[pclayton]

2nd Session of the NAOP - District Final. You and ur pard are tied for the lead after the 1st session.

Against Joe Kivel / Chris Larsen you pick up: ♠K982, ♥QT83, ♦102, ♣852.

Pard opens 1♦, Kivel overcalls 1♠. You pass (I don't want to hear the arguments for a negative double, thank you). 1N on left by Chris and Kivel closes out the bidding with 2♠.

What is your opening lead?

[mike777]

pclayton, on Dec 18 2005, 11:18 PM, said:

2nd Session of the NAOP - District Final. You and ur pard are tied for the lead after the 1st session.

Against Joe Kivel / Chris Larsen you pick up: ♠K982, ♥QT83, ♦102, ♣852.

Pard opens 1♦, Kivel overcalls 1♠. You pass (I don't want to hear the arguments for a negative double, thank you). 1N on left by Chris and Kivel closes out the bidding with 2♠.

What is your opening lead?

Congrats on your lead in a very tough field. Win baby!
Ten of D

Agree no neg x.

Must admit no second choice of lead popped up for me. Congrats to those who found a winning one.

[akhare]

pclayton, on Dec 18 2005, 11:18 PM, said:

2nd Session of the NAOP - District Final. You and ur pard are tied for the lead after the 1st session.

Against Joe Kivel / Chris Larsen you pick up: ♠K982, ♥QT83, ♦102, ♣852.

Pard opens 1♦, Kivel overcalls 1♠. You pass (I don't want to hear the arguments for a negative double, thank you). 1N on left by Chris and Kivel closes out the bidding with 2♠.

What is your opening lead?

T♦ for me -- trump clearly seems wrong; see no need to lead ♥ and ♣ seem pointless....

Atul

[inquiry]

Partner is short in ♠'s and not overly long in diamonds. Partner didn't make a "takeout" double of 1Nt or bid 2♣ with a minor two suiter. I would think partner has:
  1♠ (east six, me four, 1NT bidder 2... )
  5♦ - depends upon if he opens 1♦ or 1♣ with 4-4, but if he was 1-4-4-4 i think he would double 1NT anyway.
  3♣ - if partner was 5♦=5♣ or even 5♦=4♣ he is likely to have bid 2♣ over 1NT. Of course with ugly clubs, he would pass 1NT
  4♥... he has 9 cards in other suits.

Ok, couple issues here. Partner could have six diamonds, and he could have four weak clubs, and partner might have 2 ♠s. In anycase, I am not leading a diamond, with four trumps I have no desire to ruff (yes trump promotion with ♠98is possible if we attack diamonds). I want to to force EAST to ruff, not me. Partner either has four hearts or good hearts and weak clubs. I attack with a ♥ (here ♥8).

[mike777]

inquiry, on Dec 19 2005, 01:35 AM, said:

Partner is short in ♠'s and not overly long in diamonds. Partner didn't make a "takeout" double of 1Nt or bid 2♣ with a minor two suiter. I would think partner has:
  1♠ (east six, me four, 1NT bidder 2... )
  5♦ - depends upon if he opens 1♦ or 1♣ with 4-4, but if he was 1-4-4-4 i think he would double 1NT anyway.
  3♣ - if partner was 5♦=5♣ or even 5♦=4♣ he is likely to have bid 2♣ over 1NT. Of course with ugly clubs, he would pass 1NT
  4♥... he has 9 cards in other suits.

Ok, couple issues here. Partner could have six diamonds, and he could have four weak clubs, and partner might have 2 ♠s. In anycase, I am not leading a diamond, with four trumps I have no desire to ruff (yes trump promotion with ♠98is possible if we attack diamonds). I want to to force EAST to ruff, not me. Partner either has four hearts or good hearts and weak clubs. I attack with a ♥ (here ♥8).

ya I thought of tapping in hearts on this bidding, the problem is Rosenberg's advice of not leading from Queens at suit contracts, overruled it for me. Congrats to those that thought deep at the table under pressure.

[awm]

♦T for me. I could see any lead working out, or not working out. However, I expect that partner has diamonds behind dummy's diamonds, and there are only a small number of times I will get to lead through dummy. I do not expect some huge running suit.. and the scoring is matchpoints. There's no obvious need for an attacking lead.

Ben's analysis seems strange to me. Why would opener double 1NT with a minimum opening bid, opposite a partner who has basically denied holding four hearts (well, unless he holds a real dog of a hand as we do here)? Why can't 1NT bidder hold a singleton spade (certainly I would bid 1NT with most hands including about 8-11 hcp and a diamond stopper, including many 1(345) shapes)? Certainly a heart lead could be right (or wrong) independent of this reasoning of course.

[inquiry]

A couple of points. Passing one spade doesn't deny 4♥'s, it denies values to bid on (which is why i also agree with no negative double). Partner doesn't have to have a minimum, but probably has close to one. We have five hcp and lho has about 8 (give or take a few), that leaves 27 between RHO and partner. RHO with six spades. There is no reason partner can't have 14 or 15 or 16 points, but just no bid. This is matchpoints, so I assume partner will not want to let them reside in 1NT with a distributional hand.

Surley any lead could work out well or badly. But clubs look bad because of no club bid, and to me, hearts look better because of my holding in this suit, and because of no club bid.

[joker_gib]

awm, on Dec 19 2005, 07:51 AM, said:

♦T for me. I could see any lead working out, or not working out. However, I expect that partner has diamonds behind dummy's diamonds, and there are only a small number of times I will get to lead through dummy. I do not expect some huge running suit.. and the scoring is matchpoints. There's no obvious need for an attacking lead.

I agree with Adam but since this lead will be popular, I suppose this is not the good one

Alain

[P_Marlowe]

Hi

Ten of Diamond, trying to start a
forcing defence - fighting for trump
controll, it is a long way, but what
else?

Neg. Double would not have crossed my
mind, if feeling enterprising, try 1NT, at least
you will be playing the hand yourself, but Pass
seems the boring normal action.

Marlowe

[whereagles]

I lead a heart. It is very likely pard has at least one of A, K or J and the lead might force out declarer in the long run.

[Fluffy]

I lead ♥8, not inmediatelly because I woudl hesitate a bit about the convenience of leading ♥2 instead.

[hrothgar]

10 of Diamonds...

I agree with Ben's comments that we want declarer ruffing in hand. With this said, we know that the Diamond lead is through strength. The Heart lead looks like it could easily blow a trick.

[whereagles]

Fluffy, on Dec 19 2005, 11:46 AM, said:

I lead ♥8, not inmediatelly because I woudl hesitate a bit about the convenience of leading ♥2 instead.

Actually, the heart TEN might be better, a surronding play, just in case the suit breaks something like

---

[ArcLight]

A while back Fred commented that in a part score forcing declarer (with long trumps) was not always the winning stretegy. Declarer needs 8 tricks, and is happy to score his small trumps as ruffs.

If decalrer has the AQJTxx of Spades (non unreasonable since he rebid his unsupported suit), he can take all but one of your Spades.

I can see the argument for Hearts, but I will lead the 10 of diamonds. Finesse through dummy

[bridge2k]

I choose heart lead. It may be not too late to attack ♦ later on.

[pclayton]

OK, I'll present this like a bridge movie:

I led the ♥8. At the time, I thought we could force declarer in hearts (fallacy), but there are considerations about setting up our side tricks too.

Scoring: MP

---

1. 8♥, 2, KING, 4
2. 9♥, J, Q, ACE
3. 3♠, 6, Q, 2

Note: You could win here, but it seemed at the time I'd rather find out a little more about the hand before I won the spade.

4. K♣, 8, 2, 6
5. ♣, 5, Q, ACE
6. ♥, ruffed, 3, 5
7. A♠, 8, 3, 3♦
8. Q♠, KING, 4♣, 5♦. The position is now:

Scoring: MP

---

Now what?

[awm]

Declarer's shape must be 6-2-3-2. With more clubs, declarer's club plays are a bit crazy (risking a ruff) and partner's hold-up for one round wouldn't make sense if declarer had three clubs.

If declarer has Axx or Kxx in diamonds, he's due to score one diamond trick no matter what. Even if we force declarer to ruff a heart, he can cash a trump pitching a diamond, and lead a diamond to the queen. He's out of trumps but the dummy has a club stop. If declarer has Jxx in diamonds, then leading a diamond now will get us three tricks (two diamonds plus a ruff) whereas any other play will get only two (diamond to the queen and partner will be forced to either give a club trick or lead diamonds from hand allowing declarer's jack to score). If declarer has AJx or KJx in diamonds, he will always score two diamond tricks (or a diamond and a club). The only interesting diamond holding besides Jxx seems to be AJ9 precisely. With this holding a lead of the diamond ten costs a trick, since declarer will cover in dummy and score three diamond tricks, when he was entitled to only two.

So I believe the ♦2 is the best double-dummy play. But if declarer really has ♦AJ9, then partner opened on x Kxx Kxxxx Axxx. For me this is not an opening bid... and declarer would also have 15 hcp and might have rebid 3♠. So I will lead the ♦T, because I think this is more likely to clarify the position for partner and help him make the right play.

[Fluffy]

I would lazylly play ♥10

[Al_U_Card]

Often, the overcaller has stuff in pard's suit. Being a minor suit opening, I feel that pard has 4 ♥ cards and am very tempted to lead a low H. Will they be ruffing anything? Likely H in the long hand, so this forcing defense is likely right.

[pclayton]

I think its hands like this that separate the good players from the great players......

If you really think about pard's hand, you know he's 1=3=5=4 and has turned up with ♠x, ♥K7x, ♦???xx, ♣ATxx. We don't open this pattern with a 10 count, so pard has at least 4 HCP in ♦'s. I also tend not to place him with ♦AKJxx, or possibly ♦AKxxx, since a decent 14 or 15 count is enough to make a TOx of 1N.

Kivel's bidding is likely the same whether he holds a 11 count or a 15 count, although the latter might qualify for a 3♠ rebid holding: ♠AQJTxx, ♥Jx, ♦Axx, ♣Kx.

Lets look at some of the different possible diamond holdings and how we should defend:

A.

---

We need to get our diamond ruff, since pard will be endplayed upon winning the ♦K.

B.

---

It doesn't matter how we defend; we can exit with the heart now. Pard can win the diamond in the endgame and play a diamond and we are OK.

C.

---

We must exit the heart here. The correct defense is for pard to win the ♦ and play a small diamond.

D.

---

We can exit the ♦10 here which takes pard off the endplay. Alternatively, we can stick in the ♦10 when Kivel leads the ♦ out of his hand.

E.

---

The defense is stuck with best play by declarer. If I exit the ♦10, pard will be endplayed after ♦Q, duck. I can't afford to rise with the ♦10 in the endgame for the same reasons. And if Kivel ducks the lead to pard, he's endplayed.

--------------------

In total, exiting the diamond 10 gets the most tricks with A, B, D and E. Going passive (and not inserting the ♦10 when declarer leads a small one from hand) gets the most in C and E.

I went passive. Brian actually held "D". He was a little steamed, but I don't think he realized how subtle this problem was at the time.