Choose a lead

[Siegmund]

IMPs, none vul.

 

♠ 982

♥ 972

♦ KJ43

♣ Q65

 

Your good opponents have the following auction:

 

1♣ - 1♠

2♦ - 2♠

2NT - 3NT

 

Your lead.

[mikeh]

Seems like a major suit 9 to me: oh, you want to know which one?

 

I think it to be very close, but I am opting for the spade. Ask me tomorrow and it might be the heart. I would definitely choose the heart if my minors were at all worse, and definitely the spade if we reversed my minors. As it is, I hold about 2.5 defensive tricks and so I think it isn't critical to be really aggressive here, as would a heart lead be imo.

[chasetb]

As the old saying goes - "When in doubt, lead a Club."

 

In real life, I would lead a Heart, but wouldn't be surprised if a Club is the winner.

[mikeh]

As the old saying goes - "When in doubt, lead a Club."

 

In real life, I would lead a Heart, but wouldn't be surprised if a Club is the winner.

your rho is approximately 1=3=4=5 with 17+ hcp, LHO lacks 4 in either red suit, so will often hold 2 clubs and you seriously think that a club is best?

 

A club is the one suit I am absolutely positive is not the best.

[chasetb]

your rho is approximately 1=3=4=5 with 17+ hcp, LHO lacks 4 in either red suit, so will often hold 2 clubs and you seriously think that a club is best?

 

A club is the one suit I am absolutely positive is not the best.

1.) I misread (thought it said MPs), where I can easily believe a Club keeps the damage down. Even at IMPs, enough people post hands on here where you need an outer space lead to beat it, that a Club is that outer space lead. While it probably won't happen, if when all 4 hands are posted partner has JTxx, I will post "LOLOL I am da man!" (No, I won't actually do that).

 

2.) If opponents are supposed to be good, then there are a few liberties that can be taken. LHO might only have 5 Spades, RHO could have concealed a 4-card Heart suit from 1444 or 0445 aiming for 3NT, LHO might have concealed Hearts as well. I guessed a Heart because that is the unbid suit, but I have suckered quite a few people into this lead in the past.

[monikrazy]

low diamond seems reasonable, 2d really doesn't promise all that much in the suit, perhaps the 4 instead of the 3 to provide a more deceptive count to declarer (leading from 43 doubleton for instance would be plausible)

 

somewhat risky lead but we have few safe choices, and high heart spells out a lot about position for declarer

 

edit: elaborating a little this is how I envision opener's hand

 

4-5 clubs

4 dimes

2-3 hearts (how can he bid 2n without heart stopper)

and prob 2 spades with no worse than jx

 

dime lead hopefully doesn't give much away

[wank]

heart. anything else would be very odd imo.

[gszes]

there is a very good chance declarer is short in spades and a spade lead might get us off to the best start. The problem is

 

we rate to have a couple of entries the way the bidding has progressed and can always effectively switch to a spade if

 

it looks right later on. A heart may be necessary to get the correct suit started since both opps appear to be short (<4).

 

A heart may also be a reasonable way to attack communications between the 2 hands since lho never tried to raise either

 

minor. I will go for the heart 7 and see what hits the table and how the play proceeds.

 

 

 

[the hog]

H lead. I really do not consider anythiing else.

[mikeh]

low diamond seems reasonable, 2d really doesn't promise all that much in the suit, perhaps the 4 instead of the 3 to provide a more deceptive count to declarer (leading from 43 doubleton for instance would be plausible)

 

somewhat risky lead but we have few safe choices, and high heart spells out a lot about position for declarer

 

edit: elaborating a little this is how I envision opener's hand

 

4-5 clubs

4 dimes

2-3 hearts (how can he bid 2n without heart stopper)

and prob 2 spades with no worse than jx

 

dime lead hopefully doesn't give much away

one thing your good rho won't be is 2=3=4=4. think about it.

[Siegmund]

This particular declarer was not the type to be cute with 1444. She almost certainly has 5+ clubs, 4 diamonds, and not 4 hearts.

 

At the table I felt it was a close choice between diamonds, hearts, and spades. I reluctantly chose a diamond. My logic was that, while partner's shape will be approximately 4-5-3-1, I need him to have two honours in whatever major I lead for it to turn out, while I only need one high diamond.

 

Partner was furious, of course, and loudly proclaimed how obvious an opening spade lead was.

 

I did a sim this afternoon, trying several different sets of constraints on opener and responder, and each time, a spade came out a tiny bit better than a heart, which in turn was a whole lot better than a diamond, which was better than a club. (Something like 1, 1½, 4, and 5 imps lost vs. the double-dummy best lead, on average.)

 

There are certainly good arguments against a diamond lead, but I do still have a hard time seeing why I should expect a spade to be better than a heart.

[Zelandakh]

Is it not common in NA systems to reverse into a 3 card diamond suit with a strong 1-suiter sometimes? Maybe I am mistaken but I swear I have seen this here a time or three. My first thought on seeing the problem was that we should start by finding out their reversing style in this auction along with what each of the opps has promised in the red suits.

 

FWiiW I would have led a heart. If I understood Mike's post he prefers the spade to the heart because he wants to be ultra-passive here. Siegmund's sim seems to back that up, which I must admit I find to be impressive. Siegmund, could you perhaps re-run the same sim with the minors reversed to see how that affects th relative weighting of the majors? And, if you still have time after that, perhaps tweak the OP hand to have the ♦10 instead of the ♦J to see if that makes the heart better.

[rhm]

There are certainly good arguments against a diamond lead, but I do still have a hard time seeing why I should expect a spade to be better than a heart.

Could it be that our (hypothetical) spade honors are well placed for us while heart honors are not?

For example declarer might have to relinquish control in clubs at least once and by then we might have a couple of spade and diamond tricks, but not if we start with a heart lead.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[HighLow21]

Low diamond. There are 4 of them on your right, not on your left. A spade lead seems like an easy way to let them set up their long suit and get on to the next hand (or at least fork over a tempo). If partner has a diamond honor we will be striking hard and quick.

 

A heart lead also seems poor to me. I'd be shocked if partner had 5+ of them, and you have no honors to set up there.

 

I estimate my chances of beating this hand at about 10-15%, by the way. Partner with a diamond honor seems, to me, to constitute the VAST majority of those scenarios.