[FrancesHinden]

Scoring: IMP

2♠ P 4♠ 5♥
P P 5♠ P
P 6♥ all pass

---

You are vulnerable against not.
Playing against David Burn (dburn) and Nick Sandqvist in a swiss teams event.
Partner has rather raised the stakes during the auction.
What do you lead?

You have no real inferences from the opponents' tempo for the 5H and 6H bids. They were both very fast, but both those players tend to bid very quickly, and partner's 4S and 5S bids were both slow so they had plenty of time to think.

[the hog]

Diamond

[Codo]

My guesses whether to lead aggressive or passive are nearly always wrong.
So all diamond leaders will surely gift the contract to the opponents, because this would be my choice too.

[Phil]

Diamond for me too. No real reasons, other than it looks right on general principles.

[whereagles]

I'll go with an unimaginative spade.

[manudude03]

Diamond for me too, hopefully set up the setting trick before we lose it. And who knows, they might be off AK.

[hatchett]

♦ for me. Partner almost certainly has a long minor. If it is ♦s, a diamond lead may be essential to cash since it is a double fit hand. If partner has ♣s then our ♦K is pretty likely still to be a trick.

[peachy]

I'm thinking in spades we have likely zero tricks, maybe one if we are lucky. Partner drove them to slam and then did not sac so he has reason to believe slam is not making. (A vul vs notvul sac is rare but it does exist sometimes.) Also, he went to 5S vul vs not-vul so he has enough on the side in these colors not to be giving out a number against their potential +450. Opponents might have a running side suit for discards so we have to figure what that potential side suit is; not hard, I am looking at DK so it must be clubs. Leading a diamond.

[mikeh]

The diamond is the normal 'expert' lead here... I'd guess that in a BW MSC, out of 20 answers, at least 11 would be 'diamond'.

I suppose one could argue that partner could have helped us here, after our 2♠, by making a lead-directing call, but in all probability he judged that maximal preemption was the best order of the day, and I assume that, if we find the 'right' lead, he will have been proven correct.

[FrancesHinden]

You might be interested to know your methods.

In response to 2S:

2NT asks for shortage (or min/max with no shortage)
3 new suit is natural and forcing
3NT is to play
4C is RKCB for spades
4D is a fit bid
4H is natural (not showing spade support)
all spade bids are natural non-consultative

does this change your lead?

[skjaeran]

I'm a diamond leader here.

[Phil]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 16 2009, 01:32 PM, said:

You might be interested to know your methods.

In response to 2S:

2NT asks for shortage (or min/max with no shortage)
3 new suit is natural and forcing
3NT is to play
4C is RKCB for spades
4D is a fit bid
4H is natural (not showing spade support)
all spade bids are natural non-consultative

does this change your lead?

Personally, I think a lot of this is meaningless (no offense intended Frances), since pard will bid 4♠ a lot at these colors to shut out a heart call and possible sac. At other colors, I might be more aware of partner's lack of a fit bid / new suit when I think about my lead.

[Hanoi5]

I voted for an unimaginative spade. I figure it isn't a Diamond for that's what most of the people answered so, could it be a club? I don't understand why partner didn't bid another suit on his way to sac (maybe because then he would have needed to sac at the 5 level?) to ask for a lead, but as he couldn't fit bid clubs, I'm guessing you wanted us to think about a club lead.

[hatchett]

Quote

I figure it isn't a Diamond for that's what most of the people answered so, could it be a club?

I thought the idea was to make a choice based on bridge logic rather than guess the right answer!

[FrancesHinden]

Phil, on Mar 16 2009, 06:44 PM, said:

FrancesHinden, on Mar 16 2009, 01:32 PM, said:

You might be interested to know your methods.

In response to 2S:

2NT asks for shortage (or min/max with no shortage)
3 new suit is natural and forcing
3NT is to play
4C is RKCB for spades
4D is a fit bid
4H is natural (not showing spade support)
all spade bids are natural non-consultative

does this change your lead?

Personally, I think a lot of this is meaningless (no offense intended Frances), since pard will bid 4♠ a lot at these colors to shut out a heart call and possible sac. At other colors, I might be more aware of partner's lack of a fit bid / new suit when I think about my lead.

I'm not offended.
I was partner, and I did indeed bid 4S at once to shut out a heart call and possible sac. But I also had another thought at the time, which was clearly way too obscure* because no-one's suggested it as a motivation for the winning lead.

(and I'm still not saying yet what the winning lead was)

*although Ken hasn't posted yet...

[hackenbush]

Could it be you would bid 3C on some fitting hands as a lead director?

[FrancesHinden]

A diamond (any diamond) is the only lead to let the contract make, on any other lead is it two off, losing a club, a spade and a diamond.

Dummy has AJxx and declarer Qxx.

Partner's side suit is clubs (you've probably guessed that by now).

Partner's thoughts during the auction:
-----------------------------------------

- I could bid 3C, natural and forcing. This will make sure I get a club lead, but lets the next hand in cheaply. I'd rather just bid 4S and make him come in at the 5-level. (At at least one other table, the auction was 2S P 4S all pass, with a pretty good player passing over 4S)

- I only have four spades, and I have the ace. So there may not be any urgency for partner to lead a club against their contract, a spade is likely to work just as well. If I don't bid a suit, then perhaps partner will just shrug his shoulders and lead a spade anyway.


Your thoughts before leading a diamond
------------------------------------------------
- Partner must have a side suit, so go to the 5-level at red but not have enough stuff to double 6H. Partner is hugely likely to have 5 spades (for the same reason), so a spade lead will probably be ruffed.

- If partner has a diamond suit, we might need to cash the AK now, before declarer draws trumps and runs clubs.

- But if partner has clubs, the diamond lead may not cost, as declarer is likely to have the ace and we may well make a diamond trick anyway.

Conclusion
--------------
Just another 14 imps out.

[dburn]

If it's any consolation, I would have led the same silly diamond as your partner led. And I would have bid 4♠, not 3♣, with your hand also.

[hotShot]

FrancesHinden, on Mar 18 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

Your thoughts before leading a diamond
------------------------------------------------
- Partner must have a side suit, so go to the 5-level at red but not have enough stuff to double 6H.

OK, opps have a lot of ♥ so partner is likely to have 51(43) or 5044. This means that opps have (6)7-8 cards in each minor. No indication of a timing problem.

FrancesHinden, on Mar 18 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

Partner is hugely likely to have 5 spades (for the same reason), so a spade lead will probably be ruffed.

When will a ♠ lead cost a trick or 2?
Assuming that partner has 5♠, the remaining 2 can be 1-1 or 2-0.
If they are 1-1 we can not lose a trick in ♠ and playing ♠ now may be the only chance to get a ♠ trick at all.
If the ♠ are 2-0 we can't lose a ♠ trick, because we never had one. But we can lose a side card trick, if the 2 missing ♠ cards are AQ and opps can dump 1-2 loser, but this is very unlikely.

So a ♠ lead is quite save.

FrancesHinden, on Mar 18 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

- If partner has a diamond suit, we might need to cash the AK now, before declarer draws trumps and runs clubs.

How likely is partner ho have the ♦A?
He has got 5 of 7 missing ♠ so there is a 5/7 (71%) chance that he has the ♠A. If he has the ♠A:
- the chances that he also has the ♠Q are 4/6.
- opps have bid to 6♥ with only 25-27 hcp and you still have to subtract any other honor in partners hand.
So it's unlikely that he has side honors and if he has, they will be badly placed.
If partner does not have the ♠A he will usually have the ♠Q. This means that opps have bid slam on 29(-31) hcp minus what partner holds in the side suits.
So it is still unlikely that he has side honors.

So leading under the K will more often cost a trick than gain one.

FrancesHinden, on Mar 18 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

- But if partner has clubs, the diamond lead may not cost, as declarer is likely to have the ace and we may well make a diamond trick anyway.

If partner has a ♣ honor this will almost always cost a trick.

[hatchett]

Were you sober when you wrote this?