Fork in the Road by Ben Norton

A: ♥5. It’s natural to lead the ♥10 from this holding in isolation, but the main purpose of that is to pick up such as ♥J x x in dummy when partner has Q x and declarer A x x. What would be the point of that here, with dummy known to have a singleton Heart? Lead a low one to keep your tenace intact. You may well need all of your spot-cards to deal with declarer’s double stopper.

As expected, leading the ♥10 would make it much more difficult to establish the suit. In fact, it would cost a vital tempo compared with the ♥5 lead.

Your result so far:

A: ♦7. When in doubt, lead your side-suit singleton. The conditions are ideal here; you have a control-card in trumps to gain the lead quickly, low trumps to score ruffs with, and you can expect partner to have an entry or two over there, given your own limited strength. You have five Clubs, so any slow winners in the suit are less likely to stand up. This makes the Diamond attack all the more attractive.

Partner held the ♦K Q along with the ♣A. He could thus get in later to cash a Diamond and provide a ruff.

Your result so far:

A: ♥5. The ♦K is known to be on your right, so a Diamond lead would simply give away a trick for little reward; you would be establishing at most two extra winners in the suit. You have only 8 points and can therefore hope partner will gain the lead to stick Diamonds through declarer. With any luck, you’ll score four Diamond tricks this way!

You’d prefer to lead dummy’s suit than declarer’s, especially when you have an honor in the latter. Try the ♥5, second-highest from weakness.

Partner had the ♠A and ♦10 x x. He could get in early on and ram the ♦10 through declarer’s K x x to set the hand in double-quick time. A Diamond lead would give the contract.

Your result so far:

A: ♦8. Your best hope for scoring side-suit tricks with this hand is to go looking for Diamond ruffs. In a similar vein to question two, it helps that you have a control-card in trumps, such that declarer probably cannot draw all the trumps before letting you in again.

A Diamond lead secured a third-round ruff to set the hand, but you had to lead one right away to stay ahead of the game.

Your result so far:

A: ♥6. A Club lead into West’s long suit doesn’t appeal, nor does a Diamond from K x x. No one has mentioned Spades, so partner rates to have a weak hand with at least six of those, and won’t have much help for you. Try an all-out attack in Hearts. With any luck, you may be able to establish the suit in one fell swoop, with the ♣J or the ♦K as a slow entry to the long cards. It may even be that you can run the suit straight off the bat!

Best is to lead a low Heart. It’s often desirable to lead low in suits bid by the opponents, since partner is all the more likely to have a short holding where leading an honor would either crash something in his hand or block the suit. Picture partner with ♥A x here and you will see how leading the ♥K could be costly, or indeed a singleton ♥A.

A low-Heart lead set the suit up in one go, with the bare ♥A in dummy. Declarer could not then prevent you from getting in to cash the whole suit. Had you led the more traditional ♥K, declarer could have got home.

Your result so far: