[FrancesHinden]

1.

Scoring: MP

RHO opens
3♦ 3♠ P* 3NT
P P 4♦ x
P P P

*slow

---

What do you lead?

2.

Scoring: MP

RHO opens
3♦ 3♠ P* 3NT
P P 4♦ x
P P P

*slow

---

What do you lead?

(English readers may recognise the hands)

[whereagles]

1. Diamond
2. ♣K

[Codo]

1. King of H
2. a spade

[mikeh]

Codo, on Jul 26 2006, 07:58 AM, said:

1. King of H
2. a spade

ditto

[pclayton]

I'll attack with my Kings on both hands. A trump is OK on the 2nd too.

[mike777]

K!

[Free]

Yes, it seems right to start with the King in both situations.

[paulg]

King on both hands for me too. In both cases it is unclear that a trump will be best and leading Kx has upside albeit with danger lurking. But my partner will/should appreciate the consistency.

Paul

[mikeh]

The problem with the ♣K lead on the second hand is twofold:

1) it sure sounds like the ♠ suit is 7231 around the table. We are not costing our side any trump trick by leading, and we have probably entries to lead a second round, thus eliminating 2 ruffs in dummy... picture East with 7114 and west with 3352 and we see that we may well need the tempo afforded by the trump lead. Furthermore, our minor honours and ♥ length mean that we probably are not losing a valuable tempo, in terms of establishing our winners, by leading trump.

2) While we have some reason to expect decent ♣ from partner, why should he not hold x AKQx KJxx Jxxx or the like... would he have bid at all differently?
Now, I am not saying that we should shy away from aggressive leads merely because we can construct low-probability disasters... but the only real justification for a ♣ is the hope that we can score our small trump...we are playing for a very specific card combination: one in which partner holds the A but not the Q and, if the Q is in dummy, not the Jack AND that both opps hold at least 3 ♣.

OTOH, a ♣ is dangerous if: the opps hold both the A and the Q.... Declarer has the A in his hand and some combination of J10 between the two hands... or we need to have led a trump.

My strong belief is that the trump lead is the safer by far.

[awm]

1. ♠A
2. ♥

It seems pretty clear that my LHO has a bunch of spades on the first hand. There's a good chance partner has shortness (okay declarer may have shortness too) and the spade ace lead may well allow me to give partner a ruff. Also partner's double of 4♦ in front of me is more appealing if he doesn't want to hear four spades (shortness).

On the second hand, declarer might have a huge number of spades. But he also might have some kind of two-suiter with spades and a minor. In the first case it probably doesn't matter all that much what I lead -- we will eventually come to our share of tricks. But in the second case I definitely don't want to lead declarer's minor for him (may well give him a trick as well as a tempo) and tapping the long hand right away might cause him some minor difficulties.

[Walddk]

1. ♠A.
2. ♥x

1. Partner's double is likely based on spade shortage, and he doesn't want to hear 4♠ next.

2. Given that we probably have a 10-card fit in hearts, declarer is short, so he has a minor on the side. I don't want to set it up for him. ♣K is therefore a gamble I will not risk.

Roland

[HeartA]

mikeh, on Jul 26 2006, 09:23 AM, said:

Codo, on Jul 26 2006, 07:58 AM, said:

1. King of H
2. a spade

ditto

ditto to ditto.

[FrancesHinden]

I'm glad to see a nice wide range of answers.
I almost never lead from Kx or Qx if I can avoid it.... and I did it on both these hands. Oh yes, and it was wrong on both these hands as well so I shall go back to not doing it.

It doesn't directly cost a trick on the first hand, but it does indirectly as this is the layout:

Scoring: MP

---

(I don't agree with either West or North's bidding, but that's irrelevant.)
I led the HK and switched to a club.
Declarer rose with the ace and played a trump (a second heart would have been a better play).
Partner won and could have played a second trump for +300, but he not unreasonably thought I had 7123 distribution and tried to give me a heart ruff.
I possibly could have stopped this by switched to a trump at trick 2, but I was worried that declarer was 3172.... so all in all a trump lead would have made our lives easy.

A spade lead is also +100 as long as you switch to a trump at trick 2.

On the second one the ♣K lead costs a trick directly. You need to lead a heart (or a low diamond), because partner is 2425 with Kx of diamonds and you can take a diamond ruff; setting up the diamond suit doesn't help declarer avoid his eventual club loser for +500 rather than +300.

[hatchett]

Quote

A spade lead is also +100 as long as you switch to a trump at trick 2.

Isn't a spade lead and trump switch +300?

♠A, ♦A, ♦. Declarer plays a ♥. North wins and plays a second ♠, and South has two more tricks to cash, ♠Q and the ♥K.

[FrancesHinden]

Yes, typo. I meant 'also 300' (ie. the HK didn't work, other sensible leads would work)

[hatchett]

Quote

I led the HK and switched to a club.
Declarer rose with the ace and played a trump (a second heart would have been a better play).
Partner won and could have played a second trump for +300, but he not unreasonably thought I had 7123 distribution and tried to give me a heart ruff.
I possibly could have stopped this by switched to a trump at trick 2, but I was worried that declarer was 3172

If you lead ♥K and switch to a ♣. Then if declarer plays a diamond and North wins and plays a second round of ♦s declarer makes 9 tricks, by winning and playing a second round of hearts. He still has a spade entry to the hearts. It's the same if you switch to a trump at trick two.

One possible way of holding it to seven tricks is to switch to a low spade at trick two. Then if declarer plays a diamond, north plays the A, cashes a heart honor and plays his other spade. South wins and plays another ♠ and then if north can overruff dummy's remaining ♦ with his other ♦, the contract is defeated by two.

Also on the actual defence, if North wins the diamond A, and plays a ♠. South wins and plays two rounds of spades. This takes out the entry to the hearts, but is also dependent on North being able to overruff dummy's diamond, if declarer tries to ruff the third round of spades.

[FrancesHinden]

Partner can indeed over-ruff the dummy (I've just been checking the pips).
and you meant 8 tricks, not 7.

But the spade switch at trick 2 is not at all clear, when declarer could have been 2173. Yes, that gives partner 3-card spade support, but we also have no idea what's going on in the diamond suit.

[hatchett]

Quote

But the spade switch at trick 2 is not at all clear, when declarer could have been 2173.

I assume partner would give count in ♥s at trick one, so we know whether declarer has a singleton or not.