[Little Kid]

Scoring: IMP

1♠-2♣*
3♣-4NT
5♣**-6NT

*2♣: SAYC
**5♣: 1/4

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The opponents bid without interference from your side and it is your lead against 6NT. I was leading like a baboon already for the past dozen boards and didn't fail to find a bad lead here too. What do you lead?

[gwnn]

♠T. partner has a club trick and I have a diamond trick.

[rogerclee]

heart

[nige1]

♠ = 10, ♦A = 8, ♥ = 6. Gwnn has persuaded me

[mikeh]

If partner has a club trick, we don't need to do anything fancy at all: we will show him the diamond shift, and they are down.

So assume we don't hold a defensive club trick. The odds are high that they cannot take 12 winners without the spade suit...so, once again, if we have a defensive spade trick coming, it almost certainly won't go anywhere and we don't need to lead a spade.

Leading a diamond is an insult to the opps....rho surely holds the King..even SAYC bidders won't bind 6N on a power auction off AK diamonds

This leaves the suit I would have led even without the Queen in it: hearts. it is trivial to construct hands on which we need to establish our second trick right away. Here is one I created in 30 seconds:

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[akhare]

Bank on the presumed bad ♣ break and lead 9♠ for good effect ...

[jdonn]

It's not easy, if south in Mike's example were Ax AKJ KJx Kxxxx instead then you have to lead, well, anything but a heart. But a heart is still reasonable and I think I'd do it, edging out a spade.

[Codo]

The agressive lead is a heart. But I won't choose it today.

I hope that the club break is worse enough for them to fail. So I try not to blow a trick and lead a high diamond and continue that suit. This will seldom develop a trick for them and we may get one later in clubs, spades or hearts.

[jukmoi]

Heart. I believe the chance of developing our 2nd trick is greater than giving declarer his 12th trick.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

it is either a diamond or a heart, and if I lead a diamond,
I should lead the Ace.

I would start with the Ace.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

jdonn, on Apr 21 2010, 10:37 PM, said:

It's not easy, if south in Mike's example were Ax AKJ KJx Kxxxx instead then you have to lead, well, anything but a heart. But a heart is still reasonable and I think I'd do it, edging out a spade.

It seems at least probable that declarer has the club Queen: he is off an Ace, he used keycard and didn't ask for the Queen. While it is still possible to come up with layouts on which the heart is the only losing lead, giving declarer AQ or KQ of clubs greatly reduces their number....for one thing, we need a far more robust and unlikely club holding from partner in order for us to have a club winner.

[mikeh]

P_Marlowe, on Apr 22 2010, 02:33 AM, said:

Hi,

it is either a diamond or a heart, and if I lead a diamond,
I should lead the Ace.

I would start with the Ace.

With kind regards
Marlowe

It is a useful idea, when analyzing problems of this nature, to think of holdings on which one's choice may be a winner. Can you come up with any N-S holdings on which the lead of the diamond Ace is necessary? Please assume that declarer holds Kx or better....even people who play SAYC won't be bidding like this without the Kx or better in diamonds (if they are idiots, that statement may not be true, but one should never assume idiocy in these problems, else they reduce to pure guesses).

Unless you can come up with an example (and I couldn't...not consistent with the auction) you should rethink your approach to opening leads....any hand I could think of required partner to have a slow black suit winner and a diamond void...and that isn't possible.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on Apr 22 2010, 10:33 AM, said:

P_Marlowe, on Apr 22 2010, 02:33 AM, said:

Hi,

it is either a diamond or a heart, and if I lead a diamond,
I should lead the Ace.

I would start with the Ace.

With kind regards
Marlowe

It is a useful idea, when analyzing problems of this nature, to think of holdings on which one's choice may be a winner. Can you come up with any N-S holdings on which the lead of the diamond Ace is necessary? Please assume that declarer holds Kx or better....even people who play SAYC won't be bidding like this without the Kx or better in diamonds (if they are idiots, that statement may not be true, but one should never assume idiocy in these problems, else they reduce to pure guesses).

Unless you can come up with an example (and I couldn't...not consistent with the auction) you should rethink your approach to opening leads....any hand I could think of required partner to have a slow black suit winner and a diamond void...and that isn't possible.

Probably not, but it is possible to construct something where playing D Ax is safe, and the wrong choice of heart or spade conceded the contract. Whether it's possible to find one where both heart and spade butcher the defence is more difficult.

KJ8xx, x, QJx, AQxx

Ax, AKJ, Kxx, KJxxx

Is that plausible ?

[Codo]

In your example a diamond is even better, because partner will ruff the second one...

[whereagles]

what ruff? it's 6NT we're playing.

anyway, heart for me. If opps need to develop club or spade tricks, they're always going down. So I should assume they need to develop a diamond tricks, in which case I need to find pard with ♥K.

of course, I'll look silly if they make 13 on the lead and pard has ♦K, but that's life

[OleBerg]

jdonn, on Apr 22 2010, 05:37 AM, said:

It's not easy, if south in Mike's example were Ax AKJ KJx Kxxxx instead then you have to lead, well, anything but a heart. But a heart is still reasonable and I think I'd do it, edging out a spade.

A heart is rather automatic for me, but I am well aware that it might easily be wrong.

[cherdanno]

mikeh, on Apr 22 2010, 10:22 AM, said:

jdonn, on Apr 21 2010, 10:37 PM, said:

It's not easy, if south in Mike's example were Ax AKJ KJx Kxxxx instead then you have to lead, well, anything but a heart. But a heart is still reasonable and I think I'd do it, edging out a spade.

It seems at least probable that declarer has the club Queen: he is off an Ace, he used keycard and didn't ask for the Queen. While it is still possible to come up with layouts on which the heart is the only losing lead, giving declarer AQ or KQ of clubs greatly reduces their number....for one thing, we need a far more robust and unlikely club holding from partner in order for us to have a club winner.

Why should he ask for the queen? I don't know anyone who could stop in 5NT after asking for the ♣Q, even if he could maybe he didn't fancy playing 5NT, and maybe he had enough hcp to expect 6NT to have play in any case.
Anyway, if you assume RHO is good I would expect very strong red-suit holdings, otherwise he had no business placing the contract in NT without consultation. This increases the risk of a heart lead.

[mikeh]

what would the sequence:

4N   5♣
5♦   5♥
5♠     mean?

Assume that 5♦ asked for the club Queen, and 5♥ denied it, what would 5♠ be other than a puppet to 5N?

[aguahombre]

whereagles, on Apr 23 2010, 01:56 AM, said:

what ruff? it's 6NT we're playing.

Roland just might have been attempting humor.

[jdonn]

mikeh, on Apr 23 2010, 10:23 AM, said:

what would the sequence:

4N   5♣
5♦   5♥
5♠     mean?

Assume that 5♦ asked for the club Queen, and 5♥ denied it, what would 5♠ be other than a puppet to 5N?

Who says 5♥ rather than 6♣ denies the queen? Also I would still use it for grand slam tries, even off the queen you could be able to find enough tricks. That has to be better than stopping in 5NT when you were so good you could just bid blackwood before!

If anything cherdanno's point about strong red suit holdings (and an implication of weak clubs) seems stronger than your point about not asking for the queen to me. To where I'm very undecided on the lead now.