[gprentice]

In a 2NT contract and plenty of entries to each hand, how do you play the diamonds here
Dummy diamonds 10, 6, 4
Declarer K J 8 5.

Do you lead the ten from dummy towards declarer or do you lead low towards the jack - and for what reason?
In general, how do you determine when to lead high from dummy towards declarer.

Thanks

[smerriman]

The fact you have the 8 makes the best line of play a little tricky - it depends on how many tricks you need in the suit, since it may be right to lead to the 8 on the first or second round.

But regardless of that, it can never be right to lead the ten here. Suppose East has a singleton or doubleton queen. The ten will become a winner after the first couple of rounds; leading it early just throws away that trick for no benefit.

Most of the time leading high is based on if you're short on entries and need to stay there if it's ducked, though there are other combinations where it's right by itself. But generally, only lead high if you're happy when it's covered.

[gprentice]

Thanks. I played this on Bridge Baron and it made ten tricks and I only made nine - but it had a helpful continuation of a diamond by west. Bridge Baron lead the ten on the first round of diamonds. West sitting over declarer had A 2 and east had Q,9,7,3.

It seems that to lose only one trick in diamonds you have to lead low towards the eight on the second round of diamonds (or the first I guess) - but dummy has AK clubs and they get used up getting back to dummy for the third round of diamonds, so if the eight wins on the second round of diamonds do you gamble and finesse the queen on the third round of diamonds - a smart west might hold up the queen on the second round, hoping to make some club tricks after dummy entries are gone.

Amazingly Bridge Baron varies it's defense for no obvious reason, maybe some marginal variation on the thinking time perhaps.

I couldn't see how to upload an image from my PC so here's a link
https://drive.google...iew?usp=sharing