NORTH
; A K Q 7
k K 9 7
l J 8 7 6 3
' 5
WEST EAST
; 9 ; 10 8 3 2
k Q 3 2 k A 10 6 4
l 9 l 4 2
' A K Q J 10 8 4 3 ' 9 6 2
SOUTH
; J 6 5 4
k J 8 5
l A K Q 10 5
' 7
Vulnerable: North-South
Dealer: East
The bidding:
South West North East
Pass
1 l 5 ' 5 l All pass
Opening Lead: Spade nine
The most melancholy of human reflections, perhaps, is that, on the whole, it is a question whether the benevolence of mankind does most good or harm.
-- Walter Bagehot
As East, any thoughts you might have today of sacrificing in six clubs should be allayed by your ace, and by the fact that your partner need not have a pure preemptive hand opposite a passed partner.
Declarer wins West's singleton spade nine lead in dummy and draws two rounds of trumps as your partner discards the club ace. Then come the rest of the spades, West parting with three more clubs. Declarer exits with a club next, your partner winning and shifting to the heart two, on which declarer plays the nine from dummy. How should you defend?
Declarer is known to have three hearts and at least one of the queen or jack. If declarer holds the heart queen, he will likely guess the suit no matter what you do, so assume South has jack-third.
If so, in rising with the heart ace, you would endplay yourself at the next trick, while inserting the heart 10 would see declarer win and lead a heart back to the seven. No, the only defense is to duck completely! That defeats the contract on this layout.
Note that if declarer had queen-third and you were to insert the 10, South should get the suit right on the next round. First, partner might have bid something else with eight solid clubs and an outside ace, and second, you could have played either honor from a J-10 sequence. The Principle of Restricted Choice would thus apply, meaning that a suit headed by a holding of A-10 or A-J is twice as likely as J-10.
And yes, leading a top club at trick one would have made the defense easy.
LEAD WITH THE ACES
South holds:
; 8 7 5
k Q 9 4 3
l Q J
' K J 9 5
South West North East
1 NT
All pass
ANSWER: Lead the spade eight. Your approach may depend on personal philosophy. I feel the play is rarely a race against one no-trump, so I tend to choose relatively passive leads unless I have a five-card suit or a four-card suit with a decent sequence. This approach might cost a tempo, but it will rarely cost a trick to lead from low cards. Please do not lead an unreadable MUD spade seven from a three-card suit. Second from four small is acceptable.
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