There is no such thing as the correct lead from a particular holding. For instance if you had a suit like KQJ92 would you ever think of leading any other card but the KING? This deal comes from the archives and I reported it about 40 years ago, but bidding has advanced considerably since then and we may bid differently these days. How, I don’t know. But then, so many years ago, we bid as much by instinct and the seat of our pants rather than science. At the time, we bid to a 3NT contract which gave the opponents enough information to defeat the contract, but they failed to listen. Let me tell you the story as I remember it.
Dealer W All Vul
I was East and picked up my usual assortment. West opened 1C and I bid 1H. West now bid 2S, which was a jump shift which we played as a game force. I made the weakest possible bid, 2NT. Now West bid 3D, and I really had no option but to rebid my hearts, at least that would say I had five of them, and, knowing that my partner was maybe trying to elicit three card spade support I thought 3H was the best description of my very limited hand. West shrugged and bid 3NT, closing the auction, to my relief. South gave the matter some thought, but obviously not enough. Deciding that there was little future in hearts, he led the jack of spades. After winning the first trick and testing the diamonds I played on clubs to set up three club tricks after losing to the king, and made my 3NT. When we came to the scoring it transpired that our team mate sitting South had made the decision to lead the king of hearts. Their declarer had immediately played on clubs, losing to North’s king. A heart came back to South but, sadly, South was only able to take the queen, jack, and nine. Nine tricks and a flat board. But we learnt a lot from that deal. For one thing, that the most important thing when defending in a teams match is to defeat the contract if at all possible. Was the king of hearts lead going to help do that? Even if North had the ace, it was sure to be doubleton and the suit would be blocked. We agreed that the only thing that could go wrong with the TWO of hearts lead on this deal would be that it would give away an overtrick. Would I recommend that sort of thinking at match point play? Definitely not, unless your detective work is as good as Sherlock’s or Deep Finesse’s.
Q87
53
JT65
K643