[helene_t]

IMPs, about interm+ or adv- strength by BBO definitions

3c is preemptive, maybe 3-6 pts or thereabouts. 1H is normalish (5+ cards, 11-20 points)

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[mikeh]

It is unanimous!

As of this post (or as of when I began typing) the only lead choices deemed reasonable were the Spade A, the Heart Ace, or the Club King...each had one vote...mine

The spade Ace to take a look at dummy, which may assist in deciding which rounded suit to play next. If partner has a stiff heart, he almost surely won't have a stiff spade and we can hope to score a minor trick later if we correctly judge to continue with heart A and a heart. Also, when/if we continue with the heart Ace, the cards (not the tempo in which partner plays) may persuade us to change horses for a second time and switch to clubs.

The heart Ace because we may find 3 hearts in dummy and I'd bet long odds that partner doesn't hold 3 of them, so we continue

The club King for the obvious reason that partner's modest strength may include the Ace or at least the Queen (and that neither opp has a stiff or void). However, we are deluding ourselves if we expect to get to ruff a club with our small trump. Note that we may hold the led with the King, and be able to work out that a heart switch is necessary.

I don't like the small spade...it ruins tempo and also there is a good chance that partner can ruff hearts but not if we let the opps pull two rounds of trump before we play even one round of hearts.

The small diamond needs partner to hold diamond values. Not impossible but there is no reason to think that he does and some reason to think that he may not. The diamond King looks like a monkey to me And not in a complimentary sense. I hope it wasn't the successful action (and have a hard time coming up with a layout on which it would be).

[helene_t]

Thanks, Mike. Well, I was thinking that ♦K could work if it created an entry for partner to be able to play hearts through. Probably far fetched.

[FelicityR]

I'm bemused why players think the ♥A is the best lead. Why give up the tenace position? You have 16 HCPs. Partner has shown 3-6 HCPs. You have reasonable control of the other three suits. If declarer runs the ♠s (in the hope of poor discards) partner can signal. The ♠A allows you a look at dummy. Trying to find the setting trick through a ruff is speculative, but there again speculative leads sometimes do work. Call me boring...

[gszes]

CLUB KING seems a stand out. The main worry is losing a valuable tempo with any other lead and losing a club trick. While the lead of the trump ace seems to invalidate this concept let us imagine the opps hands as something like:

Jxxx JTx AQJ xxx
KQTxxx Kxx xx Ax


with a club lead we are due 1c 1s 2h with spade ace or dia lead we have lost our club trick because declarer has time to finesse diamonds twice and pitch their club loser on the dia ace. The heart A lead fails because declarer has time to pitch either a club OR a heart on the 3rd diamond depending on the defense.

[mikeh]

FelicityR, on 2018-August-13, 19:50, said:

I'm bemused why players think the ♥A is the best lead. Why give up the tenace position? You have 16 HCPs. Partner has shown 3-6 HCPs. You have reasonable control of the other three suits. If declarer runs the ♠s (in the hope of poor discards) partner can signal. The ♠A allows you a look at dummy. Trying to find the setting trick through a ruff is speculative, but there again speculative leads sometimes do work. Call me boring...

On the auction, if I had to bet which opp held the heart King, I'd bet my left hand opponent, since he would tend to upgrade that card while RHO would tend to downgrade it. This is by no means a strong inference, but it is nevertheless a valid one. Of course if it is correct, there is no cost to the heart lead and it may well prove essential


Having said that, the OP asked merely which choices would be reasonable, which is a far cry from asking our opinion as to which would be best. As it happens, I think this is a difficult question, while the actual question is much easier, although interesting as well.

[ahydra]

Great answers by mikeh so far.

I think at the table I would lead the CK. The heart Ace seems to be playing pretty much for partner to have a singleton or doubleton in the suit - it doesn't seem to be necessary to try to build a trick with the Q and partner's presumed J, as it won't stand up if either declarer or dummy have a doubleton heart. It's true that it may not cost, but I'd probably say the odds favour declarer having it just based on who has advertised the remaining strength. Of course, it could be the winning lead if dummy holds the HK and we need that ruff, while otherwise only getting the SA, HA and either a club or a diamond.

ahydra

[msjennifer]

SPADE ACE.FIRST choice.CLUB KING SECONDchoice.

[dsLawsd]

Spade A intending to continue spades so as to cut down a cross-ruff and thereafter defend passively.

I hate using 3C that way.

[PhilG007]

helene_t, on 2018-August-13, 17:39, said:

IMPs, about interm+ or adv- strength by BBO definitions

3c is preemptive, maybe 3-6 pts or thereabouts. 1H is normalish (5+ cards, 11-20 points)

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Lead K♣ Partner forced in the suit so highly likely he holds the ace. An intelligent partner would overtake,cash the Q♣ then lead a heart Declarer goes minus 2 losing
2 clubs two hearts and the A♠ Leading any other suit risks declarer making his contract.

[mikeh]

PhilG007, on 2018-August-14, 08:06, said:

Lead K♣ Partner forced in the suit so highly likely he holds the ace. An intelligent partner would overtake,cash the Q♣ then lead a heart Declarer goes minus 2 losing
2 clubs two hearts and the A♠ Leading any other suit risks declarer making his contract.

Phil, you seem to assume that there is only one possible lie of the cards: the one that makes your lead a success.

There are so many ways that reality might clash with your assumptions that one could spend a long time discussing them, but let's start with a fairly obvious problem for your construction. The OP stated very clearly that 3C showed 3-6 hcp. Why you would then assume that partner has the AQ of clubs is a bit of a mystery. Yes, he MAY hold that but the odds are very much against it. That would be so even were the opponents silent, but the fact that they bid game on at most 21 hcp suggests that he probably doesn't have a max. Yes, the ops could have stretched, since they were jammed, but give partner the AQ of clubs and RHO the King of hearts and they have just bid an 18 hcp game with the King of hearts not looking very valuable!

Possible: yes. Probable: no. Neither opp is going to count the club Jack as a useful card. RHO isn't going to count the heart K as of much value, and LHO isn't going to count, say, Jxx in hearts as useful.

A good idea to make your lead based on the assumption that partner has the AQ clubs and RHO the heart King? Silly.

That's not to say that the club King is not a good lead. There are many reasons for leading a club. For one thing, it may be essential to set up a slow club trick (partner has maybe QJxxxxx and the suit is 2-2-2 around the table) before the diamonds set up for a pitch. It may be a disaster avoidance in that all other leads are worse. Personally, I think that the odds are that LHO holds the heart King. Since I lack either the J or the 10 I am concerned that I do not have 2 heart tricks, regardless of who leads them. My partners absolutely will not hold 3 hearts (not that I play 3C as a weak jumpshift, nor would I ever voluntarily do so). Therefore, to me, the heart A is an attractive lead, in the hope that hearts are 3-3-2 and I can give partner a ruff, and hope to score a minor suit trick in due course.

But I recognize that any plausible lead MIGHT turn out to be the winner.

Adopting a view that you are certain of what is right will cause you to close your mind to alternate possibilities, and that will lead to mediocre results in the long run, and more importantly will prevent you from improving as a player. Good players recognize that many bridge issues are unclear, at least based on the currently-available information. Ultimately one has to 'take a position', since the rules require that you lead something but imo anyone who claims that there is a 'right' answer here is either a much better player than I am, or a much worse one

In this case, the club K is the easy lead, since it is easy to argue, in the post-mortem, that it rated to be safe, might hold the trick, might set up a second round winner, might avoid giving anything away, and so on. The heart Ace is the one with the highest downside risk since the heart King could be on our right, and hearts could be 4-2-2 around the table, negating partner's ability to ruff the 3rd round.

I think on some days I'd lead the club King, on others the heart Ace, and once in a while the spade A, but I make any lead well aware that it might prove to be a bad lead on that particular day.

[rmnka447]

♣ K.

Partner's 3 ♣ call was preemptive, so I wouldn't expect it to be made on an AQxxxx suit. With that holding, I'd expect a nebulous 1 NT response with the opening hand virtually unlimited as yet. OTOH, I might be giving away a trick if partner has decided to preempt on Jxxxxx or some such hand. But if partner's done that, it's partner's problem. Setting up or scoring a ♣ trick when partner has preempted on Axxxxx or Qxxxxx brings us a lot closer to defeating the contract.

[miamijd]

Kc looks like the obvious lead to me. If partner doesn't have the A or Q for his bid, then get a new partner. You probably need to set up a club trick to go along with your H, D, and S tricks before the club trick goes on dummy's diamonds or possibly hearts.

That being said, either major Ace could be right, too. The Ah has decent chances of getting a ruff for partner. Partner might have a stiff heart (a stiff spade is more likely); then you might even get two ruffs. Or he might have 22 in the majors with the opponents' hearts 3-3, in which case you can also get him a H ruff.

THe As could work, too, especially if the opponents' spades are 3-6 and dummy shows up with shortness in a minor. The opponents appear to have bid game on distributional values (they only have 20 HCP or so), so cutting down on their ruffing power makes sense. The trouble with the As is that it gives up a round of control if you need to set up a club trick and dummy has strong diamonds.

Overall, however, it looks like we have a lot of potential defensive tricks, so I would take the safe route and lead the Kc. As I said, if partner doesn't have the A or Q, get one that knows how to bid next time.

Cheers,
Mike

[helene_t]

Thanks, all.

P had
xxx
-
Jxx
JTxxxxx

so my ♣K lead worked spectacularly badly. It was obviously a bit of bad luck that she didn't have ♣Q but in any case I would have needed to lead a heart to give her two ruffs to set the contract.

But at least the poll shows that I am in good company

[irishcafes]

Presuming that "reasonableness" means a "reasonable chance of setting the contract, the matter is better viewed by asking what holding do we need opp/pd to hold for our lead to take four tricks? The optimum lead is a lead that will set against all of the holdings that will allow for the contract to be defeated. We can reasonably give pd no more than 2 hts and either the A or QJ of clubs. With our reasonable diamonds, opps are not likely to be able to pitch all their hts before Pd or I get in. (And if they can, it might not matter what we lead).

King of Clubs works whenever pd holds the Club Ace and one ht. Pd can overtake or not, depending on dummy number of clubs and rtn a heart for a ruff. If holding two hts, rtn a heart for the setting trick. It also works if pd holds Club Q, figuring you will get in with your Diamond K or Trump Ace before opps can pitch losing club. If works if RHO holds Heart King.

The Heart Ace looks good but it only works against a few select holdings, many of which are also going down with the lead of the Club King. I have no problem playing Ace of Hearts and out a heart knowing Pd is short in hearts and I hold the Trump Ace. However, what reasonable holding in hearts are you giving the opps? If RHO is short hearts, a ruff that is overruffed does no good. and if hearts are 5/4/2/2, one bad club might be going on a heart if trump are 2/1/6/4. As someone else well stated, the opps have distribution.