[pclayton]

♠K754, ♥T86, ♦AQ, ♣KT93

IMPs, 1♣ on left, 1♥ on right, 1N on left, 3♥ on right, 4♥.

Your lead and why?

[mike777]

9 of clubs, pard did not overcall one spade. This is even stronger if we are NV.
True we have 12 hcp so pard may not have enough hcp to overcall is an issue but at least I am leading from my longest and strongest suit.

[Free]

♥, I prefer a passive lead here. ♦ is risky, ♠ as well, ♣ is the only alternative for me...

[toothbrush]

♥, absolutely. No reason to lead agressive here.

[kenberg]

Heart seems right. They may or may not have ten tricks, it should be close, but leading a heart cuts off one possible source and is not going to hand them a trick.

[hatchett]

Spade for me. A heart is too passive for me, my honors don't look well placed so I prefer to attack. A club would be my second choice.

[inquiry]

AT MATCHPOINTS I lead a heart and try to get all the tricks coming to my side. At Imps, I am afraid of the passive heart lead. The opponents have landed in a 4♥ contract, and I am looking at 12 hcp. If they have 26 hcp, partner has two points at most. In hearts that will be useless, can't be in diamonds (two jacks rather useless), so lets dream a bit.

If he has spade queen, we might score 1♠, 2♦, 1♣ (if we lucky). If it is the club queen, we have a chance for a second club, and we might still score the spade king.

Can partner have more than two points? Sure, if 3♥ was invitational as it sounds. They might be there with distribution. 6-2 or 6-3 heart fit with 23 or 24 points. So partner could have an ACE, A king, or two queens.

Do we need to be agreesive? The club king appears well placed for them, and if dummy has five clubs, they maybe able to arrange a discard on the fifth round (6H, 3C, and a side entry to dummy plus the long club). If there is no quick late entry to dummy, I maybe exposed to a squeeze/endplay of sorts. (Club Hook, trumps for a long time, I have to come to six cards, three of which will be KT9 of clubs. That means stiffing the spade king or the Diamond ACE.

Final analysis, I have to take me off the endplay late in the hand. So while I very much like the passive heart at matchpoints, this is imps, and I am not going passively into the night (and tell them how to play the hand -- as the heart lead will telegraph my hand). I will strike out for better or worse with SPADE KING. This even has a small deception ploy to it, should partner have the spade queen xx or so as it might convince declearer to forgo the club finessee for the "sure spade" finessee for instance, while any other lead leaves him with no choice but the club hook. Declearer may even try to set up spades by ducking a late spade to my queen (if I am the safe hand with respect to placement of the diamond king). Anyway, any lead could be right or wrong... the spade king could be really wrong, but that is what I play.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

hearts (H6), 3H was inv. (?!) and 1NT was 12-14 (?!),
in other words they may or may not have enough to
make it on their own, and I want to go passive.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mike777]

Maybe?
AJx..Qxx....KJx...QJxx
Qx....AKJxxx..xx...xxx

That gives partner:
xxxx...x....xxxxxx..Ax

and our teammates can get to 3nt for a win?

[pclayton]

P_Marlowe, on Jun 12 2006, 10:25 AM, said:

Hi,

hearts (H6), 3H was inv. (?!) and 1NT was 12-14 (?!),
in other words they may or may not have enough to
make it on their own, and I want to go passive.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Im assuming so but I didnt ask. Opponents were 2 randoms but were pretty good players. They had appeared to play a 2/1 framework on prior hands.

[inquiry]

P_Marlowe, on Jun 12 2006, 01:25 PM, said:

Hi,

hearts (H6), 3H was inv. (?!) and 1NT was 12-14 (?!),
in other words they may or may not have enough to
make it on their own, and I want to go passive.

With kind regards
Marlowe

Doesn't really matter here, if it was invitiations, the game bidder had some extra and fitting heart. Passive is wrong, you have to go aggressive. Either a club or a spade could be right. I went with the dramatic spade king, but a club could be just as good. Take your pick and lead a black card.

[mcphee]

Messy issue. I do not expect declarer to hold 6 solid H becuase he would bid 3N, so to me a trump lead carries a slight risk of costing a trick. My view is declarer can have a good 9 as about minimum for the 3H rebid and does not have a hand as good as 12 or would set up a GF looking at a 6 card major. I can't bring myself to lead a D, although it might even be a winning lead.

The dummy could have as few as 3C and be balanced with 4S even, or may have only 2H and a 5 card C suit. I do not have a lot of hope here, but passive is not my thing when players are bidding close games, and there is nothing to suggest to me this is anything but close. With such poor S middle cards I am going to choose a C a lead I hope is not going to cost me a trick nor tempo.

Now if I am wrong Phil I will never vote in your poll again!!

[Al_U_Card]

No good reason not to lead spades, so I will. Lets get our tricks and not solve the trump suit for them. (Txx is one of my least favourite trump leads so unless they had a preference auction, I would never lead from this.)

[luke warm]

♦A hoping partner has the king and will overtake the queen ... maybe we can get a trump promotion out of it, and the ♠K is the setting trick... it's a dangerous (or foolish, take your pick) lead, but i don't see 4 tricks w/out a ruff/promotion

[pclayton]

Here's the entire hand:

Scoring: IMP

---

I lead a spade on reasoning similar to Ben's and Hatchett's. While the suits aren't breaking great, my minor suit honors do not look well placed. My biggest reason why I didn't like the spade was the lack of spots; you frequently need great spots in pard's hand to pull this off.

Obviously a spade is disasterous. A club lead leads to the easiest defense; pard shoots a spade through. A trump is fine too; declarer is effectively board locked. A♦ and a club shift works, but a spade shift leads to the same 10 tricks - at least.

I think its hard to visualize the communication issues on this hand prior to the opening lead. Nobody mentioned it either, but it is very key as it turns out.

By the way, this hand proves nothing. I think its very easy to construct hands that fit this bidding that cater to a lead of any suit.

[Free]

Imo, IF you want to lead ♠, then the K is the only good card. There's some good logic behind leading ♠, but I still like my passive lead on this board

[whereagles]

I decided on a heart before looking at the answer, on grounds that opener will have a hard time setting up his suits. Good time to go passive, I reasoned.

[kenberg]

I completely agree with Phil that this hand, while interesting, cannot be used as much of a proof. Actually I think hands that don't prove anything are particularly desirable. As for transportation, even if you interchange the king and queen of hearts (I think this is consistent with the auction) I think making four is still goint to be tough on a heart lead: Take the ace, overtake the Q, draw the last trump and now? Looks to be nine tricks, not ten, to me.

By the way, I would have opened the north hand 1D, not 1C. I know the 1C opening has its supporters but after 1C-(1S)-X-pass the north hand would have a tough problem. With a D opening you can, and I would, rebid 2C on such an auction. Call me crazy, but I like to have a stopper in the opponent's bid suit to rebid 1NT. This problem auction wouldn't arise here of course.

Ken

[whereagles]

kenberg, on Jun 13 2006, 12:28 PM, said:

Call me crazy, but I like to have a stopper in the opponent's bid suit to rebid 1NT.

you're crazy

[jdeegan]

Heart six even at IMP's, but esp. at matchpoints. Between my hand and the bidding, it doesn't sound like a hand where declarer will have any discards on dummy's long suit, so the race to establish tricks may not exist. On the positive side, dummy might have a third round ruffing value that I can damage with a trump lead. Finally, the trump lead is unlikely to cost a trick, and the contract may be touch and go.