[rogerclee]

w/r IMPs

Jxxx xx Kxxx ATx

P 1S 2H 3C
P 3N 4H P
P X P 5C
AP

Yes this was really the auction. 5C was super slow, but everything else was mostly in tempo. Your lead?

[655321]

Must be wrong then, but IRL I would just lead my top heart.

[jdonn]

If it's a problem you could probably convince me of reasons a diamond is right, but I'm sure I would have led a heart. If this is the worst thing I do, yay me.

[Hanoi5]

A high heart, everything else is masterminding.

[gwnn]

Partner do you really want to hurt me? high heart

[Free]

obvious ♥ irl, but not when it's posed as a problem.

[pooltuna]

655321, on May 30 2010, 09:42 PM, said:

Must be wrong then, but IRL I would just lead my top heart.

It seems pretty automatic to me too. My choices would be X♥ (not the x ) > x♦> x♠>A♣

[pooltuna]

jdonn, on May 30 2010, 09:53 PM, said:

If it's a problem you could probably convince me of reasons a diamond is right, but I'm sure I would have led a heart. If this is the worst thing I do, yay me.

no doubt partner holds AQ♠ and dummy AKxx♥ making a ♠ lead the winner

[rogerclee]

I am legitimately surprised, it did not even occur to me to lead a heart lol. I guess I must be missing something, what is the argument for leading a heart? Is there a general type of hand where we need to lead a heart to beat it, given that RHO has a heart void 100% of the time?

[pooltuna]

rogerclee, on May 31 2010, 12:23 PM, said:

I am legitimately surprised, it did not even occur to me to lead a heart lol. I guess I must be missing something, what is the argument for leading a heart? Is there a general type of hand where we need to lead a heart to beat it, given that RHO has a heart void 100% of the time?

When my partner overcalls a suit I generally expect him to hold honor cards not ♥T987632

[mikeh]

late to the thread.

I lead the club Ace.

If we have two top tricks outside of trump, it will probably be in diamonds, but might be in spades. Leading either side suit is very committal if, as I suspect, declarer is taking a pitch or two on dummy's hearts (while partner will have lots of hearts, and they are likely internally solid, we have two clues from dummy's bidding that he has strength there, and a further clue from declarer's bidding that our hearts aren't cashing even if we have the top one(s)).

I expect to switch to a low diamond, but would be persuaded to play a spade if dummy has the diamond Ace and is missing AK or AQ of spades.

I will feel very foolish if my club Ace draws an honour from partner. Oh well.

[wclass___]

RHO's shape is pretty much clear. He must have some ♦ for this bidding (4-5 for sure).
I am not afraid of declarers pitches at all, he can't have that many of them. And ♣A is just losing a tempo/entery.
But you can't lead passive, or else they might have enough pitches(♠+♥).

IMO ♦ lead is by far the best chance to beat this contract. And 3 small ♦ gives you reasonable safety. If partner has nothing in ♦, It shouldn't change anything (either LHO has A, or you get your trick anyway), if he has Qx, they can establish ♦ for one loser anyway.

[mikeh]

I'm not so sure that we can safely read anything much into the auction. I think, in theory, RHO's pass over 4♥ was forcing, which means, in standard fp parlance, that his pull to 5♣ was a slam try. However, we have far too much stuff, and too good a club holding, for that to make any sense.

I suspect that rho has 7 or 8 clubs....I'd guess 8 more than 7...and maybe 2=0=3=8 shape or even 3=0=2=8 (having heard that old saying: what do you call an 8 card suit? trump).

I could be talked into a diamond lead more readily than a spade lead but I'm worried that he will pitch losers in the suit I don't lead:

---

or

---

Now, I haven't tried to assess these hand types in light of partner's bidding, and I am not putting these forward as representative of typical layouts, but more to show how it is that I see the club lead as possibly critical in order to avoid a losing guess. Of course, the club lead itself may represent a losing guess.

[peachy]

I lead a heart, in hopes of getting one heart and two club tricks, or a third trick somewhere. I feel this is not making and heart void is not completely guaranteed though likely with RHO. However, heart must be led from my side when hearts are played, either now or later. Second choice for opening lead is small trump.

[MFA]

The bidding is weird. Did east have a pass-and-pull hand or did he just reconsider? Everthing seems to indicate the latter. Also partner's bidding might need an examination. He overcalled 2♥, not 4♥, but later when the opponents have stranded in 3NT after a misfit auction he could bid 4? Hmm.

I would lead a heart. I don't agree that declarer is 100% void in hearts. Especially not after a long tank. Declarer will probably have diamonds on the side. Since we have a spade card I don't think we need to lead diamonds. A spade lead could work, playing partner for both majors with a weak heart suit to justify his bidding. I'm not leading the ♣A. That's a forum type of lead imo.

[awm]

After way more thought than I'd put in at the table, I'm leading a spade.

It's not hard to construct hands where any of the leads are best. Declarer could have a heart loser that goes away on the spades, or a diamond loser that goes away on the hearts/spades, or a spade loser that goes away on hearts, or we could have two trump tricks (partner having stiff jack or something) where leading a top trump pitches one of them.

Given that any lead could be best (or worst) we need to decide what's with the odds. I think the big clue here is RHO's pass followed by bidding 5♣. There are really two possibilities for this sequence: either he is making a slam try in clubs, or he wanted to keep some alternate contract open.

If RHO was considering an alternative contract, it pretty much has to be spades (he rejected 4♥X after all). This makes me think that RHO has a doubleton spade and only seven clubs. This would mean he can't pitch diamond or heart losers fast enough (i.e. partner can ruff the third top spade so he has to pull trumps before taking the discards and I get another chance). However, it is quite possible that declarer could ditch losing spades on dummy's hearts (assuming dummy has good hearts and not-so-good spades). Thus a spade lead seems best.

If RHO actually was making a slam try, it would be really surprising to find partner with the diamond ace (along with good enough hearts to rebid them at the four-level). Even if this were the case, it's not clear that declarer has enough fast discards for his (likely four-card) diamond holding. It's possible that declarer is 1-1 in the majors and will pitch his heart loser on a top spade if I don't find the heart lead, but it seems just as possible that declarer is 1-1 in the majors and will pitch his spade loser on a top heart. However, 2-0 in the majors seems to require a spade lead and 0-2 in the majors (doubleton heart!) seems impossible on the bidding. Leading the club ace might work (to see which of opener's majors is stronger), but in many of these cases we need a third trick somewhere and the club ten is as likely a source for that trick as any, so I don't want to blow it.