Terrific Teams by Ben Norton

A: ♣8. Declarer has announced strength in Hearts, making it unattractive to underlead your King. The ♥AQ could be on your right for all you know. It would be random and dangerous to lead the ♠A, and it rarely pays to lead trumps when your opponents have a fit and lots of power. Try a Club lead.

Your result so far:

A: ♣2. You could argue in favor of passivity when declarer has announced a huge hand, but you don’t have any completely safe leads available here.

Your best passive shot would be a Heart, but declarer rates to have length there, since he’s likely to have a doubleton Spade, having not converted to 4♠. That means a Heart lead could simply be doing his work for him, in effect giving him an extra entry to dummy to pick up partner’s Heart honors. What’s more, partner didn’t double 3♥, so there would be little offensive potential in that choice.

Your empty Spade holding suggests declarer will be able to establish them in double-quick time, and given that no lead is truly passive, you had best go on the offensive. A Club attack is dangerous, but the potential reward is much greater. Thanks to the power of your ♣9, it may be enough to find partner with only one Club honor, perhaps the ♣J, to establish two tricks there.

Your result so far:

A: ♥A. There’s a good chance that declarer has nine tricks ready to run, or that he will do soon, especially looking at your ♦K, dangling in front of dummy’s long suit. You should start an all-out attack to try and cash five tricks on the go, or to just establish the setting trick and hope you gain the lead.

You could try a Club, but declarer was forewarned about the Clubs by your opening bid, and rates to have them well-guarded. A Spade lead needs too much from partner, so Hearts it is. As little as ♥Kxxxx opposite will probably be enough, and declarer might not have a Heart guard for his bid. The best lead is the ♥A, which may unblock the suit, and allows you to retain the lead should a switch prove urgent.

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. You would like to get partner on lead to receive a Club ruff. Your best chance of this is to find him with short Diamonds and develop a defensive cross-ruff of sorts. Try the ♦A, intending to follow up with the ♦2 as a suit preference signal for Clubs. If the sight of dummy suggests this defense isn’t likely to work, you can try to force an entry to partner’s hand in Hearts.

Your result so far:

A: ♣3. Don’t try anything here. Just lead partner’s suit. It’s dollars to donuts that at most one round of the suit will stand up, but a red-suit lead could easily give up a trick. Who knows what everyone’s got, so just put the ball into play. This might be booked to go down on normal defense. Be sure to give count in partner’s unsupported suit, leading small from three-low.

Your result so far: