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Scoring: MP

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W____N____E____S
__________2♣___3♥
4♥____P___5♣____P
5♦____P___6♣____P
7♣____DOUBLE(PASS)

What is your lead after Double?
What is your lead without Double?

[Fluffy]

I would had led a heart, now I'll lead a spade.

[Sambolino]

♥ w/o dbl, and still ♥ with dbl

[FrancesHinden]

What did 4♥ mean? Personally I would have played it as natural.

Assuming it's agreed to be some sort of cuebid, I am not leading a heart with or without the final double, because partner did not double 4♥.

I would lead a diamond with the double, and a trump without.

To be perfectly honest, when partner doubles 7C in this sort of auction, 99.9% of the time he's got a certain trump trick.

[pclayton]

Nice that the poll gets us to avoid making a choice of the lead with or without the double

Without the double, I certainly lead a trump.

With the double, I'm not so sure, but as Frances said, it usually doesn't matter. Pard could have doubled 4♥, so I'm not leading a heart. What about doubling 5♦? Would you crack it with a void? I'm not sure I would.

So I'll lead a ♦.

[FrancesHinden]

I'm a bit nervous about the "partner didn't double 5♦" reason for not leading a diamond.

The auction is all a bit murky, but isn't there a chance that 5♦ was intended as (at least vaguely) natural? If you had some 4-0-6-3 good hand, or 4-1-5-3 with the ace of hearts, you might bid 4H and then bid 5D (which probably ought to be forcing).

If I had a diamond void, or the ace, I wouldn't fancy doublling 5D in case there was a sharp redouble. And in f2f bridge I can't interrogate the opponents as to whether 5D shows a suit or not, because if it does, partner will be pretty much barred from leading a diamond.

[SoTired]

I vote for heart....
partner is not void in spades or diam.

spade appears what is called for from the auction. partner had chance to dbl hearts and diam and wants to make sure we lead a spade and not a trump. Could partner have the ♠A and opps have blown it and bid grand without it?

(if partner had diam void, do you think pard is worried that opps would play the hand in 5DX in a q-bid?)

On the other hand, if partner is yarbarough with a heart void, partner may not want to scare opps off the grand.

The opps are both bidding very strongly. There is no way they got to 7C without 7HCP and ♠A.

[skjaeran]

FrancesHinden, on May 21 2007, 02:32 PM, said:

I would lead a diamond with the double, and a trump without.

Agree.

[jdonn]

I would lead a diamond, since I think a spade is the "normal" lead in the sense that partner would expect us to often lead it with no double, being the unbid suit (I know, not to always lead it, and we wouldn't have led it this time). I think he probably wouldn't have doubled the 5♦ bid with just the ace. So I'm with Frances on this one.

My other reason is responder bid the grand after cuebidding hearts and diamonds but getting no spade cuebid. The more I think about it the more I think 5♦ was just a psych to avoid a diamond lead. If I'm wrong, well then they got me.

[bid_em_up]

Jlall, on May 21 2007, 09:00 AM, said:

spade lead with the double because partner didn't double either 4H or 5D.

I agree with Justin.

Partner had the opportunity to double both 4H and 5D and failed to do so. He should not be doubling now to be asking for the lead of either of those suits.

Partner definitely is NOT asking for a heart lead. If anything, he is demanding a lead of anything but a heart in this case. He can reasonably infer that my "normal" lead on the auction is likely to be a heart. If he has the heart A or a heart void, he should pass and let me make my normal lead.

If he has a natural trump trick (no matter how unlikely it may be), it doesn't matter what we lead.

He had the opportunity to double 5D as well and failed to do so. That, by itself, isn't enough to make a decision but.....it is unlikely partner has a diamond void on the auction and my holdings. And while the lightner double may ask for dummies first bid suit (diamonds), more specifically, it calls for an unusual lead. The unusual lead on this auction is a spade, imo.

So, without the double, lead a heart, with the double, lead a spade.

[FrancesHinden]

What this and the other thread do is remind us that partner should not give us a huge telling off when we get it wrong.

If it's not clear what the "unusual lead" is - and here it's evident from the responses that it isn't - then partner should know that all he is doing by doubling is increasing the chance we beat the contract from 0% (the 'usual lead') to roughly 50% (not a trump or a heart).

That means we shall get it wrong half the time.
The bonus is that we get it right half the time, so overall we end up ahead on IMPs!

[inquiry]

On this auction, the usual lead is a trump. In fact, wtihout a double, most say they would lead a trump. Then how come a double could not ask for a heart lead? I am not suggesting I would lead a heart, I would not. Partner with a void in hearts could have safely doubled 4♥. So after the double, I will lead a spade.

[Halo]

Club without the double and heart after the double.

[Edmunte1]

Without double i would have made a defensive lead (trump) trying to avoid to give away a trick. I don't see any reason for an offensive lead, like attacking an entry. I consider 4♥ as showing shortness in hearts, probably 4144 or so.

Double from partner means something went wrong in opps bidding, and an ace is missing (♦ or ♠). I also consider that partner probably has only 1-2 hearts (with 3 cards maybe he would have bid 5♥) and 2-3 trumps. The main idea is to make the lead in that suit where if you miss the jackpot, the probability that the cards in the right suit to be discarded on the other suit to be smaller.

Another important point is to construct some hands that are close with opps bidding, and ♠Q is a great asset, because we know that opps have max 33 hcp.
Considering that responder has void in hearts, a trump high card and a source of tricks for bidding an undisiplined 7, the hands may be:

a ) xxxx --- KQJxx Kxxx vs. KJ(x) AKQx A(x) AQJxx
b ) AJ10x --- Kxxx Qxxxx vs. Kx(x) AKQx Q(J) AKxxx

As you can see, as long as dummy holds the ♠A, diamond control and possibly a trump honour, there are almost not enough points for 2♣ opening. Also considering that we lead spade and miss the ace, partner can still have ♠J or ♠10 and opps don't have enough discards for diamonds.

So i'll lead ♠Q

[BebopKid]

I believe my partner's double has asked me to lead a suit that was bid but not the trump suit.

I would lead a Heart expecting partner to be short in hearts.

[asc]

The real hand is here http://www.freewebs....kotsev/lead.jpg Anyway they don't know how many aces they have. And I would lead ♠ after PASS. And if my partner have ♦A they can pitch some ♦ on ♥ and ♠♠.

[Edmunte1]

[/QUOTE]The real hand is here http://www.freewebs....kotsev/lead.jpg Anyway they don't know how many aces they have. And I would lead ♠ after PASS. And if my partner have ♦A they can pitch some ♦ on ♥ and ♠♠.[QUOTE]

-The heart discard are useless, they are from the wrong hand
-The spade discards usually would be insufficient (view my previous post)
-How would you feel if you lead ♠Q and the full board will be:

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