World Championship Wonders by Ben Norton

A: ♣6. When the hand on your right has pre-empted it can be a good idea to lead an unsupported Ace, in order to get a look at dummy and a signal from partner before you continue. Indeed, a pre-emptor is unlikely to have much outside their long suit, so this is relatively safe.

However, here you can see three likely tricks, so it’s unlikely that you need to get busy straight off the bat, which could easily give declarer a tempo, allowing him to establish tricks in dummy. Best kick off with a safe Club. If you need to change tack, you’ll probably have time to do so later.

Your result so far:

A: ♦K. A classic case of leading the unbid suit. You have no high cards sitting over declarer’s tenaces in the majors, which indicates that an active defense is in order. The Clubs won’t offer you much help, so Diamonds it is.

Yes, this lead is dangerous, but sometimes you have to throw caution to the wind in the hope of setting the contract. The ♦K could set up a trick for partner or perhaps allow you to score a quick ruff. Declarer’s most likely shape after this auction is 4.5.3.1, so the Diamonds rate to stand up.

Your result so far:

A: ♣A. As mentioned in the first question, this is one of the occasions to lead an unsupported Ace. As before, you can see three tricks for your side, but this time dummy is completely unknown and declarer has a very distributional hand. Moreover, no lead is safe. Holding two small hearts you might try one of them, but with Q x you should prefer to see the lay of the land before committing yourself.

The ♣A could give up a trick if dummy has the King or declarer the King beneath partner’s Q J, but it’s the best of a bad bunch. A Club should be preferred to a Diamond because you have a supporting honor card in Diamonds, making it more likely that you’ll be blowing a trick if declarer has the King, for all partner need have is the ♦Q for this to be the case.

Your result so far:

A: ♥A. It’s unlikely that you have a Spade trick coming given partner’s pre-emptive raise and East’s slam bid. Lead your Ace and consider how to continue at trick two. It could be that you decide to play partner for a singleton Heart, or perhaps you could just get off lead passively with a Spade and hope partner has something in the minors.

The ♥A is unlikely to cost since West will almost certainly have the King, having promised five of them in the auction, and even if declarer has the guarded King, partner can take a ruff. Also, it may be necessary to take yourself off an endplay later, by cashing your Ace while you still have a safe exit.

East must have Diamonds controlled to justify his leap to slam, so a Diamond lead, hoping to set up a trick for partner while your ♥A is intact, would be too optimistic. The attacking Heart lead has several ways to win and very few ways to lose.

Your result so far:

A: ♥3. A side-suit lead would be a shot in the dark. Certainly, a Club doesn’t rate to do much damage even when you catch partner with strength there, for your length in the suit indicates that your winners won’t stand up.

Is there any need to be aggressive here at all? Not really. If West had bid Spades, you might be worried about them providing discards for declarer and you could make a case for an attacking Diamond lead, but with West having denied Spade length altogether it’s unlikely that you need to get your skates on, looking at your strong minor-suit holdings.

Make a safe trump lead. If partner has a Heart honor, declarer would have always finessed against him anyway.

Your result so far: