[straube]

So partner lead the J against a 3N contract from KJ98. He said it was a surround play and I asked him if one needed that exact holding for it to work or if say the J from KJ9xx might be successful. He thought it might be but I'd like input from others. Is leading the jack from either of these holdings a good strategy? I'm familiar with surround plays but only after seeing dummy and imagining declarer's holding (when defending that is).

[manudude03]

I'm not a fan of such leads at trick 1. There are just too many things which can go wrong when leading it blind. Dummy could have ATx and declarer Qx and find you've led the only card to give them 3 tricks in that suit etc. Or for a more common example, give declarer QTx and dummy xxx. Also, you could easily block the suit with partner having Qx, or even Ax.

Later on in the play, feel free to lead J as a surround play once you have a look at dummy. Using your 2 examples, I'll show a possible layout where the J is necessary.

West must lead the J in order to score 4 tricks.

---

Assume East has no outside entries. The only way to ensure 5 tricks in this layout is if East leads the J.

---

[rogerclee]

---

[JLOGIC]

If dummy has length it's a super expert lead but I wouldn't really be telling any BIL people to do this. I remember Kranyak doing it once irl and it was a huge success and he got written up (but again, dummy had shown length).

[Cyberyeti]

It's the same as leading the K from KJ10.... to catch the stiff Q. Not routine, but if you have information from the bidding that it might be right, then is worth considering. Much more obvious later in the play

[gwnn]

I did it once against jlall, he was very impressed but not convinced methinks.