The hand is number 27 in Victor Mollo's
Case for the Defense. As mentioned, it was not presented as an opening lead question.
The lead in the text was the heart Ace followed by another heart, the question then was how East should discard on the run of the hearts, the answer being that East should discard all of his clubs so that West can count the suit. Mollo points out that this may or may not set the hand. A spade lead, followed by another, does set it and I started thinking "yeah maybe I would have led a spade" and then decided I was probably fooling myself, so I decided to see if in fact anyone would. I see that two of you would!
Here is the full hand:
Given the lead of A and another heart, declarer runs all seven hearts, plays a spade to the King and a club back to his A. After 9 tricks declarer is looking at
I had this next part mis-stated and I have corrected it. I hope I have got the typos and thinkos out!
W has, no doubt the
♣K. If West still has two spades (starting with four, so E had only two from the beginning) declarer should cash the diamonds squeezing W in spades and clubs. . If W has QJx of diamonds left (starting with four), declarer should cash the A of spades on the board, squeezing W in clubs and diamonds. Tough choice. . [Mollo simply says that declarer might go wrong, he doesn't discuss this further].
With the cards as they are, a spade lead at trick 1 and another spade when in with the heart kills the late entry to the spades and destroys the squeeze.
Should West get it right at trick 1? Beats me. But he is looking at a lot of high cards and he could figure that declarer must have at least eleven tricks after the heart ace is played and so, with all that stuff in his hand, a squeeze is not out of the question. Against that, if declarer holds AKx in diamonds and there is a doubleton on the board it, the actual lead of the Ace and another heart is a good idea. Ah yes, but even though it prevents a 12th trick from an easy ruff, the squeeze might well still work so maybe we should hope there is no ruff and just lead a spade?
I found the hand interesting. We all know that having too many goodies in one hand can create problems, but dummy's suit at T1?
Anyway, Mollo had the W defender starting with Ace and another heart and he did not in any way suggest that this was mis-guided. But the spade works better..On the actual lie, a diamond will clarify the squeeze, and declarer's ten prevents a second, entry destroying, diamond when in with the heart. Of course it could have been different.
I highly recommend the book, by the way.
Added: As the play went, ace of hearts and a heart, the squeeze position is pretty interesting. I mentioned that W could have started with, as was the case, the QJxx of diamonds. But suppose he started with only Qxxx of diamonds. the squeeze still works because in the four card ending East needs to hold on to QJ, or Qx, of spades and so must have pitched a diamond from his original Jx. So if W started with QJxx of diamonds it is a pure club diamond squeeze. If he started with Qxxx of diamonds it is a double squeeze, clubs and diamonds against W, spades and diamonds agianst East. If W stared with xxxx of diamonds, it is a spade diamonds squeeze against E. In the first two cases, the play of the spade Ace executes the squeeze (in the double squeeze case the squeeze was what I think is called progressive, the last heart and the club ace already forcing the diamond pitch from E). In the case where W started with
♦ xxx and E with QJx, the squeeze took place on the play of the club ace. So whenever W started with four diamonds, declarer takes the rest by playing to the spade Ace. But if E started with four spades, then it is a simple club spade squeeze, executed by cashing the diamonds So declarer simply has to ask himself whether E is more likely to hold four spades or four diamonds. Since EW started with six spades and seven diamonds, declarer probably would go with assuming W started with four diamonds. That is, he would get it right. Maybe!
Anyway, the spade lead, followed by another, breaks it up.
One last observation.After A and another heat, if we assume that W has the
♣K for his bid then declarer can make the hand against any distribution of the remaining cards, providing he correctly guesses that distribution.
Thank you KenBerg.