[Phil]

MPs

QT75 753 Q9 T963

2N - 3♣
3♦ - 3N

3♣ was standard puppet. 3N ostensibly denied a 4 card major.

Lead?

[Hanoi5]

♠5. 4th of your longest and strongest, am I right?

[the_clown]

I would try a ♥, but would feel much better if I had only 2 ♥s

[wyman]

♠ for me also

[ArtK78]

Heart. This is matchpoints. I would like to avoid giving up a trick on the opening lead if passible. It might also just hit my partner's suit.

[dustinst22]

ArtK78, on 2013-June-25, 09:02, said:

Heart. This is matchpoints. I would like to avoid giving up a trick on the opening lead if passible. It might also just hit my partner's suit.

Aren't we more likely to give up a trick with a H lead here? I only need partner to hold one of the 3 spade honors, in hearts he can have many different holdings that hurt us if I lead that suit.

[Fluffy]

dustinst22, on 2013-June-25, 15:55, said:

Aren't we more likely to give up a trick with a H lead here? I only need partner to hold one of the 3 spade honors, in hearts he can have many different holdings that hurt us if I lead that suit.

I think I understand what you mean, but double dummy heart can only blow a trick when it gives declarer a finesse without using an entry to dummy which will later become useful.

Spades can blow tricks when partner has 1 honnor:

---

[MrAce]

the_clown, on 2013-June-25, 06:05, said:

I would try a ♥, but would feel much better if I had only 2 ♥s

Interesting

I would have never even considered about a ♥ lead if i had only 2 of them.

EDIT: I would lead ♥ also in OP hand

[nige1]

Phil, on 2013-June-24, 21:20, said:

MPs ♠ Q T 7 5 ♥ 7 5 3 ♦ Q 9 ♣ T 9 6 3
2N - 3♣
3♦ - 3N
3♣ was standard puppet. 3N ostensibly denied a 4 card major. Lead?

IMO ♠ = 10, ♥ = 9, ♣ = 8, ♦ = 4.

[Lord Molyb]

IMO ♠5 = 10, ♣T = 9, ♥7 (or 3) = 8, ♦Q = 3

[the_clown]

MrAce, on 2013-June-25, 18:23, said:

Interesting

I would have never even considered about a ♥ lead if i had only 2 of them.

EDIT: I would lead ♥ also in OP hand

If I had only 2 its far more likely that partner has a 5 card suit here and since he rates to be the stronger hand, I really want to get his suit running.

[gszes]

At MP i can score well just by taking one more trick than average on
defense there is no huge rush to set---If responde were 3343 or 3334
I doubt they would have wasted much time with puppet since there
was no way they could ruff with their 3 card holding. That increases
the probability responder has some 3325 hand with a long minor.
The lead of the

!S5

is an attempt to gather as many defensive tricks as possible w/o
worrying too much about actually setting 3n. There is a 50/50 chance
opener's major is hearts. Which means not only might a spade lead
give us a tempo toward getting that extra defensive trick, p may have
4 spades and we could gain 2 more tricks than normal. It requires
very little from p (who holds most of our sides power) to make a spade
lead successful (if not spectacular). At IMPS I might be more interested
in a heart lead trying desparately to set 3n but The odds against this
working seem so high that it might still be better to hope to get lucky
with a spade lead and find p with AKx of spades and we get 4 spades
and a side trick.

[Phil]

I led a club (2nd best 4 carder, right?). Partner has ♠J, and we have two entries, so it blew the 2nd over.

[Winstonm]

As long as there is no compelling reason to think it wrong, and not leading spades can blow tricks, too, then I make a standard lead: Spade 5.

[han]

Phil, on 2013-June-28, 12:05, said:

(2nd best 4 carder, right?)

what?

[cherdano]

So we conceded an overtrick because we failed to set up our trick. After we lead our T9xx suit rather than our QTxx suit. And a minor instead of a major.
Shocking.

[CSGibson]

spade lead seems standard to me. It needs the least help, and major suit bias & all. The lead the 2nd best 4 card suit thing I don't think applies here; one of the components of that theory is that you can use the entry from your best suit to set up your long trick in the 2nd suit, but here the Q is a crappy entry.

[benlessard]

S is clearcut for me, I have no reason to think partner got nothing in S.