Face-to-face by Ben Norton

A: ♠10. You’re clearly going to lead one of your long suits. Partner has only promised three Diamonds and declarer may well look to that suit for his tricks, so partner’s suit is out. It’s sorely tempting to try a Club from your three-card sequence, but a five-card suit should rarely be ignored. You also have a sequence in Spades, and there’s more to gain by establishing that suit. Try the ♠10, since you have the seven-spot to support your holding.

A Spade lead conserved a tempo to set the suit up while your ♥A remained as an entry. Partner had ♠K J x.

Your result so far:

A: ♠Q. West rates to have the ♠K, so although you might never score your ♠A if you lead the suit, there’s little else to lose. Any other lead would be a shot in the dark, and could blow a tempo. Just lead the ♠Q, in the hope that partner has a doubleton Spade and an entry, or that the ♦Q comes in handy. Don’t try the ♠A. That might just cut you off from your partner.

Dummy’s ♠K was needed as a late entry to the long Hearts on the actual layout, so although partner had only a singleton Spade, the ♠Q lead worked wonders. Declarer just couldn’t manage nine tricks without the Hearts.

Your result so far:

A: ♠2. You could be forgiven for leading the ♣K here, but there’s no rush to set up tricks. You have a couple of Heart stoppers and might well expect the contract to fail if declarer can be prevented from taking lots of ruffs. Dummy rates to have some shape for the raise to game, after all. Moreover, a Club lead could easily give away a trick. Try a trump.

A Spade lead prevented a Club ruff in dummy and shot the game.

Your result so far:

A: ♥7. This Heart holding is hardly attractive to lead from, especially as partner didn’t raise. You could be giving away a trick by leading into declarer’s tenace. However, nothing else appeals. A lead of any of the other suits could help declarer out, and there’s little reason to suspect partner has great length in any of them.

A Heart is your best choice. It’s not impossible that partner will hold an honor, or that the suit is splitting 7-2-2-2 around the table, in which case you may be able to set the suit up with the ♠K as an entry to cash them. Even if this lead does hit declarer’s strength, he might have been able to pick the suit up anyway, say if he had ♥K J 10 facing dummy’s A x.

A Heart lead gave nothing away, leaving declarer to tackle a Diamond suit of A Q x x x facing 9 8 x for four tricks. He naturally finessed the ♦Q into partner’s K 10 doubleton and lost his contract. A Diamond lead, the most appealing non-Heart choice, would see declarer play low from dummy. Even if partner put the ♦10 in, declarer could well read the layout later on, based on the opening lead.

Your result so far:

A: ♦4. You shouldn’t be making aggressive leads when declarer has a very strong hand, and besides, there’s no reason for it here. There are four Hearts on your right and four Spades on your left, judging from the Stayman-ask. Partner could have doubled 3♣ if he wanted a Club lead, so just lead your long suit.

If you had 10 9 7 x, you might lead the 10 as your seven would help you pick up holdings such as K J x in dummy facing A 8 x in declarer’s hand, but with no intermediates at all, you should simply lead a low Diamond to avoid blocking the suit or crashing an honor in partner’s hand.

A Diamond lead gave nothing away and left declarer with too much to do, provided you led a low one. Partner had ♦J x and declarer K Q x facing dummy’s A 8 x x, so leading the ♦10 would create a finesse position on the third round of the suit and gift declarer his ninth trick.

Your result so far: