[gartinmale]

Matchpoints, North America. Here is the auction. I was sitting South, but I'll give you North's hand.

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Club game, everyone is relatively inexperienced. I was unhappy with partner's 2D bid, as our agreement is that he should have an opening hand and (frequently) six diamonds at this vulnerability. Nevertheless, he made the bid and then eventually had to lead against 4Hx.

What should his lead have been?

[the hog]

I don't think the 2D bid is great - much prefer 1S. I would also be unhappy with your raise - if you are going to raise, raise immediately.
I would lead a trump.

[ggwhiz]

I would lead a trump in any partnership where this is an acceptable 2♦ bid (not mine either) and agree with the hog bidding wise.

Given desperation I'm torn between going for the ♣ ruff or giving a ♠ ruff. A ♠ ruff for pard seems more likely. The force in diamonds is a longshot.

It's a crapshoot that may be more of a bidding problem than a lead problem.

[gartinmale]

I definitely should have raised immediately. But they had let us buy the previous two hands for much lower than we deserved and I was greedy. Karma reared its ugly head, I suppose. The full deal, which makes me look rather worse than partner, I think:

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Partner led a low club to my ace. I cashed the A of spades looking for a signal; declarer played the J and partner the 5, which I couldn't read. Reasoning that if partner had an honor sequence in diamonds he might have led from it, I led a diamond back looking for the AQ in partner's hand and they wrapped up 11 tricks.

I didn't give declarer enough credit, since he has to have something for his bidding, but I was picturing

KJx
??QT9xx
Kx
9

with a missing heart honor (since I was trying to give partner something close to an opening hand in my mind).

Declarer did think for a bit before playing the J of spades, so maybe I should have decided he couldn't hold KJx, but he usually thinks for a bit before he plays any card. My partner will be gratified to see that an honor lead is not automatic on the auction. The misdefense is clearly my fault. What could I have done so that we had a better chance of getting it right? Should I just trust that declarer is not going to bid this way without some sort of diamond control?

[neilkaz]

I don't like your partner's overcall at all vulnerable and wouldn't make it with colors reversed. As for overcalling 1 on 4 cards, I'd want a better suit, especially vulnerable. You fell for declarer's false card. I have to ask what signals you are playing and if you're playing standard signals, PD should've signalled with the 7♠ which is more encouraging. If playing UDCA..ok that 5 is hard to read and not pard's fault.

You have a very very clear raise of 2♦ although when opener competes with 3♥ his pard will likely carry on to 4 just the same.

This hand is mostly your PD's fault and if he's going to overcall very light like that you're likely to missdefend as well as not be able to be so confident that your penalty X's are correct.

[ggwhiz]

gartinmale, on 2011-October-23, 12:36, said:

But they had let us buy the previous two hands for much lower than we deserved and I was greedy.

I've never been guilty of that.... more than 5 times a session.

I once played againsxt Ethel Keohane and Alberta Albersheim who were knitting at the table. I was ecstatic that I got to play al(most) all the hands in the 1st half and on the way to compare, my pard chewed me out.

"They have more masterpoints than the rest of the room!"

Sure enough, lose 4, lose 5 etc. ad nauseaum.