[Cyberyeti]

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Opps I believe were playing Acol and a weak no trump, 1♣ showed 4+ and with 4/4 in the blacks they open 1♣ if outside the 1N range, 4N was KC, 5♥ 2 without Q♠.

[mikeh]

9♥

A diamond is an attempt to get one's name in the daily bulletin. It may work but it has to be anti-percentage. There is unlikely to be any need to get clubs going, if we have a trick there we probably still have it after a heart lead but the converse is less likely to be true. A trump is simply too passive.

I'm tempted to lead a small heart but prefer to stay within my agreed methods since it seems unlikely that a misleading card would impact the play.

[Codo]

What did 2 ♠ show? A weak NT hand, or an unbalanced 12-14, or could it be a three card raise?

If it showed a weak NT, I would not fear that many losers will disappear on a long suit, so I may go passive, with a heart.
If it showed an unbalanced hand, maybe a 4135 or 4144, I would choose a trump.
If it was a possible three card raise, I would lead the king- I am desparate...

[PhilKing]

.

[PhilKing]

Low diamond. If we had ♦Kxx, this would be a landslide, and the actual situation is not much different. Obviously leading the king would be ridiculous, since it saves them a guess. It won't even beat the contract when they have taken a complete flyer and pard has the ♦A, since a decent partner will overtake.

Dummy is highly likely to have five clubs and has denied a minimum balanced hand, so it is time to get active. There is a significant chance that any diamond will be catastrophic, but I refuse to go passive with this hand.

[Cyberyeti]

Codo, on 2013-June-03, 06:13, said:

What did 2 ♠ show? A weak NT hand, or an unbalanced 12-14, or could it be a three card raise?

If it showed a weak NT, I would not fear that many losers will disappear on a long suit, so I may go passive, with a heart.
If it showed an unbalanced hand, maybe a 4135 or 4144, I would choose a trump.
If it was a possible three card raise, I would lead the king- I am desparate...

Read the OP

"Opps I believe were playing Acol and a weak no trump", unbalanced and could be 3 in a 3145.

[Codo]

PhilKing, on 2013-June-03, 08:29, said:

Low diamond. If we had ♦Kxx, this would be a landslide, and the actual situation is not much different. Obviously leading the king would be ridiculous, since it saves them a guess. It won't even beat the contract when they have taken a complete flyer and pard has the ♦A, since a decent partner will overtake.

Dummy is highly likely to have five clubs and has denied a minimum balanced hand, so it is time to get active. There is a significant chance that any diamond will be catastrophic, but I refuse to go passive with this hand.

Maybe I will never be a decent player, but why do I need to overtake the king of diamonds if I want to be one?

And in which cases does it safe them a guess? With AQT in dummy needing two tricks in diamonds?

Isn't the main problem with any diamond lead the chance that declarer has a finesse in diamonds and not enough trick without it? In this case a low diamond will not help either...

[Cyberyeti]

Codo, on 2013-June-03, 11:23, said:

Maybe I will never be a decent player, but why do I need to overtake the king of diamonds if I want to be one?

And in which cases does it safe them a guess? With AQT in dummy needing two tricks in diamonds?

Isn't the main problem with any diamond lead the chance that declarer has a finesse in diamonds and not enough trick without it? In this case a low diamond will not help either...

Yeah, I'd favour this more if the big hand was hitting the deck and the small one declaring than in the actual situation.

[PhilKing]

Codo, on 2013-June-03, 11:23, said:

Maybe I will never be a decent player, but why do I need to overtake the king of diamonds if I want to be one?

Partner should overtake because your lead could be a singleton (and is obviously never Kx). This position rather famously occurred in the Lederer a few years ago against a punted slam, and a good player did not overtake. His partner was unable to continue.

Low gives them a guess when dummy has the queen, declarer the ace and either opponent has the ten.

As to the rest of it, declarer rates to have the ace here, but the jack with partner, plus the club king, will sometimes be enough to beat it. Our main chance is that pard has the queen, obviously, in which case a trick in either black suit will usually do.

[Fluffy]

It is not unthinkable that partner overtakes because he is afraid that if he ducks you don't follow with KQ afraid of taking a bath.

[bigbenvic]

Fluffy, on 2013-June-03, 19:41, said:

It is not unthinkable that partner overtakes because he is afraid that if he ducks you don't follow with KQ afraid of taking a bath.

Surely he'd encourage though?

On the hand I think it's a tough lead, I think my K♦ is likely to be a trick, there's 18-14 points approx. split between the 2 hands, so I think I'm hanging onto my king for later.

I think I'm leading a trump as with 10xx the only holding I'm killing for pards is Qx. If he has Kx then Declarer has the Q, so he either has AQ or pards gets his trick regardless.

[Cyberyeti]

bigbenvic, on 2013-June-03, 20:45, said:

Surely he'd encourage though?

On the hand I think it's a tough lead, I think my K♦ is likely to be a trick, there's 18-14 points approx. split between the 2 hands, so I think I'm hanging onto my king for later.

I think I'm leading a trump as with 10xx the only holding I'm killing for pards is Qx. If he has Kx then Declarer has the Q, so he either has AQ or pards gets his trick regardless.

I led a trump, unfortunately the trump layout was worse than that:

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The first thing partner said was that he should have doubled 5♥ in which case I think we get 6% for 6♠= as against a zero for 6+1. It's conceivable that declarer might even go off on the small diamond lead if panic had set in. A decent number of people bid 6♦, a few 6♣ but many people didn't bid slam.

[PhilKing]

Partner not doubling 5♥ is really bad. Note that declarer had punted slam without a control in diamonds, and partner's failure to double 5♥ with even KTxx is poor imo if he has zero points in diamonds.