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Leading Questions.

Over the next two days, we will cover three leading problems, all with a uniting theme. All three occurred in the recent World Championships within the space of a few boards. The first two will be today and you will not be kept in suspense as to whether your choice was successful.

They all produced significant imp swings in New Zealand’s matches. Hopefully, for you, it will be imps in! For tomorrow’s, we will consult our Panel but for today, you are on your own!

 

East’s rebid showed a 12-14 1NT opening. West invited and East went for gold. West’s raise to 2NT denied a 4-card spade suit.

 

South’s opening was stronger than a Weak 2, showing a 6-card suit and 9-13 hcp.

3 was a transfer promising at least 5 hearts and 3 showed no interest in the heart suit.

What is your choice?

Back to our first deal. It does seem to be a choice of black suits, the one where you have some length or the one which at least one opponent has denied holding, spades.

Needless to say, the choice at both tables was different and only one was successful. Were you?

 

 

West’s 2NT looks a bit pushy though in the New Zealand v USA Seniors' match, both West players fell in love with those chunky suits and both East players had no problem accepting the invitation with a mid-range 13 count and a reasonable 5-card suit of their own.

It was USA who nabbed 12 imps when the New Zealand South chose J. This gave East time to knock-out A and then establish a club as their 9^th trick. Meanwhile, there was no such luxury when 5 was led at the other table. North ducked the first round though after South won A and continued clubs, the defence had their 5 tricks very quickly.

Leading the unbid major, especially from a holding like J105 is often a good choice though is that the case here? We are playing Teams and the prime aim is to defeat the contract. Certainly, on a really good day, North might have just the right spade cards for a successful defence while such a lead is less likely to give away the 9^th trick.

However, South knows their partner has few high card points. They might just get lucky with a club lead (they certainly did!) but they needed far less from their partner in clubs than in spades. On some days, even 4 small clubs or Kx would be sufficient. On this day, North’s club holding was ideal. The USA deserved their 12 imp swing.

On then to the second problem and it was a pair in the Canadian team who bid as indicated. As in the deal above, there was only one suit to lead to defeat the contract. Did you find it?

 

4 is indeed a horrible contract. The range for the opening bid rather forced North to bid game. Without a club hold and with no fit in either major, they chose 4.

There would have been no problem for the defence if West had been dealt a club suit headed by either the king or queen or both but the actual holding created an awkward choice.

A trump and dummy’s suit both seemed particularly unattractive. West hardly wanted a ruff holding QT8 behind declarer but they chose a diamond over a club lead. The lack of need for a ruff was one reason why West might have chosen differently. The other was that their partner had the chance for a lead-directing double of 3. Their failure to do so was not conclusive but might have further swayed West into starting off with A.

Naturally, declarer won the diamond lead and discarded a club on the second round of hearts. There was no time for West to get a diamond ruff as declarer lost a trump, regained the lead and played A and another spade to restrict his losers to 2 trumps and 1 club. Contract made.

That was 6 match-winning imps for the Canadians when the New Zealand declarer stayed wisely in part-score. 5 was a game with much better prospects of success and was bid and made in some matches. 6 imps the other way would have been very handy.

Unlucky? Possibly. One certainly cannot get every lead right. There are common threads between the above 2 deals… a successful club lead, a need to attack at trick 1. One can have plenty of egg on one’s face when an attacking lead back-fires. In both the above cases, there were differing reasons to attack…and failure to do so proved very expensive.

With those ideas fresh in your mind, you will be well ready for tomorrow’s lead problem.

Richard Solomon

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