St Valentine’s Day Massacre
What do you lead against a NoTrump contract with a semi-solid suit such as AKJ10x? Well have a look at board 13 (lucky for some) from 14th February, where I was on lead to 2NT.
If the contract is 3NT, a case can be made for the ♥J being a sensible lead. If partner can get the lead and return a heart, that’s 5 almost certain tricks for the defence, and if he can’t get the lead, there may well only be 4 tricks for the defence whatever you lead. Defending against 2NT is not so simple, you may well need to make all 5 heart tricks plus another to defeat the contract.
I kicked off with the ♥A, and partner played a (presumably) discouraging ♥2. I decided that declarer probably held the guarded ♥Q, and that the best chance for the defence was to switch to a minor suit hoping to find partner with an entry to lead back a heart through declarer.
I switched to ♣8 but declarer won the trick (nice try, but no cigar)! Declarer had little choice but to lead out spades as it happens, and I regained the lead with the ♠Q. This time I tried a diamond, and struck gold when partner won the trick. Unfortunately we weren’t on the same wavelength, and he returned a club rather than a heart. Declarer ended up going just one down, for a top.
Click on the "Show All Hands" button to reveal the awful truth. As the cards lie, the ♥Q would have dropped if I'd simply lead out the hearts from the top! The defence could very easily take the first ten tricks if declarer throws a diamond as the hearts are lead out.
There is a lesson here for pairs who take their bridge seriously: discuss this sort of situation beforehand and agree how you want to play it. I’ve seen several alternatives mentioned in various "Bridge Tips" books, here’s one.
The lead of the Ace at NoTrumps from a long suit is a request for partner to unblock an honour (if he has one), otherwise to signal count (high for an even number of cards, low for an odd number).
This would have worked perfectly on this occasion. Partner sees the ♥A lead, and correctly interprets that I’m interested in leading out hearts. He has no honour to unblock so he signals count with the ♥2, a low card, showing an odd number of hearts. I can now work out that declarer must have an even number of hearts. I hope he just has two, if he also has the ♥Q (and if he has four, he has a stopper whatever I do). So I just lead hearts out from the top and am delighted to see the queen drop on the second round.
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