[awm]

A832
93
7653
J86

IMP teams, RHO opens and our side silent:

1NT (15-17) - 2♦ (transfer)
2♥ - 2NT (invite NF)
3NT - Pass

What do you lead? A Sim might also be useful here.

[mgoetze]

I'm only allowed to lead 4-card suits? Partner rates to be stronger than we are and clubs seems like the best bet to find him with a 5-bagger.

I would choose spades over diamonds because responder might have bid differently with 4-5 in the majors.

[Fluffy]

Its a thin game with hearts not breaking, doesn't look like we need to be highly active. A spade is not a good lead, however the other leads aren't great either. Partner didn't double 2♦, and underleading a club into declarer's 5 card club would be terrible.

I would lead a diamond here.

[antonylee]

I was going to lead a spade because I'm not that imaginative here, but a quick sim (500 hands, South 16-17 with 2 hearts, North 8-9 with 5 hearts) suggests that hearts and diamonds are statistically tied as best leads, ~0.2 imp ahead of low spades or clubs.

[aguahombre]

antonylee, on 2015-February-11, 16:10, said:

I was going to lead a spade because I'm not that imaginative here, but a quick sim (500 hands, South 16-17 with 2 hearts, North 8-9 with 5 hearts) suggests that hearts and diamonds are statistically tied as best leads, ~0.2 imp ahead of low spades or clubs.

Wow. I would have thought low club would be about minus infinity.

[jallerton]

Fluffy, on 2015-February-11, 15:59, said:

Its a thin game with hearts not breaking, doesn't look like we need to be highly active. A spade is not a good lead, however the other leads aren't great either. Partner didn't double 2♦, and underleading a club into declarer's 5 card club would be terrible.

I would lead a diamond here.

I would also lead a diamond. If we have 4 spade tricks to cash, we might get another chance to do so later. However, it's not necessarily true to state that hearts are not breaking: sometimes declarer has a no-trumpy hand with 3-card support.

[keithhus]

I would lead a S - 4th from honour. Also NT are usually strong in minors, otherwise they would play in a major. Further, in this instance they have bid H. It may not be very imaginative, but if this approach is not the best , why are we beginners taught along these lines?

[rmnka447]

What has the auction told you? Auction doesn't yield much except ♥s are likely 5-2. Also, responder doesn't have 4 ♠s, else, Stayman would have been used. OTOH, it was an invite and accept so the opponents don't rate to hold anymore than 25-26 points.

Do some arithmetic. Your hand (5 HCP) plus 25-26 HCP for the opponents equals 30-31 for everyone but partner. So, partner rates to have 9-10 HCP.

Normally, when the opponents bid strongly to a NT game, you make an attacking lead trying to find and set up defenders' long suit tricks before declarer can set up tricks and cash 9 tricks. There are couple considerations to make. First, whose long suit? Second, are there entries to be able to cash the long suit tricks once they are set up?

Finally, when the opponents have had an invitational auction and reached game, you may want to be more passive in leading and try not to give an extra trick to the opponents.

Look at your suits. ♦ need a significant holding in partner's hand to ever be set up. Likewise, ♠ also need a lot to be set up. Additionally, if you underlead the ♠ A, you may give away a trick if declarer has something like ♠ Kxx opposite ♠ Qxx.

Since you have 2 ♥s, partner ought to have 4 ♥s. But leading dummy's long suit doesn't rate to be right. You may be helping Declarer set up that suit while an entry still exists to it.

Additionally with partner holding about 10 HCP, he's more likely to hold enough in some suit to let it be set up AND an outside entry.

One additional piece of evidence -- partner didn't double the 2 ♦ transfer for a D lead.

So, by process of elimination, you come to a potential ♣ lead. There is a danger that partner might hold ♣ Qxx and a ♣ lead gives away the suit.

I'd probably lead the ♣ 6.

[Phil]

rmnka447, on 2015-February-14, 19:47, said:

What has the auction told you? Auction doesn't yield much except ♥s are likely 5-2. Also, responder doesn't have 4 ♠s, else, Stayman would have been used. OTOH, it was an invite and accept so the opponents don't rate to hold anymore than 25-26 points.

Do some arithmetic. Your hand (5 HCP) plus 25-26 HCP for the opponents equals 30-31 for everyone but partner. So, partner rates to have 9-10 HCP.

No, the opponents rate to have 24 to 30, at least in the games I play in. This gives partner 5 to 11.

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Normally, when the opponents bid strongly to a NT game, you make an attacking lead trying to find and set up defenders' long suit tricks before declarer can set up tricks and cash 9 tricks. There are couple considerations to make. First, whose long suit? Second, are there entries to be able to cash the long suit tricks once they are set up?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If we do not have an obvious lead, or we have a strong hand over declarer, a passive lead is frequently best.

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Finally, when the opponents have had an invitational auction and reached game, you may want to be more passive in leading and try not to give an extra trick to the opponents.

Yes! Plus, we know their key suit isn't breaking evenly.

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Look at your suits. ♦ need a significant holding in partner's hand to ever be set up.

A diamond could be passive if partner has a weak holding, or it could be active if partner has some length. You did say you liked a passive lead against this auction, right?

[

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Likewise, ♠ also need a lot to be set up. Additionally, if you underlead the ♠ A, you may give away a trick if declarer has something like ♠ Kxx opposite ♠ Qxx.

Depends on the spots, but if we hit partner with ♠Qxx, we could be on our way toward setting up #5.

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Since you have 2 ♥s, partner ought to have 4 ♥s. But leading dummy's long suit doesn't rate to be right. You may be helping Declarer set up that suit while an entry still exists to it.

.

Besides, partner might have x'd 3N.

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Additionally with partner holding about 10 HCP, he's more likely to hold enough in some suit to let it be set up AND an outside entry.

OK. You've given partner four hearts already. What makes you think partner has their own suit?

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One additional piece of evidence -- partner didn't double the 2 ♦ transfer for a D lead.

.

Should partner have to nurse us by doubling with KJxx or KQxx?

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So, by process of elimination, you come to a potential ♣ lead. There is a danger that partner might hold ♣ Qxx and a ♣ lead gives away the suit.

I'd probably lead the ♣ 6.

No, by faulty logic and not following a sensible train of thought, you lead a club.

I choose a diamond, and its not really close.

[Fluffy]

Phil, on 2015-February-14, 20:19, said:

No, the opponents rate to have 24 to 30, at least in the games I play in. This gives partner 5 to 11.

Are you sure Phil, did you realice they made an invitational auction?

[Phil]

Tripped up by my own faulty chain of reasoning!

I still lead a diamond.

[runewell]

Toss up between a club or a diamond. Not leading hearts and not underleading my ace of spades without reasoning

[MrAce]

I'd lead ♦

[PhantomSac]

I am in the camp that leads a diamond on this auction, but had it been 1N 2D 2H 3N I would lead a spade

[gszes]

We are in bad shape here. P has most of our assets and they are in front of the NT opener. That
bodes ill for the defense. Maybe this is the right time to mix things up a bit and possibly convince
declarer to take more (not less) finesses into partners hand. I opt to start the proceedings with the
spade 3 and follow up with the 2 in the hopes everyone will think we have 5 spades. This can accomplish
several things:

1. Declarer might put off setting up their own spades right away if they fear they will set up a trick for us
2. If the lead is not horrible (as it was in case 1) we might actually set up our 4th spade or at the very least
we might start messing with the opps communications.
3. Declarer might misplay the hand based on faulty distributional assumptions. Assuming we start with 5 spades
they miscalculate how the other suits are split.
4. If they fear spades declarer might take more finesses into partners hand and that can hardly be a bad thing for us.
5. The misinformation is hugely unlikely to steer partner the wrong way (they will know we have little outside spades)
but declarer won't know.

Isn't this game FUN???????

[silvr bull]

I lead the CJ and hope for the best. Since no lead appeals, I can hope that dummy has CQ9x and declarer started with CKx in a 4=2=5=2. Then the CJ would be the killing opening lead. Even if partner's Cs are only Txx, he may still win the ten if Declarer plays me to have started with CJT8x and dummy has 4 Cs with an honor and the 9.

[awm]

On the actual hand, it requires a spade lead to set.

---

At the table the lead was a high diamond to the nine, ten, and jack. Declarer started the hearts, partner winning the second round. Partner returned the diamond king, smothering the queen as declarer won and played three rounds of clubs. West pushed out the diamond eight, and declarer had three diamonds, three clubs, two hearts, and a spade (defense taking a club, a heart, a diamond, and the spade ace) for making three.

A spade lead will defeat the contract of course.

No swing, as the same lead was made at the other table.

[Zelandakh]

awm, on 2015-February-22, 12:39, said:

A spade lead will defeat the contract of course.

In the Expert forum, sure. But one might expect to make considerably more than 9 times out of ten against LOLs playing a ♥ to the queen followed by 3 clubs...

[antonylee]

antonylee, on 2015-February-11, 16:10, said:

I was going to lead a spade because I'm not that imaginative here, but a quick sim (500 hands, South 16-17 with 2 hearts, North 8-9 with 5 hearts) suggests that hearts and diamonds are statistically tied as best leads, ~0.2 imp ahead of low spades or clubs.

Retracting my previous sim here, as I had failed to notice that dummy probably doesn't hold 4S. This additional condition actually puts the small spade on top of the list, ~0.1(+/-0.05 s.e.) imp ahead of diamonds and 0.05(+/-0.05) ahead of hearts over 1000 boards.
Note that I switched to "smartstacking" (for those who know Deal's terminology) and found a bug in my previous implementation, so while that's corrected, I'm not guaranteeing these results either -- at least they're consistent, in absence of the "dummy has 0-3 spades" condition the previous results still hold).

[Fluffy]

Zelandakh, on 2015-February-23, 04:00, said:

In the Expert forum, sure. But one might expect to make considerably more than 9 times out of ten against LOLs playing a ♥ to the queen followed by 3 clubs...

How are you gonna get 9 tricks this way Zel?