[FrancesHinden]

Scoring: Total Points

P 1♣ P 1♥
P 1♠ P 2♦
P 3NT all pass

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1C was natural (Acol style)
1S promised a 5th club or possibly 4144
2D was FSF not to game
(also note declarer is the rather stronger player of the partnership and they both like to get him playing the hand)

Your lead

[whereagles]

Well, I know to lead a small heart now (Biased lead.. lol.)

[paulg]

I'd actually lead the ♦10 treating the suit as three small. This may be very wrong but I will not be encouraging a diamond return.

Paul

PS this hand looks similar to the other problem

[kenberg]

I will lead a diamond. Which diamond is a problem. Declarer has 9+ black cards and presumably something like Ax or Kx in diamonds for his 3N over fsf (even a hand hog likes to have a stopper in the opponent's likely suit). Declarer may well have three top clubs, four spade tricks, and a diamond trick either from his ace or from his king when I lead a diamond. So getting partner's diamonds set up with the initial lead may be crucial. If declarer holds A9, and dummy J832, the ten will be wrong. Still, I think I go with the ten.

Added Actually nothing works against that holding. So yep, the ten.

[mike777]

Small heart

1) biased toward making a lead from something as opposed to nothing.
2) will play partner to have around 10 hcp
3) will play partner to not have good long D.
4) maybe:
xxx...KQTx....Axxx...xx?

[Codo]

Which suit had I led without looking in my cards, so with just hearing the bidding?
A diamond.
Okay, now I look in my hand and see no reason to change my view and be too tricky. Yes, pd may or may not have a 5+ card suit in one of their suits. But why should he? And in which suit?

[cherdano]

I lead a diamond here.

Arend

[mikeh]

The explanation of the 1♠ bid makes me think that dummy would bypass an equal (and maybe a longer) ♦ suit in order to bid a 4 card ♥ suit.

Armed with this, I deduce that there is some chance that declarer is 4=1=3=5 or the like, with dummy perhaps 3=4=4=2 or so. I need partner to have some values.

I cannot lead a ♣, and a ♠ seems futile. So it has to be a red suit, and one thing I know is that declarer can have 3♦s but cannot have 3♥. Thus the expectation is that the opps will have more ♦ than ♥.. this is not a sure thing, and we are talking long-term averages here, on the order of maybe .33 of a card.

This slight edge is then combined with my assessment of the degree of help I can give partner attacking 'our' red suit. My ♦ holding is not very inspiring, but I have real help in ♥s.

So I choose to attack in the major.

Ok, which card? There are holdings in which use of the A as an immediate re-entry will be vital: I get to lead through dummy twice. OTOH, the lead of the A may well drop a stiff honour in declarer, and prevent declarer getting a cheap trick in the suit. Add to this the fact that partner can, if need be, await my re-entry in the ♣ suit or may have his own quick(ish) entry.... and I choose the A♥.

Thank god this is aggregate.. not mps.. at mps this lead is top or bottom, with a high expectation of bottom, since there is nothing about this auction to suggest that we are likely to beat this contract, and in that case the A is the lead with the highest expectation of giving up an overtrick.. highest, that is, outside of the absurd ♣ lead.

[cherdano]

mikeh, on Oct 5 2006, 02:00 AM, said:

The explanation of the 1♠ bid makes me think that dummy would bypass an equal (and maybe a longer) ♦ suit in order to bid a 4 card ♥ suit.

I doubt that. I assume this is ACOL with weak NT, so the explanation is basically saying that opener will rebid 1N with a strong NT (unless he has 4-card support), and 2N with 18-19. Since responder is certainly strong enough to act over a strong NT, I doubt these Brits would give up natural, up-the-line bidding here. Let's hear from them once they woke up.

Arend

[FrancesHinden]

This was oppo (the weak NT auction in the other room was us), but they probably do indeed respond up the line, Acol style.

[pclayton]

I think if I choose to lead a heart, starting small looks a little better than the Ace. A few cases:

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OK, the Ace is best

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The Ace is best, but theres a good chance we need 4 tricks from the source, so leading small won't hurt, although pard will have a problem at T1

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Leading small is clearly best as we save our re-entry

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No chance for 3 tricks unless I lead low.

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Doesn't matter - we've skewered the suit

[paulg]

It's very rare that I disagree with mikeh but Phil wins my vote for which heart to lead (if I were to lead one).

Paul