[lamford]

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2H showed four hearts, and could still have four spades if 4-4-(3 2). 3C was natural. Opponents are a strong young pair, one of whom is coach to a national team. It is the 98th board of a 98-board team event, and your team is in contention for the event. Your lead?

If you know the hand or the other one earlier, then still comment if you feel you can without aftertiming.

[ewj]

Crikey, is something funny going on here? Or were opps genuinely interested in grand. I don't really want to lead a club, that might be a trick for us if partner has qxx. A diamond or a spade....RHO probably has a doubleton diamond, spade might work out badly, only if RHO has 4 of them though. Diamond could be a joke if it's the end of the hand but is declarer really going to take any finesse into us? Stick me down for a spade...

[ahydra]

Sounds like East is bidding on a ton of values. I'm gonna go passive with a club and hope that we score two tricks somewhere.

ahydra

[mikeh]

I'm leading a heart. Jxxx is one of the worst leads in bridge: it picks off way too many holdings. Qxxx may cost one trick, but it is unlikely it blows the entire suit.....dummy would need to have 3 cards in the suit to do that and he has both minors, at least ostensibly. Partner might cooperate and have a useful holding....I had a partner do that once.

A club just seems wrong since the odds are that any two way hook for the Queen will appear to be naturally through me, given that if there is club length in only one hand, it is in dummy.

The diamond is tempting, since it may mislead declarer as to the J and the break, but it is too committal for me, so a heart it is, even tho I am not all that happy with it: it seems the least of a set of bad choices.

[cherdano]

I probably agree with 9 out of 10 posts by Mikeh on opening leads. Well, since I am posting, this is the 10th.
I don't agree that a heart is safer than a spade here. There are many ways a spade lead could be safe. No opponent has 4 spades and partner has no honour; partner has the T; partner has the Q, ...
Meanwhile, we need quite a bit of help from partner to make a heart lead safe. And while it's true that a heart lead will often give a declarer a 3rd trick in the suit but not the 4th, maybe that is all he needs after setting up dummy's diamonds.

[mikeh]

cherdano, on 2014-February-10, 17:27, said:

I probably agree with 9 out of 10 posts by Mikeh on opening leads. Well, since I am posting, this is the 10th.
I don't agree that a heart is safer than a spade here. There are many ways a spade lead could be safe. No opponent has 4 spades and partner has no honour; partner has the T; partner has the Q, ...
Meanwhile, we need quite a bit of help from partner to make a heart lead safe. And while it's true that a heart lead will often give a declarer a 3rd trick in the suit but not the 4th, maybe that is all he needs after setting up dummy's diamonds.

Is it that clear that declarer isn't 4=4=2=3 or 4=4=3=2? I saw the OP as at least implying that this was possible.

[phil_20686]

I will lead a heart. Looks like the right time to be aggressive and build a trick. Rho is probably at least (54) in the minors.

[Trinidad]

mikeh, on 2014-February-10, 12:56, said:

Jxxx is one of the worst leads in bridge

You have J98x. That makes a significant difference.

No lead is safe.

Partner will have 2-5 spades, giving the opponents 4-7 spades. The opponents probably have the AK and likely the queen, giving them 2(1)-5(4) non picture cards in spades. I would estimate the probability that partner holds the ♠10 at around 50%.

So, in those cases, a spade lead is safe.

In addition, it is not unlikely that the spade suit split 3-3 or 3-2 between the opponents with them holding the AKQ, in which case the spade lead is safe too.

In short, put me down for the ♠3.

Rik

[cherdano]

mikeh, on 2014-February-10, 23:00, said:

Is it that clear that declarer isn't 4=4=2=3 or 4=4=3=2? I saw the OP as at least implying that this was possible.

I agree - my post was meant to list a number of possible layouts that make a spade lead safe.

[lamford]

Lots of interesting comments here, and I agree that no lead is safe. Well, no sane lead anyway. My partner led a spade and declarer claimed, having QTxx AKxx 98x Kx opposite AKx Tx AKxx AQJx. On any lead other than a spade no squeeze operates because you are discarding after the major menaces. Declarer's most likely shapes are 4-4-3-2, 4-4-2-3 or 3-4-3-3. With four diamonds he would have supported diamonds over 3C, as it is quite likely the 4-4 fit would produce an extra trick. Leading the queen of diamonds fails, because declarer extracts partner's exit cards and ducks a diamond to him in the ending. A heart works because partner has J98, so declarer still only has two heart tricks. If it were to blow a trick that would be declarer's 12th. A club works as partner does not have Qxx, and this was the choice of one or two other members of the same team. Personally, I think the stand-out lead is the small diamond from Qx, also successful here as declarer gets squeezed first on the fourth club. When I did 48 simulations using the known facts, it never cost double dummy and beat the contract whenever it could be beaten.