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For Junior, Intermediate and Novice players…and others! It’s Fri    day!

A Leading Problem.

Have you ever had no idea what to lead to a slam? Every week? The opponents have given you little information…and your partner has been silent throughout ! A reader gave me today’s problem from recent play asking how the Panel would approach it. Well, what about you?

 

2NT showed 12-14. 4 was Gerber and 4 2 aces.

There’s no safe sequence from which to lead, just enough honours in all three side-suits to make all leads possible winners…or disastrous losers! So, Leon ignores them all and chooses the lead others referred to as their second choice:

Leon Meier “2: It would be pretty different against an expert level auction as you'd normally have a better idea of their hands. What we can infer from this auction is South has good quality, long clubs or else they wouldn't have bid Gerber and instead have taken it slower.

However, the question you should ask when on lead with no clear lead available is whether this is an active or passive defensive situation? If the opponent looks like they're going to draw trumps and take a finesse then you want to be passive, not solve a finesse for them. If they're going to instead draw trumps and run a long side suit to discard, then you need to get tricks as quickly as possible before they discard them.

Finally, if it looks like they'll cross ruff you want to lead a trump. On this hand it doesn't look like declarer or dummy is likely to have a suit that will run to discard anything and since we have 7 hcp, our partner won't have many so setting up tricks seems hard. Therefore I'd lead a club and not give away any other suit.”

Others see our holding in one particular suit as a definite negative and go trick- hunting.

Michael Ware “low heart: Very difficult! My diamond holding (diamonds might run for discards) suggest making an aggressive lead, so I am going to lead a heart without confidence at all. My second choice is a trump - just go passive and hope they don’t have enough tricks / misguess. On a very good day, this stops a vital ruff in dummy, but this seems very unlikely.”

Michael Cornell “low heart: I actually like trying to find decent leads but on an auction like this we have no clues. It is unclear whether we should be passive or aggressive.
However, I hate my Qx  under the 1 opener so I am going to go the aggressive way.
I have a strong preference for the heart lead which will be good when partner has either the ace or the queen. The spade is only good when partner holds the king.
I think it is unlikely the lead could be fatal (the 12th trick ) but anything is possible here.”

Here's another reason not to lead a spade:

Andy Braithwaite “low heart: Small heart because

1. I need to be aggressive with this poor diamond holding.

2. Partner did not double 4 to suggest a holding such as KJ to help me- so now a spade lead is unwise.”

Bruce Anderson “3: risky, obviously, as it could give a trick away, but South may be bidding the slam on solid clubs and a partial diamond fit, with, say Qx  hoping his side is not off two quick tricks. Alternatively,  we could make a heart and trump trick on a heart lead.

My lead against a sound opponent and second choice would be the 2.”

Let’s leap to the defence of poor South. There is a place in our game for the speculative “tell them very little” slam. It presents problems like the one we have here and is often the successful approach. More of that shortly. Firstly, though, to the spade suit:

Nigel Kearney “6: I want to make an attacking lead. Declarer will want to draw trumps and discard losers on dummy's diamonds. My diamond holding suggests that approach will work.

So, I want to establish the setting trick and hope one of us gets in to cash it. If I lead a spade, I need partner to have the king, while a heart only needs partner to have the queen. However a spade is safer. It will not cost a trick if partner has the jack, but a heart may do. Also, having one fewer spade makes it a bit less likely declarer will be short in the suit, so more likely our hypothetical setting trick will cash.”

Remember, we hold Q10: hence Nigel’s comments about J.

We have seen arguments put forward for three suits with no-one, understandably, being confident about their choice. Such is the difficulty of a somewhat “blind” opening lead.

Before you look at the actual hands, consider what we know about the North hand, a weak no-trump type where they have opened perhaps the lower of 2 x4-card suits. Diamonds does not have to be the threat our Panel suggested.

It would be interesting what South would do after a low heart lead. It is possible only Leon Meier’s trump lead would have survived trick 1 for the defence:

 

All those in 6 made their contract. There were no diamond leads. It would still be possible for South to go wrong after a trump, or even a heart lead by playing two top spades and ruffing the third round. Q would not appear. However, 5 rounds of trumps would put a lot of pressure on West’s discards.

There are 2 further interesting points. Firstly, just because North opened 1, does not mean that that suit is a major problem for the defence. No Panellist even suggested that Q lead might be the winner. Against a lower-level contract, such a lead can mislead declarer as to where J is if declarer cannot see it. Why not here?

 
the unexpected! You never know!

Secondly, North might have pulled 6 to 6NT. Not only playing Pairs does a making 6NT score better but if there was a dangerous lead, like the diamond, it may be a safer place to play. Their partner must surely have long strong clubs to bid the way they have. Of course, the same spade finesse will be required in that contract, too.

Back, though, to the opening lead. We can see how difficult, how random, such leads can be. The Panel came up with sound reasons for their varying choices….but not the winning lead!

Richard Solomon

It was not part of this discussion that some choose to open 1 with all balanced hands outside their 1NT opening range. As was evident, that was not the case with this North-South pair.  

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