[PhantomSac]

1)

xxx 98xx Ax AJxx

Imps, opponents bid starting on right:

1H 2C
2N 4H

1H is precision, opening all 11s.
2C is GF either balanced or clubs
2N is any 5(332) regardless of stoppers, 11-13
4H is to play


2)

xx Txx xxx AJ9xx

MP, starting on your left, bad opps

1D 1S
2D 4S

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

#1 spade - not easy, the alternative is the Ace of diamonds.
#2 hearts - diamonds are breaking, so we need to develop
tricks, but I usually try to avoid leading from
a suit with an Ace, so heart it is.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[karlson]

1. spade without particular difficulty
2. low club, lack of 1h overcall tips the scales for sure

[shyams]

I'm usually not confident on these type of problems but here are my choices FWIW:

1. I'd underlead the club Ace on this one.
* The possibility of losing the Ace due to underlead is low (although there are other risks like allowing declarer 2 tricks instead of 1 if he played the suit himself).
* The possibility of forcing declarer to ruff 3rd round of club while our side retains control is decent; and the bad trump break would hurt declarer if we force him to ruff clubs early.

2. I'd cash the club Ace. I do not trust opps fully and they may easily have hands with running tricks in both their bid suits. I fear 12 or even 13 tricks for their side if we do not cash out.

[nigel_k]

1. Spade. I'm not a passive leader by nature and I'd like to start a force. But it's a weak club suit and either LHO has clubs or they are both balanced so passive could be ok anyway. Also I don't know which club to lead (jack ?).

2. Ace of clubs. Not close.

[hanp]

1.

It would never have occured to me to lead a club, either high or low. All three other suits make some sense. Although, with declarer being some 5332 ruffs in the dummy are not so likely, so I won't lead a heart.

It is probably safe to assume that LHO is not 4333, he would have bid 3NT or 3H (to keep 3NT in the picture). So it seems likely that LHO has 4+ clubs, often 5. AJxx in front of the clubs is bad. It is fairly likely that declarer is going to play trumps and play clubs up to dummy. A spade is possible, we may be able to set up a spade trick before the clubs are set up and let partner lead a diamond through. Another option is the extremely aggressive diamond ace. If we were sure that LHO had 5+ clubs then I would opt for this, but now I'll go with the more passive spade.

2. Club ace, it's matchpoint and partner might have overcalled 1H.

[hotShot]

1) ♦A
2) ♥

[pooltuna]

PhantomSac, on Feb 7 2010, 02:25 AM, said:

1)

xxx 98xx Ax AJxx

Imps, opponents bid starting on right:

1H 2C
2N 4H

1H is precision, opening all 11s.
2C is GF either balanced or clubs
2N is any 5(332) regardless of stoppers, 11-13
4H is to play


2)

xx Txx xxx AJ9xx

MP, starting on your left, bad opps

1D 1S
2D 4S

♥x for both cases

[Hanoi5]

I'm with hotShot, but I don't know if that is good.

[mikegill]

1) Spade. I think our clubs are strong enough to warrant being somewhat passive. I might lead the ♦ A if I thought I needed a swing, since it's very likely to be either very wrong or very right.

2) I would lead a heart. Partner didn't bid 1♥ but so what. If I don't lead a heart for that reason on this hand, then I'm telling him he has to bid 1♥ on KQxx or something. Even if he doesn't have good high cards there, it's not clear that this lead is bad. I don't like the ♣A. It's our only entry and I would rather have control over when I use it.

[andy_h]

1) A passive spade. Definitely not a trump and I don't quite understand a club lead - it seems masterminding and it can easily blow up in our face since LHO has the (potential) clubs and we have two honours. 2nd choice would be the ♦A although I'm not big on ace leads either.

2) mikegill's reasonings were exactly my thoughts. The non 1♥ overcall doesn't mean much to me at all. I'd like to lead a heart through dummy and hopefully when (if) partner gets in he can push a club through. I am a bit scared the opponents may take all the diamond+spade tricks (if partner doesn't have diamonds stopped) so I find a heart and ♣A a bit close, but I still choose a heart.

[MFA]

1) I might want to inquire, if 2♣ could be any balanced hand, including 4 card spades, 5 card diamonds, 4 card hearts.
I would probably try ♦A. Dummy most likely has a doubleton (when choosing 4H) but where? If 2♣ can't be bid with the above unusual holdings, then it rates to be in spades and I therefore like my chances of finding declarer with 3-3 (or 4-3) in diamonds while a spade lead seems futile.

2) ♥

[jdonn]

1. I don't think a spade makes much sense on this auction. Remember they are playing precision so LHO could have just raised 1♥ to 4♥ on a crappy game force. Why did LHO respond 2♣ instead? Either he thought 3NT might be the right contract (and we can rule that out since he bid 4♥ over 2NT) or he thought there might be slam. That explanation makes sense since he gave up after some discouraging things happened, clubs not being raised and hearts not being rebid and opener showing a minimum. So LHO is strong and I don't think they will have any trouble making this on a passive lead. My best chance therefore seems to be a ruff/promotion in diamonds.

My second choice is ace of clubs, going for two ruffs there instead. Who knows maybe that's even better. The more I think about it the more I like a club, a singleton club is probably more likely than the king of diamonds. Screw it I'm switching.

But not a spade.

2. Heart. No particularly special reason on this one other than process of elimination.

[rogerclee]

jdonn, on Feb 7 2010, 12:07 PM, said:

My second choice is ace of clubs, going for two ruffs there instead. Who knows maybe that's even better. The more I think about it the more I like a club, a singleton club is probably more likely than the king of diamonds. Screw it I'm switching.

Presumably your partner has heart shortness, so you are playing him to also be short in clubs on this auction?

[CSGibson]

jdonn, on Feb 7 2010, 12:07 PM, said:

My second choice is ace of clubs, going for two ruffs there instead. Who knows maybe that's even better. The more I think about it the more I like a club, a singleton club is probably more likely than the king of diamonds. Screw it I'm switching.

If they are playing an 8 card heart fit, and there's no reason to suspect otherwise on the auction, then you are giving partner at most one ruff. I think that partner is likely 5-1-5-2, and leading the club ace is more likely to blow a trick than leading the ace of diamonds and a diamond.

[jdonn]

Yeah the club thing was dumb, I got caught up in the point that I still think is true that LHO should be strong and a spade will not set them often. So, diamond!

[PhantomSac]

1 I felt pretty strongly that the DA was right. As jdonn implies, they seem to have a lot of values, they don't seem to have unexpected trump losers (like if we had JTxx), they don't seem to really have bad splits. The one thing going for us is that we have aces and the initiative. I think trying to get 4 tricks via:

DA, DK, diamond ruff, CA or
DA, CK, CA, club ruff or
DA, 3 club tricks

as our immediate threats is definitely the most likely way to beat this. We might have some outside chances if partner has stiff ace of hearts, or the stiff K of hearts.

Getting a tap going seems really ambitious, it's just not gonna happen. Beating them with passive defense seems really unlikely.

On this hand RHO had Qxx of clubs, partner's card was the CK, so the DA worked well (though you have to guess what to do at trick 2).

2 I didn't feel very strongly about, but I thought the CA to cash out and hold the overtricks given the likelihood that they can run both spades and diamonds was pretty reasonable. We may have blown the tempo if partner has something like the HK, or the HA and the CQ with K on the right, but we might be ok if he has like AQ of hearts and we can still shift to it. On this hand they make 7 if you don't cash the CA, 5 otherwise.

Still don't know how I feel about it other than the argument that it is extremely anti-field to lead this way, so I may create a top/bottom swing for no reason which is a good argument against it.

[phil_20686]

1) Seems right to lead a trump with all those values. I suspect that dummy has a decent chance of being unbalanced, 6331 or 5431 are both likely. I guess dummy can't have 4h though depends on their system, so with only 3 hearts in dummy in two bullets i can often stop any ruffs and let them struggle to find their own tricks. Second choice is teh ace of diamonds. I think its reasonably close but i prefer a trump.

2)Would lead a heart probs. No strong feeling at all here. Think the ace of clubs is dangerous at MP but could work. trump is also dangerous. heart feels best.

[akhare]

#1: Seems like a toss up between a relatively passive ♠ and an active A♦. Since the ♣ situation doesn't bode too well for our side, it might tip the scale a little in favour of the latter.

#2: Yet another toss up between the passive ♥ and active A♣. The "poor opps" comment seems to suggest a cash out, so A♣, hoping not to blow a trick.