[Apollo81]

♠K
♥A10xxx
♦Qxx
♣xxxx

all red, MPs

No bidding by our side

1♣*-1♠*-1NT-2♣*-2♠-3NT

The opps had a Precision auction: 1♣ was strong, 1♠ showed 8-12 balanced, and 2♣ was Stayman.

[rogerclee]

♣.

[gwnn]

definitely club, on a lucky day this will even beat it.

[pclayton]

♣ is the lead I hate the least.

[jtfanclub]

OK, I admit it. I lead a heart.

I'm perfectly willing to admit that I'm doing it out of 'longest and strongest' and hoping that partner has Jx and a side entry. It's also possible that Responder bid 2♣ as checkback, without 4 hearts.

I wonder if that's what's next, that this was unalerted checkback (responder has 12, opener would bid 3♠ with a 20 count and spades).

[effervesce]

Club for me. The bidding has indicated LHO has 4 card hearts. Partner probably has 5-6 spades but I'm not leading the spade K into what could easily be AQxx. Leading from Qxx is horrible too.

[Apollo81]

It's interesting that the votes are 14-5 in favor of a heart lead, but the posts are 4-1 against a heart lead.

There is surely some inherent bias in posts like this. Because the "book" action is to lead hearts, and this is a post, it cannot be right. Thus for the most part, people will admit to leading a heart, but only anonymously.

[inquiry]

At imps i might lead a heart, but not at matchpoints. Look, 2♣ was stayman and they didn't find their fit even with a spade suit bid. So one of them has 4♥ and the other at least two. Partner is marked with seven hcp or less. We don't want to blow a trick, and a passive defense seems best to me, and the best looking passive lead is a club.

At imps, i would lead a heart, as that is the best chance to set the contract.

[nige1]

inquiry, on Jul 29 2008, 12:01 PM, said:

At imps i might lead a heart, but not at matchpoints. Look, 2♣ was stayman and they didn't find their fit even with a spade suit bid. So one of them has 4♥ and the other at least two. Partner is marked with seven hcp or less. We don't want to blow a trick, and a passive defense seems best to me, and the best looking passive lead is a club.
At imps, i would lead a heart, as that is the best chance to set the contract.

IMO ♣ = 10, ♠ = 9, ♥ =8
The "book" lead may well be a ♥. Hence people feel that they should explain why they choose something else. IMO a ♥ lead is too aggressive.

[crazy4hoop]

I voted club and am leading a club here. The stiff King looks wrong, there are 4 hearts on my left, and I automatically lose the postmortem by leading a diamond (not that I play for that reason). So, even though partner didn't double 2♣, I still lead one, as he wouldn't necesarily double with QJ10x, AQ10x, AJ10x, or other decent club holdings where the fear of defending 2♣XX exist.

[lexlogan]

The heart lead seems least likely to blow a trick, and gives us field protection as well. Partner has a few points; everyone rates to be approximately 3-3 in the minors; the diamond lead is apt to set up the 13th card for declarer, while the club lead is apt to pickle an honor in partner's hand without establishing the suit for us. I frequently lead the singleton on this sort of auction (into partner's marked 5 card suit) but not the stiff King here.

[han]

The auction suggests that we had a chance to bid 1H and we didn't. I'm confused.

[Apollo81]

han, on Aug 3 2008, 10:01 PM, said:

The auction suggests that we had a chance to bid 1H and we didn't. I'm confused.

Oh yeah, forgot about this post. I bid 1♥ and went for a 4-digit number so I didn't have this lead problem.