[sieong]

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What would you lead? Is Anthias and Bird's advice of banging down aces against NT the right move here, or taking the double dummy analysis too far?

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

if you go with the Ace, which may be Bird / Anthias, or not, you basically follow the
common wisdom to lead Aces against a 3NT contract reached via a gambling 3NT opening bid.

I think the situation are quite similar, most of the time the 3NT bidder will hold a honor
in the opened suit, and 2-3 cards, making the suit solid.
The 3NT bidder will usually have covered 2 out of 3 suits, and leading the Ace increases
your chance of finding the hole.
Against this: Leading something else, tries to find partners entry / Ace, so that he can
play diamond from his side, i.e. we are basically betting, that diamond is the hole.

Without the reference to Bird / Anthias, I may have choosen spade.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[sieong]

The full hand was

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To beat the contract, we need to establish ♥ before ♣A is knocked out. A ♠ lead (which I made at the table) is an instant lost cause. A ♦A lead may work out, but one needs to work out to shift to a ♥ rather than a ♠ after the lead, which I am not sure if I will be able to work out at the table (any suggestions on signals?). That the ♠ lead works out so badly seems unlucky to me, but I wonder if in other people's experience, is Hxxxx a good or a bad holding to lead against 3X - 3NT auctions?

[Mbodell]

sieong, on 2013-October-26, 18:19, said:

A ♠ lead (which I made at the table) is an instant lost cause.

Actually the ♠Q still sets it since you can set up a spade trick to go with the 4 quick tricks, and opponent only gets 5 clubs and 2 spades before this happens. Not that you should lead that, although might be reasonable after banging down the diamond A (by which point it is too late). A good situation for Kit style suit preference high, suit preference low, and continue signal from partner on the diamonds.