[twcho]

You are 2nd hand holding 87x AQ9x xxxx Ax, red vs white, IMP.
Your RHO opens 1♠, LHO raises to 2♠ and RHO jumps to 4♠ and ends the auction. What will you lead?

If you choose to lead ♣A as I do, what will be your continuation seeing:
Dummy holding: T9x Tx KJx QJ9xx, partner following with ♣2

Carding method is udca, and lead A from AK.

[mike777]

attack..-9H

yes this can be wrong

[inquiry]

Lead ♣A, partner following with ♣2

Carding method is udca, and lead A from AK.

---

This is a tough one. If partner has ♣K to a five, he would have discouraged, so he is either

• ♣Kxx or ♣Kxxx
  
• ♣2
  
• ♣Y2 where Y is any card other than those I can see, including the king, or
  
• ♣xxx2 where he is giving me count so I can know rather or not my ♣King (presumably) is a winner

Partner will not have much, maybe 6-7 points. If we continue clubs here, our heart winners might go away. IF we switch to hearts, we might lose a ♥. But since we can not ruff a potential club (or give parnter or ourself a trump promotion due to the clever T9 in dummy and 87 in our hand) and take two hearts with a heart through declarers king. Therefore, I am going to make the unusual looking lead of the ♥ACE. If partner does not encourage me in ♥, i will switch back to clubs, if partner encourages in ♥, I will lead the ♥Q and a third ♥ to force dummy to ruff. Now partner needs just something like QJ or KJ of spades to promote a spade trick for me. This give me chaces for 2 clubs, 1H and club ruff or unlikely trump promotion, or 2♥'s, 1♣ and a trump promotion. I don't see a better way to combine odds, but this is how I would try. Probably silly, but cashing aces, hey I always play that way, got an ace play an ace.

[twcho]

Thanks for the answers so far. Actually my post consists of two parts:
1. What will you lead?
2. If you lead ♣A, how will you continue?

Seems that everyone agrees with the ♣A lead (Or Mike777 will lead ♥9?).

[Codo]

1. I had lead aspade, second choice ace of club, close descission.

2. I led the ace of club to get a ruff or to take my tricks there. So why should I change my mind and switch now?

I dislike Bens lin because in the not unlickly scenario that declarer has solid spades, two club tricks + two Heart tricks can be the only way to beat this if declarer has something like AKQJxx,Kx,AQx,xx. And I think this is more of a danger then KJ of spades with pd is a chance.

[ArtK78]

I wish I were playing Rusinow leads (oh - and I thought no one leads unsupported aces anymore. Just a dig relating to another thread).

I continue clubs.

[whereagles]

ugh.. hate these situations.. anything can be right or wrong. My feeling tells me to continue with a club, so let's do it.

Incidently, I wouldn't have led the ♣A here (trump instead). Leading unsupported aces is usually bad (eheheheh) and usually worse when the leading hand is strong, because then there's less chance pard has the missing king.

[inquiry]

Codo, on Nov 21 2007, 06:09 AM, said:

1. I had lead aspade, second choice ace of club, close descission.

2. I led the ace of club to get a ruff or to take my tricks there. So why should I change my mind and switch now?

I dislike Bens lin because in the not unlickly scenario that declarer has solid spades, two club tricks + two Heart tricks can be the only way to beat this if declarer has something like AKQJxx,Kx,AQx,xx. And I think this is more of a danger then KJ of spades with pd is a chance.

Sadly partner will return a club, declarer will ruff high, pull trumps, cross in diamonds, and throw his Hearts away on clubs if this is the hand. Partner will have to be really, really sharp and good guesser not to return a club with that hand.

[twcho]

The actual hand held by partner is x KJxxxx AQxx T2.

Only if you can find the switch to ♦, or else you will not be able to set the contract.

For those chose to lead passively with a trump. If declarer chooses the spectacular line on not drawing remaining trumps but instead playing ♣ immediately, you will probably face the same problem (unless your partnership is sophisticated enough to show suit preferece signal during the ♣ play).