Choose Your Lead

Pages: Page 4 of 4

Dealer: West
Vuln: Game All
Scoring: IMPs
  1. spadeJ 9 8
  2. heart3
  3. diamondA Q 3 2
  4. clubK Q J 7 4
  1. spadeQ 7 6 4 2
  2. heartQ 2
  3. diamond5
  4. club9 8 5 3 2
club diamond heart spade NT
N 2 2 4 - 2
S 2 2 4 - 2
E - - - 1 -
W - - - 1 -
Green square in centre
  1. spadeA K 5 3
  2. heart8 4
  3. diamondK J 10 9 4
  4. club10 6

Contract: 6heart
Declarer: South
Lead: diamond5
  1. spade10
  2. heartA K J 10 9 7 6 5
  3. diamond8 7 6
  4. clubA
Double dummy analyser: makeable contracts
West North East South
Pass 1club 1diamond 2heart
Pass 2NT Pass 4diamond*
Pass 4spade~ Dble 5club
Pass 5heart Pass 6heart
Pass Pass Pass

* asking bid
~ showing diamondA

That's not an unreasonable thought, but if you did then I hope you took the precaution of leading the queen. A low spade lead forces partner to win and now the diamond position is impregnable. If you lead spadeQ then partner can follow with the five and you can switch to a diamond to achieve the desired result.

At the table, World Champion Sally Brock led her diamond at trick one. This immediately removed dummy's only late entry to the clubs and the slam failed.

So there you are - the straightforward way and the clever way. Which did you choose?
Previous page

This section is a placeholder for the forum. For the time being it will be a noshow class.