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Your Hand
♠ 7 3
♥ A 6 5 3 2
♦ A 7 6 2
♣ K 3 |
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Q: 5 - What about this 4
♥ contract?
South | West | North | East |
- | - | - | 1♥ |
Pass | 2♣ | Pass | 3♥ |
Pass | 4♥ | Pass | Pass |
Pass | | | |
A: ♦A. With such unprecedented trump length (partner rates to have a void), this hand will be awkward for declarer, but not as tricky as you think, since your trump intermediates are so poor he will likely have five trump tricks. With the ♣K poorly placed under dummy’s suit you can tell that if declarer is able to draw all your trumps he will likely make his contract with the aid of a Club finesse. So because your trumps are so bad your only chance is to promote them by forcing declarer to ruff and lose trump control.
The only suit you can do this in is Diamonds, as you’ll need to be able to force declarer with a winner when you get in with the ♥A. It could be right to lead a small Diamond if declarer has a King-Jack guess at trick one, but in many other positions it will probably give away a trick, mainly because partner won’t believe you’ve underled a side-suit Ace against a suit contract.
It’s best to clear up the position by kicking off with the Ace. This has another advantage in that you retain the lead for trick two, so if partner discourages with a low card you can switch to Spades in the hope of taking ruffs there, knowing in that case that your Diamonds aren’t good enough to start tapping declarer’s trumps.
The typical conditions in which a trump lead probably isn’t best are:
- When you need to set up your tricks (e.g. when they have a long side-suit)
- When the opponents have more than enough power for their contract (e.g. after a failed game/slam try)
- BUT if there’s a bad split for declarer in two suits then a trump lead may be fine so as to not give anything away and reduce the opponents’ ruffing potential
- When one opponent is short of trumps (then a trump lead will only help declarer)
- When you have unprecedented trump length (usually five cards), then it’s probably right to force declarer to ruff so as to make him lose trump control which will promote your trumps, therefore strive to lead your best and longest side suit in this scenario
- BUT if you have five trumps headed by a long sequence (e.g. J 10 9 8 x), then a trump lead is most likely best to stop declarer taking ruffs, since you wouldn’t gain anything by promoting your own trumps as they would naturally take tricks anyway
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