Bermuda Bowl by Ben Norton

A: ♥Q. The ♥K is surely on your right, so there’s a case for making a passive opening lead and waiting for partner to get in for a Heart shift. However, partner has shown a weak hand and you may be waiting for quite a while.

Sometimes, the simplest approach is best. Knock out the ♥K and hope that either you or partner can get in before declarer has enough tricks. Your ♦K could easily be an entry. This defense will only be wrong when declarer has precisely eight tricks, which is quite specific. There's no reason to think declarer has a long, running suit.

A Heart lead was the only winner. Declarer had to work on Diamonds for his contract.

Your result so far:

A: ♠A. A low Spade is the correct card to lead from this holding against a No-trump contract, in isolation. However, that lead would be putting all of your eggs into one basket here. It could easily be that Hearts is the suit you want to attack, in which case a low Spade could blow a tempo or just give declarer his game-going trick.

You can’t be sure that the ♥K lead is right either, though. The compromise between the two is to lay down the ♠A, getting a look at dummy and a signal from partner. Having retained the lead, you can decide how to proceed from a better-informed viewpoint.

A low Spade lead would set the whole suit up on the layout. Partner had a singleton (and declarer ♠Q J 10 tripleton). However, declarer was on a Diamond guess for contract. With nine cards missing the Queen, he would scarcely finesse through you unless he had reason to, but that would be completely safe after a low Spade lead, since partner would be the safe hand. So, the ♠A followed by a Heart shift would set the hand in practice.

Your result so far:

A: ♥4. You are loath to lead from an honor around to a very strong hand, but you don’t have any alternative here! Broken four-card holdings such as this Heart suit make for very undesirable leads. However, given it’s your only long suit, you at least stand to set up some tricks by leading one. Anything else would be just as dangerous.

A Heart lead found partner with the Ace and gave nothing away. Declarer had to guess the play to make the hand and didn’t. A Spade lead would work alright, but a Club would give the suit, as would a Diamond.

Your result so far:

A: ♥5. East was just checking for a 4-4 Spade fit, but you’ve learned something along the way. West wasn’t accepting a game-invite, so declarer won’t have a surplus of resources at his disposal.

In scenarios like these, a trump lead is often called for. It’s usually a safe option, and stands to cut down on dummy’s ruffs. It’s unlikely that this will give up a trump trick as declarer’s natural line would be to finesse partner for any Heart royals if left to his own devices, by starting with the honors from the short side first.

You have the minor suits under lock and key and your ♠Q may prove problematic for declarer. There’s no reason to think you need to set up tricks on the go, so a trump lead stands out.

A Heart lead prevented declarer from ruffing a second Spade in the dummy and defeated the contract. Anything else would sacrifice a vital tempo.

Your result so far:

A: ♣A. East presumably has short Hearts but long Spades, and was expecting his partner to have a weak two in Hearts. Having caught a raise from your partner, you can see a likely path to four tricks straight off the bat. Assuming partner has the ♥A and it stands up, you have a Club, a Diamond, a Heart and a Club ruff, provided you lead the ♣A right away, before cutting the link to partner’s hand.

It could even be that partner’s entry is in Diamonds. Perhaps the sight of dummy will tell you which red suit to play at trick two? Indeed, this was the case on the actual hand. Dummy came down with the ♥A, so you knew to shift to Diamonds at trick two, playing partner for the ♦K. That secured a Club ruff to go with two Diamonds and the ♣A, for one down.

Your result so far: