[FrancesHinden]

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You ask about the 5D bid and are told it shows 0 (or 3) keycards, and that they have no way of showing a void in response to keycard. LHO says his partner is allowed to raise with 'extra values' or with a void.
Your lead.

[whereagles]

Club. Seems like opps have overbid and so there's no reason to panic and cash out. At least not just yet

[gnasher]

It's not clear what our objective is here. Do I know my opponents?

If RHO has a spade void, we should lead a club and hope for the best. However, that's not likely to work - it will need partner to have ♣K and declarer not to pick up trumps.

If RHO doesn't have a void but slam makes, we're probably going to get the score adjusted back to 5♥ - nobody will accept the argument that he is allowed to bid 6♥ because he has an extra king.

What if RHO doesn't have a void but we can beat it anyway, by means of ♠A and a heart trick? If I let it through on the lead, the score will be adjusted to 5♥=, but 6♥-1 would have been better. That sort of layout seems quite likely given LHO's comments, but it depends on what I know about the opponents. If I don't know them, I lead ♠A, playing for RHO not to understand the rules.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2012-January-08, 07:20

[Fluffy]

Seems like our objective is to avoid doing something wild or gambling, I don´t buy any explanation. I would lead a club

[FrancesHinden]

gnasher, on 2012-January-08, 06:28, said:

It's not clear what our objective is here. Do I know my opponents?

No. You have played 16 boards against them so far in your life, and mainly you have learnt that (i) they overbid and (ii) they aren't particularly strong card players.

[phil_20686]

well it seems obvious that rho needs three keycards for his raise, so he must surely have the 3N bid either with or without a stop that most people seem to put through lebensohl. I would find out which of those it is. If he has a stop I would avoid the spade ace.

OTOH this auction is just obviously impossible. So I would lead the spade ace.

If you are wondering whether leading the spade ace will give up the trump position, you might be right, but I dont think it gives up much when you are on lead against an auction that is obviously impossible.

I resume that RHO has one keycard and has forgotten which keycard they played, then decided that he cannot be expecting a lebensohl bidder to have more than one anyway.

[FrancesHinden]

phil_20686, on 2012-January-09, 06:59, said:

well it seems obvious that rho needs three keycards for his raise, so he must surely have the 3N bid either with or without a stop that most people seem to put through lebensohl. I would find out which of those it is. If he has a stop I would avoid the spade ace.

RHO is a passed hand.

[quiddity]

Do you have an agreement about partner's double of 3♠?

[FrancesHinden]

quiddity, on 2012-January-09, 15:37, said:

Do you have an agreement about partner's double of 3♠?

Suggests leading one, particularly against 3NT.

[Statto]

The double was why I'm underleading ♠, expecting to find partner with ♠K, and hoping neither opp is void. ♠8 should clearly call for a ♦ switch.

[xcurt]

Wouldnt underlead the SA. After 3S partner was still on priority 1--stop them from bidding and making 3N. He had no way of knowing our LHO is about to drive to the 5-level.

Given that the alternative is to lead from Qxxx, I think cashing the SA is best. If partner has the SK we can try tapping dummy at T2 anyway, then they would need to come to hand in clubs, not diamonds, even if they choose to hook through us.

[FrancesHinden]

In case anyone is still interested, one winning lead is the ace of spades. You can then force dummy, which has singleton king of spades and AKJ of hearts, at trick 2.
It makes on a low spade lead
It can make on a club lead by setting up the clubs, which needs a 4-4 club break, although declarer may choose instead to play for Qx of hearts and ruff a spade in dummy instead.

Declarer has a club void _and_ the ace of diamonds, but says he wasn't sure if 4NT was blackwood or asking him to pick a minor, when partner converted to hearts he realised it was intended as keycard so he raised.

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-January-15, 04:53, said:

Declarer ... says he wasn't sure if 4NT was blackwood or asking him to pick a minor

Shouldn't he have said that earlier?

[Statto]

FrancesHinden, on 2012-January-15, 04:53, said:

In case anyone is still interested...

Of course we're still interested. We'd like to know how our actions would have worked out at the table on the specific hand posted. Well, I would

Quote

dummy ... has singleton king of spades ...
It makes on a low spade lead

That's a shame, I was rather hoping to find partner with ♠K from the double, tho of course there are no guarantees

Thanks for posting the conclusion, always appreciated