Lead what opponents expect of you

[cloa513]

S: ♠ AKQxxx ♥Ax ♦xx ♣ xxx

W: ♠ xx ♥ xx ♦ KJxxxx ♣ KQJ

N: ♠ xx ♥ KQ109x ♦ Ax ♣ Axxx

E: ♠ xxx ♥ Jxxx ♦ Qxx ♣ xxx

 

Dealer: South

Vul: N-S

Bidding

S: 1♠, W: 2♦, N: 2 ♥, E: Pass, S: 3♠, W: Pass, N: 4♦ (Cue), E: Double, S: 4♥, N: 4 NT (Blackwood), S showing they have all aces... N: 5 NT (Grand Slam force)... S showing the queen. N: 7 ♠

 

BTW Tried Full Hand but it rejected my entries.

 

In play, W lead the K♣, and South guessed to finess the 10 hearts to make the contract.

 

I know that south's play was pretty extreme but West should have read the bidding that a N-S needed to bring run home on the hearts (if they weren't solid then that's the only chance and any sign of distribution would be a bad idea. Given East double of 4 ♦ then he should have known that East had the queen and a somewhat misleading lead of the ♦K would have been a good idea. Let South guess what to do with hearts.

 

What do you think?

[Pict]

Yours is an interesting argument in general, but I'm not sure that the King of clubs lead gives away that much information here.

 

It looks to me that playing as declarer did gains when diamonds are 6-3 and may break even or slightly better when diamonds are 5-4 (versus playing for the drop).

[cloa513]

The declarer read that as club length suggesting of ♣KQ maybe longer. Why would you want to draw attention to that. West could have had ♦KQxxxxx ♣K/Q/J/x

♥Jxxx ♠xx and ♦K leadwould suggest something like that. But there is something to be said for leading what expected of you when the contract is at high level and opponents have given lots of information (assuming you don't think they are lying)