[Free]

You hold:

Scoring: IMP

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Partner dealer, the auction goes:
pass - 3♣ - pass - pass
Dbl - pass - pass - pass

What suit do you lead, and what's your reasoning?

[Halo]

I am leading nine of diamonds. I don't see any urgency about leading a short suit.

[inquiry]

Partner is a passed hand with very short clubs, surely no more than one, and likely none. This means not a lot of entries to his hand. If he has, for instance, diamond ACE and SPADE King-JACK, if you don't set up the king of spades at trick one, he may not get them.

Also, I don't mind if I have to ruff a two spades with my little clubs. If I can take four club tricks, they are in a world of hurt because partner will have to have gotten in twice to give me those ruffs.

I lead a spade.

[pclayton]

Shortness leads are very common on these auctions, since you need to shorten yourself pronto to avoid getting endplayed in trump. The ♣7 gives me enough pause that we might have 4 club tricks coming, unless I'm endplayed out of one of them.

If my club spots weren't so good ( ) I'd try the ♥ J.

[Free]

Halo, on Jan 4 2007, 05:11 PM, said:

I am leading nine of diamonds. I don't see any urgency about leading a short suit.

So why ♦ and not ♥? I hope you don't consider ♥JT2 as "short"...

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

I wont lead a trump, although it is probably best,
I make at most 3 trump tricks (the spade ruffs dont
count, since they may belong to partner anyway).

Spade is out as well, I am not interested in ruffs.
So the question is hearts or diamonds, I will go
with hearts, as the safest lead, trying not to blow
a trick (*), ... what ever your card is from the given
holding.

With kind regards
Marlowe

(*) a small trump will do the same, thats why it is
probably the safest lead.

[whereagles]

My sort of trump holding is ripe for a trump end-play, so I'm starting the ♠Q to get some ruff and avoid that embarassment

[inquiry]

P_Marlowe, on Jan 4 2007, 01:18 PM, said:

Hi,

I wont lead a trump, although it is probably best,
I make at most 3 trump tricks (the spade ruffs dont
count, since they may belong to partner anyway).

Spade is out as well, I am not interested in ruffs.
So the question is hearts or diamonds, I will go
with hearts, as the safest lead, trying not to blow
a trick (*), ... what ever your card is from the given
holding.

With kind regards
Marlowe

(*) a small trump will do the same, thats why it is
probably the safest lead.

Let declarer ruff a few red cards when he holds AT98xx(x) of clubs, and you can find yourself eventually leading from KQx into A98... But there is more reasons to select a spade.

The spade lead has several advantages and IT NEVER SETS up an extra trick for them, because of your trump legnth and shortness.. and like I suggested earlier. If your partner has K(J) of spades and a red ace, he may not have another entry (he is a passed hand with "good distribution" so A-KJ or A-A is probably the best he can have in turns of quick tricks. If partner has a slow red suit winner you will get in often enough to collect those... But if you knock out his RED ace before establishing any spade winners, you may not collect any spade tricks...

[cherdano]

Apart from the trump endplay, there is a quite likely trump elopement plan for declarer - so I definitely don't want to hit his short suit. I agree with the spade queen.

[whereagles]

Hugh Kelsey has a similar hand in his quiz book "test your opening leads". You have something like QJ9xx of a suit you doubled, and the only way to avoid the trump endplay is to lead your short suit at trick 1.

[mikeh]

I'm frankly not that worried about the trump endplay: it is a factor, but most constructions allow me to avoid it later... i.e. I don't think I need my trick one play to be 'right' in order to avoid it. So I am going to make my lead based on maximizing partner's tricks...assuming that in all likelihood I'm going to get 4 tricks myself.

I think it is close between a ♠ and a ♥: I reject the ♦ lead: it is the least progressive and the most dangerous.

I slightly favour the ♥, because I have the 10.

The ♠ lead may get me a quick ruff, but at the price of establishing good ♠s in dummy before we have attacked the entries, and the 2nd ♠ ruff may come at the expense of a loser-on-loser play by declarer. The same may be true in ♥s but my relative length and, crucially, my 10 argue that this is less probable than in ♠s

[Winstonm]

I lead a spade - as Phil said, I want to shortnen myself to avoid the potential trump endplay.

[pclayton]

Good point Arend.

Elopement is the other reason. We don't want pard's spade tricks being compressed with our trump tricks.

[neilkaz]

A nice thread here and I lead the stiff Q of ♠ for all the reasons given by you all.

.. neilkaz ..

[hatchett]

I like the arguments for the spade lead.

[Free]

Here's the full hand:

Scoring: IMP

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I also lead a ♠ and declarer made his contract on pure power. Only a ♦ lead defeats this, however I haven't seen ANY acceptable arguments for that lead...

[the hog]

Nice X by your partner.

[mcphee]

Partner has already passed and is balancing with a shape hand that was not good enough to open. I would not expect him to have much, especially considering he has at most 1C. This is not so much about avoiding a trump endplay, but a good opportunity to build a likely S trick before it evaporates on D maybe, although the same might be for our H trick. I would not be surprised if partner was 4-4-5-0, I will be delighted it we beat it 2.

[mcphee]

As the Hog says, nice dble from partner, a tad thin to be sure It is quite fortunate my hand was just strong enough to avoid dbled over tricks. Sure hope this was pairs.

[Halo]

I think partner's double is correct. The player with shape has to double. Now I think it is a choice between a heart and a diamond lead. You know North has the best hand at the table. I liked the idea of leading my side's probable longest suit (diamonds). I don't see anything much wrong with a heart. I don't buy the arguments we had about a spade lead. Whatever this hand turns out to be about it is not likely to be elopements and trump throw ins, and if partner has spade tricks and a diamond entry he definitely has nothing else and there will be discards in hearts.