Thursday, November 27, 2008

It's your lead...

You're East, non-vul against vul at matchpoints. You hold:

A92
QT62
J64
J43


WestNorthEastSouth

1P
2
2346
P
P
P





What's your lead?

Think about it, and I'll post the full hand tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

5 comments:

Martin said...

Assuming 3D was forcing, South's jump is a bit strange, as it precludes a grand slam. Maybe he has a shapely hand without many HCP, possibly (probably?) with a heart void.
Pard didn't double, so he probably doesn't have a diamond void. But can he have a singleton diamond with a doubleton spades? That would give South a 3-x-5-x (or 3-x-6-x), if with a heart void 3-0-5-5 or 3-0-6-4 and North with a 5-3-4-1 or 5-3-3-2. In that case a diamond lead would work. But if South has 4+ spades, which is quite likely, we have to develop our club trick now. If we have one of course. All in all I am tempted to lead a diamond, but will lead a club.

Memphis MOJO said...

Partner didn't double, so he's not void in diamonds, so he has a singleton. But he also is likely to hold a singleton trump, as well.

I would ask if they play exclusion Blackwood. If they look at me cross-eyed, and have no idea what I was talking about, I would lead a club.

I think dummy has something like this:
Kxxx
---
AQJxxx
Axx

By the way, I love this format where you don't give the "answers" right away, so I don't feel like I'm resulting you with my comments.

Noble said...

It's quite reasonable to assume a 3064 dummy for this auction (especially for the failure to use RKC/Blackwood). I would lead a diamond hoping for a first or second round ruff. A club is also reasonable.

Memphis MOJO said...

Actually, after thinking about it more, take away the ace of clubs from dummy in my example hand. With that, the villain might look for the grand. I think he's hoping for a heart lead to ruff and pull trumps and run diamonds. They could BE OFF TWO ACES!!

Noble said...

Another interesting factor is the scoring. If it were IMPs I'd be sure dummy's putting down 4 spades which would make a club standout. I think partner could be 2-1 in the pointeds here since responder could easily have only 3 spades.