Lead

[zen]

At Mps equal vul you Hold

 

Ax

AJ10xxxxx

x

xx

 

The auction goes:

RHO You LHO

1S 4H 6S

 

What do you think is the best lead?

[dake50]

Spade x. Delay critical lead decision/guess often.

[zen]

Leading the AH is pretty dangerous as it can give declarer potential discards via void/ruff. I happened to lead the singleton diamond on this hand figuring if LHO was shooting out slam, then declarer would need to have a singleton club and a singleton heart in order to make via this lead (When the ace of hearts lead would have defeated the contract). As it turned out declarer did have a singleton heart and singleton club and made.

 

What I was considering in retrospect, what about the lead of the Ace of spades on opening lead. This only hurts on hands where partner has the singleton king or the Qx of spades and takes away declarers guess, but gives the advantage of seeing dummy and knowing if cashing the heart is right.

 

What do you think is the long run winning, percentage lead of those two: Singleton diamond or spade Ace?

[MFA]

If I'm leading a minor, it will surely be clubs. An obvious way for a minor lead to win is when it establishes our second trick in that suit, before that trick potentially disappears on dummy's good side suit (the other minor).

 

But then it won't help me to lead a diamond when I can't continue the suit. :)

 

Quite an unlucky layout that the heart could get away fast. <_<