[Walddk]

♠ J7543
♥ 82
♦ Q76
♣ QJ4

LHO opens a strong club (16+), and RHO responds 2NT (16+ balanced). The next you see is 6NT to your left, all pass.

What is your lead, and please let us know what your reasoning is.

Roland

[mike777]

Walddk, on Sep 10 2005, 04:15 AM, said:

♠ J7543
♥ 82
♦ Q76
♣ QJ4

LHO opens a strong club (16+), and RHO responds 2NT (16+ balanced). The next you see is 6NT to your left, all pass.

What is your lead, and please let us know what your reasoning is.

Roland

8 of h..attack..eerrr.. passive..errr my lead?

[Echognome]

Partner's broke, so any lead away from an honour is bound to cost. However, I also have to guard all the suits and may be squeezed quite easily. I'm going to try a mildly deceptive ♣J. It could easily be wrong, but I've been wrong before.

[whereagles]

Spade. Seems opps have the 32-33 hcps for slam, so at best pard has a queen. Spade seems to be the least dangerous lead.

[ArcLight]

I would lead a spade.
Both opponents are balanced, so lets assume spades are 5-3-3-2.
The opponents probably have the A K Q of spades so will only make 3 tricks in that suit. The suit may be 5-4-3-1 or 5-4-2-2. In that case pard might have the 10. Or LHO may have it and not play it and pards 9 forces an honor. OR RHO may have a doubleton honor like KQ and not play high.

I think the spade lead is the most passive and least likely to give anything away.
The heart 8 may finesse pards Q.

[hrothgar]

NASTY problem...

From my perspective, there are two reasonable choices:

1. Going very passive. If I chose to go this route, I'd lead a low spade.
2. Attacking and trying to establish a second trick before the opponents can run their 12. In this case, a low Diamond looks right since I'm more likely to get in with a Club...

Attacking seems right to me.
I'm leading a Diamond...

[mike777]

Cute answers so far...one for each suit...good problem .
btw still leading a heart . Someone told me I should check out Robot Leads. Book on the way.

[mikeh]

high ♠ spot.

♥ lead may pick off partner's (unlikely) Queen or (much more likely) J. I expect LHO to hold no 4 card major (or be 4333 with a weak major) but that is no reason to expect declarer to hold no 4 card major. If he holds one, it will very probably be ♥

♦ spot lead is insane. It cannot possibly set up a fast trick for us: partner cannot hold the K, and it may well give away a trick. If I was told that I had to lead a ♦, it would be the Q: playing partner for the J, and hoping to fool declarer. That is so unlikely a parlay that I will not try it.

However, if I were on vugraph late in a big match needing to pick up swings, than that's my lead: at least it would give the commentators something to talk about.

♣lead requires partner to hold the 10: a very specific card in a suit in which the opps rate to hold 7 cards (or more) and partner only 2 or 3.

The ♠ rates to give away the least. And I lead a high ♠ just in case partner has 10x or Qx: I want to look like someone going passive from xxxx or xxxxx. If our style is the 5 (second highest from xxx) that is the card I lead.

[jdeegan]

Eight of hearts trying not to give up a trick. I don't know the entire auction, but it seems doubtful either opponent has five.

[luke warm]

i like matt's ♣J idea

[Walddk]

I can't tell you what is right or wrong, but I am on mikeh's side when he chooses a spade for exactly the same reason.

There is little left, if anything, for partner, so we must find a passive lead in my opinion. Interestingly, a spade seems more passive than a heart. Partner may have the jack of hearts without the 10 and only four of them, and then we run the risk of presenting declarer with four heart tricks.

A spade might work out even if partner doesn't have the 10. The opponents could have a 3-3 or 3-2 fit. The auction suggests that opener is balanced as well when I look at my holdings in the minors.

We know that we have five spades, we cannot be certain that partner has five hearts. Hence my choice of a low/middle spade.

Roland

[whereagles]

Yes. Spade vs heart is actually a good textbook lead example.