From Wellington Open Pairs Saturday 23/04/2022
Nobody likes opening leads, much less so against slams.
Board 14 Dealer E Nil Vul
Look at the garbage in South’s hand but there is gold in that garbage IF you can find it when required. East opened 1NT and West bid 2C. North doubled. This is accepted practice for showing a club suit, but usually just lead directional rather than anything much else. East bid 2D. That was not necessary as East could have passed or even redoubled, but East did bid 2D. West now bid 4C, but North was undeterred and bid 4H. East doubled. Do YOU play DOPI and ROPI? Presumably EW did, or East just liked her hearts. Now West bid 5C which was presumably asking for kings. North doubled again and after two passes (was East now confused?) West bid 6D. All passed (would YOU have doubled if you were North?) and, thanks to East having bid diamonds first, South was on lead. Would YOU have found the killing spade lead based on the inference that partner had lots of hearts and lots of clubs and was prepared to get doubled in 4H?
The club lead works if partner has the ace and can give you a ruff; the heart lead will ONLY work if partner has two heart tricks, how likely is that, especially after East’s double of 4H? It seems to me that they do think rationally in Scotland where my correspondent Norma had this to say: “Partner, being of sane mind is probably 6-6 in hearts and clubs so has a void in one of the others. A diamond void won’t help so I lead a spade. If partner has a diamond void and the ace of either hearts or clubs, it won’t run away.”
Should North have doubled 6D? Those of you who know what a Lightner Double is will know that partner can ruff a spade but...our North did NOT double because he feared the opponents would correct to 6NT and decided that partner would read the situation correctly, rather than think that the 4H bid was anything other than shape showing.
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