[AL78]

A novice friend of mine had a bad evening and I looked at her bad scores. This hand stood out as being a nightmare to defend with.

The opponents were playing some version of Acol, weak NT.

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She didn't know what to do with a balanced 19 count over the opening bid, so bid 2NT thinking that showed a stronger hand than overcalling 1NT (I have since explained how to show a hand like this after RHO opens, and how a lot of people play a jump to 2NT).

They ended up letting it through. Apparently on the last five tricks, South cashed her last diamond stop and then played a club to declarer's ace, allowing him to take the remaining tricks. Aside from that, the question is if you are defending 3NT with this hand, how would you go about planning the defence, knowing partner is marked with a bust and you will be leading out of your strength frequently?

[AL78]

I meant to add its matchpoints.

[morecharac]

AL78, on 2021-February-19, 12:34, said:

Aside from that, the question is if you are defending 3NT with this hand, how would you go about planning the defence, knowing partner is marked with a bust and you will be leading out of your strength frequently?

Hoping for partner to have long clubs, I'm going to lead the 5 and try to drive out club honours the next two times I'm in, finally playing the 6 to partner's winner.

Beyond that, I've got nothing.

[mikeh]

If east has denied a weak 1N, then I’d place her with something like 1=4=5=3 or so. Of course, any attempt to visualize opener’s hand is very tentative at this point. LHO has to have something for 3S. I assume that LHO could have bid 2S initially with 6 decent spades and 6-8 hcp.

So I lead the spade Ace, in the hopes of catching a stiff honour in declarer’s hand and/or a useful 10 or, on a good day, Jack, in partner’s.

Also, cashing the Ace lets us look at dummy, which might help. Finally, even if declarer has Kx, I’ll be able to lead low at trick 2, setting up my Q. No way does declarer hold 3 spades on this auction

[AL78]

This was the full deal:

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Playing on the black suits seems to work best. Club leads don't give declarer anything he can't get himself, and partner does have four clubs with you so you can set up two club tricks, which is enough to take it off. A spade lead sort of works as well, although if you lead the ace, when declarer plays the ten, you have to guess whether it is a singleton or does he have JT doubleton. If you get it right you can set up one extra spade trick, and there may be opportunity later in the play to endplay dummy.