Wackojack, on 2015-March-09, 06:58, said:
I am the first to admit that I am not good at opening leads. However this was my reasoning: Dummy's distribution is very likely 3154 with a better than a min opener. Declarer's distribution is not so easy to guess. 4324? 5314? OK North didnt bid 3N for a reason. Could it have been because declarer had 3 losing hearts? Maybe that is not a good enough reason to lead away from SJxxx. In any case although DD a heart lead defeats the contract I think that declarer would have to be psychic to finesse the 9 spades to make the contract.
Sorry if my reply came over as a snark; here is a fuller explanation for why I would 100% lead a heart.
First of all a heart is pretty safe on this auction - if it wasn't, opponents would probably have bid 3N. In fact, it's clearly the safest suit to lead. Second, our best chance of beating this is if they are in a 4-3 fit - if they are in a 5-3 fit, opener's gamble of looking for a 5-3 spade fit paid off, and they probably have extras. A 4-3 fit is also quite likely.
Third, there is no reason to be afraid of two heart ruffs in dummy - if dummy has HHx, it obviously sets up two tricks for us; but also if he is Hxx it creates a lot of problems for him: blocking the trump suit, possibly setting minor suit ruffs if he uses them for communication, possibly setting up a 4th round heart loser if he can't time setting up side suits/pulling trumps the right way.
Moreover, if you don't attack hearts, the heart losers may also go away. In fact, look again at the actual deal: declarer doesn't have to be a genius to make the contract on a non-heart lead - he just sets up diamonds, pulls two rounds of trumps (assuming you knock out the ace of hearts), and starts running diamonds.
The easiest way to count losers is to line up the people who talk about loser count, and count them. -Kieran Dyke