from J109 or J108-against notrump the lead is from a three-card sequence,. Moreover, West is leading a minor against a 1NT-3NT auction, when we know we like to lead the majors. West probably has real clubs and there's no reason to expect this lead to be strange. It's always a bad feeling for the defender when declarer plays back the suit led. Let's punish them a little.

Look at the full deal:

Vul:None Dlr: S	K87 A63 876 KQ82
65 KJ4 K104 J10973		J1094 Q1082 J952 4
	AQ32 975 AQ3 A65

Your club finesse wins, as you "knew" it would. Yes, on occasion something weird is happening, but we play for the defense to be doing what we would do in their seat. Look at East. He'll have a tough time knowing what suit to guard. If you play spades first, East can discard easier.

After this start, you may wind up with 10 tricks. If you play your suits from the top (without taking a club finesse) and then try a diamond finesse, you'll only take the 8 tricks you started with.

It's important that we don't forget how defenders think just because we're in a different role.