Leading after a Splinter by Ben Norton

A: ♣6. To be looking for a slam opposite a simple raise to 2♠, East must have a very good hand. Therefore it wouldn’t be safe to lead either red suit around into declarer’s strength, nor would it be a good idea to kick off with your singleton trump, which will pick up a good holding in partner’s hand too often.

A Club lead away from the King is almost completely safe. East has shown either a singleton or void in Clubs, thus you won’t be presenting declarer with a trick with his stray honor. The worst that could happen is that declarer has a singleton Queen and the Ace is in dummy, in which case he probably won’t run the lead to his hand anyway, or that the Ace and Queen are both in dummy and declarer has a void, presenting him with an immediate extra trick if he sticks the Queen in. Both situations are unlikely.

Your result so far:

A: ♠3. Your opponents most likely have a 4-4 Spade fit, so a trump lead from x x x x rates to be effective anyway, but here the case for a trump is even stronger when you consider that declarer will probably be looking to ruff Diamonds in dummy. You control the Diamond suit with the Ace (unless dummy is void), so you can continue shortening declarer’s ruffing potential when you get on lead with that card.

Your result so far:

A: ♣4. This is a decision between the minor suits. A Spade lead from J x x x could be very dangerous if declarer has a top honor in the suit and a trump from Q 10 x is not under consideration. Your natural choice is the ♦10, because you have a minor sequence in Diamonds, but if you listen to the bidding you can tell that East has a Diamond honor (it’s unlikely to be shortness here). Therefore a Diamond lead doesn’t carry a great deal of offensive potential. You’d need partner to have at least two honors for a Diamond lead to do any good, but then you’d probably still need to get back on lead to play through dummy’s holding, and you don’t have a quick entry.

You need to lead aggressively when your opponents have made failed slam tries, suggesting they have more than enough strength to make their contract, which applies in this scenario since East-West have taken a short trip on the cue-bidding roundabout. Here by missing out the cheapest cue-bid of 4♣, East has denied a Club control. Therefore you will probably be able to set up more tricks in Clubs than in Diamonds, mainly because partner’s values will be in the right place, over dummy rather than under declarer.

Your result so far:

A: ♦2. With such vulnerable holdings in the rounded suits, it’s between a trump and a Diamond. The tell-tale sign is your holding in Hearts: K J x under the bidder is not what you want to pick up. It means that any Heart finesse declarer takes will win, and even if he is short in the suit he’ll be able to ruff down your honors. Your trump holding is not a good omen either, because you have longer trumps than your partner but you only have low cards, making it unlikely that your side will get a trump trick.

Thus if you lead passively, which a trump lead essentially is, declarer won’t have many problems scoring up his game bonus with the favourable layouts in the major suits. You must lead aggressively, and Diamonds is the only suit you can really hope to establish tricks in. Dummy is probably 4.5.3.1 so you can hope to score some tricks there. You could lead the ♦J, which will gain when partner has something like A Q 10 (x) over dummy’s K x x because you stay on lead, but this can hardly be necessary because you have the ♣A as an entry. It’s better to lead a low Diamond and not confuse partner.

Your result so far:

A: ♦K. Without partner’s lead-directing Double you would probably have gone for a small Heart, hoping to set up some tricks in the suit when partner has a high honor there. However, partner has told you what to lead and you have no reason not to trust him. He is indicating that a Diamond lead is safe, not that it has any offensive potential, because it can’t, given that dummy has shortness in the suit. From the looks of your hand it seems likely that partner has the ♦A and nothing else, so he Doubled to prevent you from making a damaging lead in one of the other suits.

Therefore you’re going to opt for a Diamond lead, but hold your horses. A low Diamond could give away a trick. Imagine if declarer has something like ♦Q J x, then declarer would be able to take a ruffing finesse through your King later on, giving him another trick out of nowhere. It’s safer to lead the ♦K. Declarer won’t be able to take a ruffing finesse through partner’s ♦A, plus at trick two you can get off lead by continuing with a Diamond if necessary, which declarer won’t be able to afford to run to his hand, looking at your high cards in the other suits.

When one of your opponents has made a Splinter bid, it often makes it easier to visualise their hand (plus in some cases, their partner's hand) and come up with a defensive plan. It indicates where the opponents’ strength is and can help you to determine which leads are safe and which aren't, or which leads could set up tricks and which couldn’t.

Your result so far: