[Quartic]

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Playing in an individual with butler scoring, opponents are playing a simple form of 2/1. What would you assume 3 clubs means? What would you lead?

[Quantumcat]

I would assume natural - west probably has a 4144 or 4054. I don't really know what to lead, I'll let someone better than me have a go at that

[the hog]

Should show Cs in my book. I would lead a H.

[aguahombre]

Too much fun, leading a singleton vs. NT. But I think leading pard's 5-bagger might work better that declarer's 5-bagger. Spades might well be their transportation suit, also.

[Quantumcat]

The only problem with a spade though is that you're the one getting in and you won't be able to lead it anymore (if pard has the diamond stoppers, he's not likely to have a good spade suit too, that's a lot of HCP?) Also pard might have overcalled 1♠ if he had a suit worth leading. What about a diamond? Partner might have a good diamond suit and dummy has Kxxx or something but then you might just be setting up dummy's good five card suit. I would be a bit nervous leading a heart, as East could easily have a real five or six-card heart suit. But then again, it probably isn;t doing any harm (hopefully pard has the T or something so you haven't lost your double stopper) As for a club, East might have a singleton or doubleton ten or queen which might not work out so well. Can the jack of clubs ever work? Can the club suit be distributed Qxx in dummy Axx in partner and Tx in declarer? Feel free to call me an idiot if it's a stupid idea

[aguahombre]

No, you aren't an idiot. I just don't feel like helping declarer set up tricks. Not trying to get to pard. maybe declarer will do that for us.

[MrAce]

I would lead ♣

3♣ can be natural or patterning out with 3 cards.

[Codo]

To me 3 ♣ is pattering out, I would play him for a 4144 or 4054 hand too.
I would lead a club.

I play declarer for something along a 3532 with nothing in clubs. I would not play the jack, but this is sexy. At least till you find out that they hold T8xx in Dummy and Qx in the closed hand...

[phil_20686]

aguahombre, on 2012-September-05, 22:58, said:

No, you aren't an idiot. I just don't feel like helping declarer set up tricks. Not trying to get to pard. maybe declarer will do that for us.

A spade seems like a ridiculous lead to me. RHO has shown a GF hand with no club values, thus he is extremely likely to have fitting spade and diamond honours. Not only does this make it likely that he will come to nine tricks eventually and hence that we should lead aggressively, it also means that a pointed suit lead could rob partner of vital entries for leading clubs, and that it might crush partners holdings.

I would lead a club, with a heart a distant second.

[han]

phil_20686, on 2012-September-06, 02:08, said:

RHO has shown a GF hand with no club values

Could it be that RHO has 5 hearts and wanted to look for a heart fit? Or perhaps RHO had some other reason to bid fourth suit GF, a hand like xxx KQ10x AQx Axx? Or do you think that that hand should bid differently?

[helene_t]

A club lead could certainly work but I prefer a more passive lead when the breaks seem to be bad for declarer. Partner probably has 4 diamonds. I will go for a diamond.

[phil_20686]

han, on 2012-September-06, 03:15, said:

Could it be that RHO has 5 hearts and wanted to look for a heart fit? Or perhaps RHO had some other reason to bid fourth suit GF, a hand like xxx KQ10x AQx Axx? Or do you think that that hand should bid differently?

Yeah sure, he can have these hands, but there is also a pretty large fraction of hands where he will have Axx KQTx AQx xxx, in which case leading a club is likely to work better than leading a spade.

I strongly believe that its a mistake to lead passively on this auction. I would lead a club, probably the J.

[Cyberyeti]

Am I the only person that sees this as possibly "I have a club stop, but it might be better led through than up to", expecting Ax on the deck and Qxx with declarer. Even if this is the case, I'm not sure what I want to lead, it could easily be that partner has ♣xxx and just leading them twice is sufficient.

[Quartic]

At the table I assumed LHO had 4 clubs, so decided to try and find partner's suit, leading the ♠7. While this was partner's suit, the lead was not a success:

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I also messed up later in the defence too, throwing a ♥ I needed to keep, letting the contract through for an 11 imp loss. A low club lead would probably have led to down 2.

[Cyberyeti]

Quartic, on 2012-September-06, 08:47, said:

I also messed up later in the defence too, throwing a ♥ I needed to keep, letting the contract through for an 11 imp loss. A low club lead would probably have led to down 2.

Sad to say you deserve each other, partner knows you have a singleton spade presuming you don't lead small from J7/Q7/QJ7. Why have you led a stiff ? Probably because you have a heart and/or club suit you didn't want to lead. Playing a spade back is silly, club looks more promising than heart so I think he should find the switch.

Discarding the heart is also ridiculous, you just have to hope declarer doesn't have the J8 left, so he can't exit a club to you to give him 2 more hearts.