[hrothgar]

Jlall, on Jun 26 2008, 11:24 PM, said:

hrothgar, on Jun 26 2008, 07:46 AM, said:

For what its worth, the club lead was the winner at the table.  Partner can get in with the Ace of Clubs and shoot back a Heart before the opponents can do much of anything.

I was interested to see how many folks would choose some kind of active lead as opposed to a (passive) Diamond. 

I was also wondering whether there would be any arguments regarding the merits of a low club as opposed to the Jack.

Well, actually a diamond lead can set the contract too. You just have a nasty defensive problem upon winning the ace of spades...you must shift to the jack of clubs with the queen in dummy, rather than a heart with xx in dummy or a passive diamond or trump.

As far as jack vs low the jack wins on layouts where dummy has the queen and partner has the ace like Qxx dummy and declarer has 9x, or if you are going to get endplayed later like decarer has AQ9 or something and wins the 9 then endplays you later. Low doesn't really cater to much of anything, except something like Q98x in declarer's hand and the ace with partner where the jack creates a ruffing finesse position. IMO the jack is much better than low, and you should pretty much always be leading the jack against suits from this holding (whereas in NT you might lead low to unblock the suit).

Hi Justin

I actually spent a bit of time trying to figure out whether or not to lead a low club or the Jack of Clubs. (Let me start by saying that I agree completely that the Jack of Clubs is the textbook lead from this holding)

When I was thinking about the hand, I was very much hoping that

1. Tim would be able to wn the open lead
2. He'd punch a heart back though

I thought that leading a low club was more likely to suggest a Heart shift rather than a club continuation which I really didn't want...

In retrospect, i still like the club lead, but I think that the Jack is probably a better choice.

If anyone wants to look at the complete hand, its

http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetch...ayed=1214438540

[pigpenz]

i know how much you guys love hand simulators but what i found from my input that 4♠ makes 35% of the time on the 1500 hands i produced so i then ran the analysis on the hands where 4 ♠'s goes down
1. high ♦
2. A♠
these were the two best choices with the high diamond working on just about 10 more deals than the A♠
3/4 small ♥ or J/10♣ are about equal.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

it is either a trump or a club, I would go
with a club, what ever your agreement.

The bidding sounds, as if they will make it,
if we dont beat it fast.

With kind regards
Marlowe