Camrose Challenge by Ben Norton

A: ♠2. You could try for ruffs by leading one of your doubletons, probably a Diamond, although an all-out attack with a Club wouldn’t be ridiculous, requiring less from partner. However, partner doesn’t rate to have a great deal and is unlikely to have a quick entry.

Your best bet is to attack dummy’s ruffing potential. Given your strength in Hearts, declarer could be aiming to ruff that suit in dummy. You expect to get in a couple of times and can play trumps on each occasion, so you can follow up on your lead later in the play. Also, a trump lead won’t give a trick away. It could be that the contract is going down on normal defense. Don’t be a hero.

Your result so far:

A: ♣4. A Diamond is very unlikely to stand up after this auction and there’s a big danger that West is bidding on the strength of a source of tricks in Hearts. You should lead a Club, hoping to cash two tricks there or at least set one up to cash when partner gets in. A Diamond lead could well put you one step behind.

Your result so far:

A: ♦6. No. It looks like partner opened light in third chair. In that case, partner probably doesn’t have six Spades, else he would have opened a pre-empt. At any rate, declarer likely has the Spades sewn up.

You have enough in terms of high cards to expect that you can establish and cash your own suit. Try a Diamond, the sneak attack.

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. Partner must be broke, so the order of the day is to give nothing away. A Spade lead would only serve to give declarer a trick. Kick off with a top Diamond so you can see the dummy and decide how to get off lead. If it turns out that a Spade switch is needed, you’ll have time to do so at trick two.

Your result so far:

A: ♥A. West must have a lot of distribution to prefer 5♦ to the No-trump game. He must be at least 5-5, perhaps 6-5. You can see two tricks, but you can’t be sure where the third is coming from. It would be too committal to kick off with a Club, which could permit declarer to throw away dummy’s losing Hearts. Besides, given your length in Clubs, that rates to be dummy’s shorter rounded suit.

You should kick off with an Ace, specifically the ♥A. Counter-intuitively, this is the safest lead. It could be that you need to cash two Heart tricks on the go, or perhaps just taking your Ace will be good enough because partner has a slow trump trick. If dummy turns up with 6.1.5.1 shape, you could then try a Club in case partner has the ♣A. Or, if partner signals for a Spade, you could play Ace and another Spade to give him a ruff.

It’s hard to see how this flexible ♥A lead could go wrong. It’s very unlikely that dummy has a Heart void, given that the suit was never bid and you only hold three of them. You can hardly expect a slow Club trick to stand up on this auction either, even if partner has the requisite strength there.

Your result so far: