Surfing the Net - Part II by Ben Norton

A: ♣J. It’s unlikely that partner has enough strength to both set up and cash his spades. Moreover, the ♠10 lead might help declarer, perhaps relieving the need for an extra dummy entry to lead a spade up.

Try the safe ♣J. This won’t give anything away, and it may help set up tricks for your side.

On the actual deal, a club lead put the defense on the right track. Declarer had to knock out all three of South's red-suit honors to reach nine tricks by conventional play, and the defense had the tempo to establish a club trick to go with a spade, two diamonds and a heart.

Your result so far:

A: ♥6. There are two plans you could adopt. One is to look for club ruffs, which rates to be a worthwhile venture given that you have a control card in trumps, plenty of small spades to ruff with, and you can expect partner to gain the lead a couple of times.

However, there are probably only three spades in dummy, in which case a forcing defense will work, and might be much more lucrative if it turns out that partner has little outside hearts.

You intend to keep playing hearts at declarer, forcing him to ruff in the long hand and thus wresting control away from him. You will no doubt hold up your ♠A for two rounds to exhaust the dummy of spades, so declarer can’t ruff with the short trumps when you win and continue the heart tap.

The forcing defense was the winner when the deal was played, with partner having nothing more than six solid hearts. You would thus only take one club ruff if you led the ♣Q. Not enough even to set the hand.

Your result so far:

A: ♠4. No need for anything spectacular here. If you had reason to believe that the ♣A was on your left, you might try a club lead, hoping to stampede declarer into rejecting the finesse for fear you had a singleton, but such flashy plays don’t pay in the long run. It's not recommended to underlead kings in general, and especially not in an enemy suit.

A trump lead could pick up partner’s holding. A spade is the safest, and carries some potential of setting up tricks. Just get the ball in play.

The hero who chose a club lead ended up with egg on his face as that floated around to declarer’s ♣A-Q. A diamond would also let the contract through, while a major-suit opening would give declarer no chance.

Your result so far:

A: ♥9. On auctions like these, where three suits have been bid and no fit found, your opponents are often well at home in the unbid suit. Here, West’s most likely shape is 4=5=1=3 and East’s is 3=2=5=3, or 3=1=5=4.

Thus, you should scorn a club lead from your poor four-bagger, and prefer a lead of dummy’s first-bid suit instead. Partner has at least four hearts and could well have five. This lead might not set the world on fire, but it rates to be safe, leading through strength and around to weakness, and could strike gold once in a while.

A heart was very successful on the full hand, finding partner with ♥A-K-Q-8-x over dummy’s J-10-x-x-x. South got in again with the ♦K to play another heart through dummy, securing five red-suit tricks.

Your result so far:

A: ♦K. It’s usually best to lead passively against no-trump partials, as the play is rarely a race, with the strength equally distributed between the two sides. Thus, the aim is not to give away unnecessary tricks.

However, circumstances alter cases. Here, East has five hearts and you hold three small cards, indicating that declarer’s finesses will win and that he’ll have no trouble establishing his long suit. Your holding in dummy’s suit doesn’t bode well for the defense either.

You therefore have reason to believe that declarer will come to seven tricks if left to his own devices, and you should go on the offensive. You’d lead a club or a heart if East had opened 1NT, but on this informative sequence, go all out with a top diamond, hoping to set up tricks.

A pointed-suit lead was needed to beat the contract, finding partner with ♦J-x-x-x, both rounded-suit aces and ♠Q-10-x. The hand was a matter of tempo and you had to establish your three diamonds and two spade tricks before both of partner’s aces were knocked out. A rounded-suit lead would concede an overtrick.

Your result so far: