Lead against small slam ?

[bobjan]

[hv=pc=n&s=st6ha9753dq54cqj4&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=1sp2dp2sp6nppp]133|200[/hv]

 

Last night, I played at my club social torunament with Butler scoring.

Sitting South, vul. both, I had to lead after this fast slam bidding.

What would you lead?

Do I have to tell you, that I made the only lead that let declarer make the slam?

[Free]

I'd lead a ♣ and find it pretty obvious.

[rhm]

♠Ten.

 

Your partner is probably broke, but it is still unlikely that declarer has enough tricks unless you blew up the defense on the opening lead. Of course dummy could come down with ♠KJ9xxx with declarer having ♠Ax. Then with 2 tricks each from the remaining suits gives declarer 12 tricks.

My guess is that you naively led the ♣Q. This probably blew up the ♣ suit. The bidding is suspect and some declarers will bid ♦ (Zia style), when their real suit is ♣.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[whereagles]

As Rainer.

 

Last time I led Q from QJx against a slam it was the only way for it to make :rolleyes:

[Free]

You can always lead the ♣J for free, nobody said you need to start the Q... :rolleyes:

[phil_20686]

i'd lead a club too. Also find it pretty obvious. If declarer needs spades he will have to play on them himself. If partner really is broke, and the t of clubs is badly placed, then declarer could probably have made his contract anyway. Imagine that the layout was something like:

 

AQJxx

xxx

xx

ATx

 

K

KQJx

AKJx

K9xx

 

This might be the kind of layout you fear, where a club lead gives away a twelfth trick, but its quite rare, if for example, opposition have 9S, or ten of hearts, or a sixth spade, then it will just be cold. The most common gain to leading the Q of clubs here is that you can expect partner to

to show positive attitude when he has the ten of clubs, which should make defending the almost inevitable (pseudo)squeeze a lot easier later. My instinct was to immeadeately lead a club, but after some thinking I am a lot closer to leading a spade or a heart (both pretty passive). I diamond is out of the question.

[nigel_k]

I am leading a heart, probably the 7. No great confidence about it though. Maybe declarer will make six spades, a heart, four top cards in the minors then progressive squeeze me for all 13 tricks.

[whereagles]

Are you serious? :)

[ahydra]

Don't like the idea of club lead in case it creates a finesse position. Hate a diamond lead for two reasons - 1) the suit may be frozen, 2) if 6NT is based on a long almost-running diamond suit (AKJ10xx) you've given declarer the contract on a plate.

 

So it's between a small heart, perhaps inducing a misguess if West holds the HK, or a spade through dummy's strength. I prefer the latter option - if partner's broke, we've lost nothing, and if partner has four to the K or Q he can hold them up knowing declarer is short in spades. We lose out when he holds 3 spades to the Q though (but only if the AK are split between declarer and dummy and partner doesn't hold the 9).

 

ahydra

[akhare]

6♠ for me...