Junior Jaunt by Ben Norton

A: ♦10. Partner didn’t raise Spades, which he might have done with either three-card support or ♠Ax, so a Spade attack is more likely to surrender a trick than defeat the contract, especially when you have no side-suit entries. Try the top-of-a-sequence ♦10.

If you were going to lead Spades, you’d start with a small one, to unblock the suit. This was relevant on the actual hand, since partner did have ♠Ax and any lead except a Spade honor would set the game.

Your result so far:

A: ♦A. Don’t commit yourself with a lead of either of partner’s suits. Lay down the ♦A first, to get a look at dummy and plan the defense from a better informed position. It may well be that you need to go after Club ruffs, but you can do that at trick two. However, if partner has short Diamonds but not the ♣A, as was the case on the actual layout, a Club lead could surrender a crucial tempo.

Your result so far:

A: ♥6. The auction argues in favor of a major-suit lead. Dummy’s major rates to be Spades, and meanwhile, declarer has announced he has more minor-suit cards than major ones. This is enough to outweigh the better Diamond spots and point to a Heart lead, which was the killer on the real layout, partner holding ♥Axx.

Your result so far:

A: ♠5. Anything could be right, but a lead of any side-suit could easily blow a trick. A trump is safe, for even if you pick up partner’s Queen, declarer would likely have played the suit correctly himself anyway, having at least nine trumps at his disposal.

The original South player led the ♣A, hoping to give his partner a ruff or find the killing switch after seeing dummy. That gave declarer a cheap trick with the ♣K and let the game through. Anything else would work on the layout.

Your result so far:

A: ♠10. Your objective should be to set up and cash a couple of black-suit tricks before declarer can draw trumps and discard his losers on dummy’s long Hearts.

Between the black suits, Clubs have more potential, for your fit in Spades makes it unlikely you’ll be able to take more than one trick there, but by the same token, declarer will have more Clubs than Spades and may be threatening to get his Spades away immediately, which won’t be possible in Clubs. The Spade lead is therefore more pressing.

Partner will know to switch to Clubs if he wins the first trick, and if he doesn’t, you’ll probably need partner to have the ♣A anyway, and a delayed Club switch, when you get in with the ♦A, will be enough.

Unfortunately for the English South, he led the ♣K, only to see declarer win, finesse dummy’s ♥Q, and throw a Spade loser away on the ♥A. Thereafter, the defense could score only one Spade and one Diamond trick, instead of the two Spades they were owed.

Your result so far: