[Phil]

From the club today. It's matchpoints and pard did not have a chance to open the bidding.

You hear 1N on right - 3N on left.

1. ♠T8x ♥T8xx ♦Txx ♣Txx

2. ♠xxx ♥987xx ♦x ♣QTxx

[Lobowolf]

Without being thrilled, I'll try a spade on the first and a club on the second. The auctions suggest a major, and my crappy hand suggests that partner's suit is going to be better than mine, in both cases arguing for spades over hearts.

OTOH, given that partner has values, I'll let myself be swayed by QTxx on #2. Not much help is required to get productive things going in the club suit, on top of whatever partner has in the other suits.

[Codo]

I try both majors, spades first example, hearts in the second..

[skjaeran]

1. I try a spade here. The chance for hitting partner with five of them is better than the heart suit.

2. Heart. Hope to find partner with four of them. I think that's our best chance to beat this.

[shevek]

Heart in (1)

We might both have hearts. If partner has five, even better.
Chances of hitting dummy's singleton are greater.

If you lead a spade and dummy has a singleton, you feel good but declarer's 4-cd holding proves more than adequate.

[the hog]

S on hand 1, H on hand 2

[mike777]

The_Hog, on Feb 20 2009, 09:06 PM, said:

S on hand 1, H on hand 2

ditto

nonexpert

1) lead major and try and hit partners long major when I got a 4333 nothing.
2) lead my 5 card suit vs nt.

[kgr]

For deal 1 I wondered if S is really better then H and I did setup the deal profile (this hand and opps bidding 1NT-3NT) in Jack and did run analyse of situation on the lead:
all nv:
H3: -385.5
S3: -391.3
S8: -399.7
H5: -405.5
C3: -410;3
HT: -410.8
D2: -415.4
Seems like in 1000 deals double dummy a small heart lead is slightly better then a small Spade.
...I thought that this analysis was done double dummy on a sample of 1000 deals. But if the x's in Hearts are 5 and 6 then H5 lead is better then H6. So it seems like this analysis is not completely double dummy.
Nv against v:
H5: -564.8
S3: -565.5
ST: -573.3
H6: -584.8

[Phil]

kgr, on Feb 21 2009, 06:07 AM, said:

For deal 1 I wondered if S is really better then H and I did setup the deal profile (this hand and opps bidding 1NT-3NT) in Jack and did run analyse of situation on the lead:
all nv:
H3: -385.5
S3: -391.3
S8: -399.7
H5: -405.5
C3: -410;3
HT: -410.8
D2: -415.4
Seems like in 1000 deals double dummy a small heart lead is slightly better then a small Spade.
...I thought that this analysis was done double dummy on a sample of 1000 deals. But if the x's in Hearts are 5 and 6 then H5 lead is better then H6. So it seems like this analysis is not completely double dummy.
Nv against v:
H5: -564.8
S3: -565.5
ST: -573.3
H6: -584.8

This is interesting. Can you do an expected trick analysis for matchpoints?

Anyway, I lead a spade on the first and a heart on the 2nd.

The spade worked fine (dummy had Jx, Declarer Axx), but it doesn't matter if declarer has the stones to take the winning diamond finesse through pard.

A club is the winner here. Dummy has 7 diamond tricks and a stiff club King. Pard has the ♣Axxxx unfortunately and the spade ace (so I guess a spade works too if pard finds the shift). A heart lead conceded 11 tricks.