[bridgeboy]

Hi all,

At imps, vul against not.

You sit West and hold:

AKJ72
76
854
432

South Opens 1NT and North raises to 3NT.

Your lead?

(You play 4th best leads. A asking for unblocking/count. K for attitude)

Would it be different at mps? Or if North invites with 3C (long club suit) and South accepts?

Thanks all.

[flytoox]

Certainly not obvious. Either honour or smallcard lead could work here. The problem with low lead is declarer may collect 9 tricks immediately. I think I will cash A first. This will lose only if spade is 33 between dummy and declarer and the q is in dummy, or pd has qx of spades.


Regards

Hongjun

[luke warm]

my only entry is in partner's hand... i lead the 7 and hope he can get in and lead thru declarer

[Flame]

At imps 7 spade, at mp the A.
if north show a long club suit the A of spade since this 3c invite and accpete increase the of them having 9 tricks and us having 5 which needed to be taken before then get the hand.

[Free]

With a well-trusting partner I should lead ♠7, however, imo the 7 is quite high so I might chose ♠2...

[beatrix45]

You have to lead a spade, and you don't have any entries. Spade K only wins when partner has 4 small spades, and the queen falls under the ace or king. Plus you have to guess to continue spades after trick one.

[pclayton]

Spade honor wins whenever:

1. We can engineer a cashout when spades are 5-4 (doubtful, but possible, since there is probably an interior block).

2. We drop stiff Q, or Q dub.

3. We figure out a great switch at T2; attention Obvious Shifters!

4. We don't blow trick 9 at T1.

Low spade works when:

1. Spades are specifically 5=2=2=4, 5=3=2=3 or 5=4=2=2 (with the Qx) clockwise around the table.

2. We need to untangle the suit (pard has Qx for instance). Against this, we may have a disaster when pard finesses with Q8x and dummy holding the Txx.

Either works when spades are 5=2=3=3. However, low spade gives up trick (possibly 9th); high spade allows a shift and wait.

Low spade puts all your eggs in one or two baskets. High spade gives you 3 x or 4x ways to beat it.