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A Standout Lead


Is there a standout lead?  

30 members have voted

  1. 1. You are on lead. Choose the "correct" one...

    • Spade Queen
      9
    • Heart Honor (whichever your system demands)
      20
    • Club
      0
    • Trump
      1


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I was thinking Spade at first, but after seeing Justin's post, I think a top Heart is better. For all we know, partner is something like 6214, and we need to get that ruff to set the contract.

 

Where is the fifth trick? You still need a black ace with partner.

 

And if partner has a black ace, a spade lead should beat it. The advantage of a spade is that you may get partner in with the jack of hearts when he has no ace, but overall, there are not that many hands where it makes a difference.

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I lead a top heart.

 

We might be giving up a tempo in terms of allowing opener to establish slow heart tricks, but with our diamond A and the stiff spade, that risk appears remote. We might be leading declarer's void but it is hard to see how any other lead is odds-on better, and surely hitting a void in declarer's hand is a minor risk.

 

What's the hurry for the spade, anyway? Absent a ruff at trick one, aren't we usually going to be better placed to know what to do at trick 2?

 

A good friend of mine says he has written a book on defence.

 

Chapter One is entitled: 'The Opening Lead: my secret to success'

 

Chapter Two is entitled: 'Recovering from Chapter One'

 

I think a spade is suggested in chapter one :D

 

 

(holds breath expecting to find a spade to be the only winning lead)

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I guess if the point is we will always shift to a spade at trick 2 then we should lead a spade since the upside of seeing dummy is not a real upside. It is hard to construct layouts where we would shift to a club at trick 2 so maybe a spade is better. There is probably not much in it though.
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