What's your lead?

[Hanoi5]

You hold:

 

♠J98xx

♥AQx

♦x

♣K8xx

 

Red vs White the bidding goes:

 

Pa Pa 1♣ Pa

1♦ 1♠ 3♦ Pa

3NT Pa 4♣ Pa

4♠ X 6♦ Pa

Pa Pa

 

1♣ is 11+, 1♦ 0-8 with or without diamonds, 3♦ is an asking in diamonds, 3NT shows 2 or 3 no honour, 4♣ another asking in clubs 4♠ honour second in clubs. What do you lead?

 

Do you agree not opening a Muidenberg 2♠ with that hand?

[Free]

If I read this correctly, RHO doesn't have a ♦ honour. So I'll just lead a ♦.

 

I wouldn't open this as Muiderberg, the suit quality sucks and we have a 3 card ♥.

[gszeszycki]

partner is not void in clubs (else they X 6d for a club lead) Lho apparently was unconcerned about lack of !D honor when they asked about clubs. The one club honor reply was sufficient for LHO to bid 6 but look no further despite the fact their P could still have 4-6 hcp left.

 

My best guess is lho has a hand similar to

A x AKQJTxx AJT2

 

Lho would KNOW their p cannot have !H AK and (!C K or Q) or !HA !SKQ due to the 0-8 hcp 1d response thus they would know that 7 dia is likely to be on a finesse at best thus they stopped in 6.

 

Having come to this conclusion (in less than 10 seconds of course while we think about opening lead -yeah right)

It seems the best lead is the

 

Heart Ace

 

In case like the above failure to lead the heart A could easily give away the slam when Rho has a hand simlar to

 

Kxxx

xxxx

9x

Qxx

 

the dia 9 acts as an entry and declarer enters dummy after unblocking spade A and pitches heart loser and happily gives up 1 club trick.

 

It is virtually impossible the lead of the heart A will ever allow the slam to make when it was doomed to failure otherwise. The lead of a diamond rates to accomplish nothing since declarer cant possibly succeed that way due to partner being shorter in clubs than RHO.

[pooltuna]

♦ > A♥>>♠>>♣