[nige1]

Opponents' bidding is natural.
Your lead-style is second and fourth.
At teams, with imp scoring, what do you lead?

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[dickiegera]

nige1, on 2010-December-23, 16:34, said:

Opponents bidding is natural.
Your lead-style is second and fourth.
At teams, with imp scoring, what do you lead?

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Spade 10 using coded 9&10's otherwise Spade J

[mikeh]

I'm not catering to the stiff spade K in dummy....I'm leading my 4th best spade. There's a case for the spot-preserving 4 but I don't want partner misreading the hand. The 7 will only rarely come into play...never if opener has only 4 spades and it requires some specific layouts to be important when he has 5.

I see relatively little merit in the heart lead.....declarer could have punted via a non-committal 3♦ with something like Jxx in the heart suit...and even if he had that, the heart K may well be in dummy.

[han]

I'm not leading the ace of spades. Even though it is an option worthy of some consideration, it is not listed in the poll so declarer definitely doesn't have a stiff honor!

The spade jack and the spade 7 are other serious options. What I dislike about these options is that declarer is very likely to hold 5 spades. If he has 4 hearts than he certainly does, and if not, well, he did not bid 3D nor raise clubs.

Declarer also is quite likely to have the king of hearts. Like mikeh I don't think a good opponent would bid 3NT with Jxx of hearts.

I will lead the club jack, hopefully passive, with the thought that if declarer has a club honor as well, then we probably won't beat this game.

[nige1]

han, on 2010-December-24, 16:13, said:

I'm not leading the ace of spades. Even though it is an option worthy of some consideration, it is not listed in the poll so declarer definitely doesn't have a stiff honor!

I've added ♠A to the list of options because dummy could have a stiff ♠ honour. For declarer that is less likely because he bid ♠. I'm more interested in what players think is the right lead than in what would have worked in practice (although I will post the full deal later).

I would be grateful, if BBOers would rank the leads that they consider in order of preference.

[nige1]

Thank you for your answers.
FWIW, here is the full deal.

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[pooltuna]

7♠>J♠>>A♠

[han]

I think the level of the opponents matters greatly. Had I known they were this bad I would not have led the club jack (though I doubt I would have found the heart lead).

[mcphee]

I lead 4th best S. Partner may hold 9x for example and be able to gain the lead when declarer starts to develop one of the minor suits. This would bring my trick total to 3S, 1 minor and that fat ace of H. This sort of auction does not mean partner is not holding any cards to assist our side. Failing to make a lead from a suit you could be able to develop makes no sense to me, and frankly you see this happen all the time. Because they bid the suit does not mean they own it.