[Chamaco]

Hi all !

MP pairs, nobody vuln.

you are west and your LHO deals and opens 1♦.

The auction proceeds, unconstested:

LHO.....RHO

1♦....1♥
1♠....1NT
all pass

(assume pretty standard auction, with no fancy gadgets by opps)

You hold:

♠Ax♥J9652♦KQJT♣Qx

What card do you lead and why ?

[ABadPlayer]

Honestly, it would probably depend on my mood. I'd be tempted to lead S just because I know my p has at least 4 of them behind the S bidder. But I'd be ok with 5H too.

[42]

Rules for leads that come in mind immediately: lead our longest and strongest suit or the unbid suit, but...
What is going on?
Partner has the black suits and between 3 and 9 points (not really helpful right now). LHO is 44 or 45 in ♠ and ♦, I hope for 44.
I hate to lead from a tenace into opps suit, may also find RHO with 5 ♥s. Therefore I do not touch ♥.
I also don't touch ♣, the Q may make a trick.
An Ace shall catch an honour...
So I lead ♦K and delay my problem, hoping for a useful signal of partner. If he is really weak, I have not yet wasted a trick, if he is stronger, I can play ♠A or ♣Q later, depending on the signal.

[luke warm]

agree with caren

[cherdano]

What else but a ♦? By leading a spade, you can set up at most 3 tricks in one go (if partner has five of them and opponents exactly one stopper). By leading a diamond, even I can set up 3 tricks at once...

[whereagles]

For once I have an easy lead, so I guess I can say "K♦, WTP?"

[pclayton]

My RHO seems to always have good clubs on this auction.

I like a low heart. I really want to attack entries in the closed hand for the clubs, with the outside chance of striking gold in the suit. Later, we can lock declarer on the board and I can enjoy my diamonds or pard can enjoy his spades.

[mike777]

K of D

[Double !]

K♦

solid sequence, unlikely to give a trick away, will provide opportunity to see dummy while hitting a relatively weak spot of opps. second choice would be second suit bid by dummy. I haven't had much success leading into declarer's first-bid suit from broken sequences (although it could be a good idea on this hand in terms of attacking entries). Also have to consider what I'm going to discard should declarer set up and then run a few black cards.

[Clinch]

Definitely not a ♣ -on this bidding, declarer often has longer clubs than hearts.

There is something to be said for a ♥, and that may be the best chance to beat the contract. Trouble is, it probably requires partner to have two ♥ honours, one of which isn't the ace. At MP it could give up a tempo in just establishing our optimal number of tricks.

So I just lead the ole ♦K. At MP this gives us the best chance of our ending with all the tricks that are rightfully ours.

Peter.
New York, NY.

[ABadPlayer]

Well it's become abundantly clear that I suck at making leads lol. Is it to late to change my answer to "duh, K-D"?

[kenberg]

Anothe crazy heart leader chimes in. Rho may indeed have the suit and he also may have four small. I'm going with my length. If it's wriong I apologize to my partner, if I can still find him. Fourth best.

[Fluffy]

Jlall, on Sep 25 2005, 06:41 PM, said:

I am rarely dealt KQJT and get to lead. When I do get dealt it, I will always lead it unless I have AKQJ on the side.

Hey don't get rid of your entrry before the other suit is stablished!

[Chamaco]

I lead a heart and wasted a trick, when dummy came down with

KJxx-AT-Axxxx-Jx

The T held the trick and declarer proceeded to set his club suit, making 1NT+1 when the rest of the field scored 1NT with no overtricks.

The point of this poll was to verify whether other players would consider more sensible to look for help from pard to develop our heart length (despite declarer bid it) or go with a safe lead (diamonds) which might indeed waste an entry for our hearts length (pard will be short in diamonds, if declarer ducks, he wil kill one of our entries for hearts, if we develop it).