[P_Marlowe]

SteveMoe, on 2012-August-07, 10:20, said:

<snip>

I led the ♠6 hoping to find partner's length and avoid giving declarer an unwanted trick in ♥ the strategy paifd off handsomely this time. Judging from the responses here, playing with the field seems common.

I wonder if this is simply luck with a touch of resulting or if there is indeed a good strategy that says when majors are indicated and partner is weak or equal, lead the shorter major (or, avoid giving away a positional trick)?

What are your thoughts??
<snip>

Having written the post, I realized, that the post is more suitable for another forum, ... but ...

What do you know about deal, at the time you have to decide on the lead?

Depening on your overcall style, partner wont have a reasonable 5 card major, what ever reasonable
means, he could have overcalled 1H / 1S, but he did not, some may even overcall a strong 4 card
major. So the best, you can expect is hitting a reasonable 4 card suit, heavily depend on partnership
agreement / style.

Partners spade holding is quite good, by may not have made the cut for a 4 card overcall.

Further you know, that declarr will have no 4 card major either, he will have a bal. hand, his
honors distribute across his suits, so you go the risk, that you lead into declarers tenances,
removing a possible guess for declarer.

Of course this is also a problem for the heart lead, it is likely, that declarer will have the Ace
of hearts, he may have gone slower with a Qxx heart holding, ... or not.

When deciding between suit, one question to answer is, what support do you need from p, and is there
a chance, that he can give you the support?
If you attack hearts, you need the Queen, if he does not have the Queen, the lead may not give anything
away, if he is short, say you find opener with 109xx - they will always have 2 tricks.
If you attack spades, you need at least 2 spade honors with p, counting the 10 as honor, take your pick,
what is more likely, to decide, you need to know, what got ruled out, by partners decision to pass over
1C.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[ColdCrayon]

MrAce, on 2012-July-29, 05:02, said:

This is what i love about this game. It always amazes me how two people (for example you and me) can listen to the same auction and expect totally two different things about what declarer holds.

Except when you're right and I'm wrong and I'm your partner. I was thinking of an auction that goes 1m-1M-3N, which would be a trick taking hand with a long suit. When responder jumps to 3NT, it's a balanced 15-17, as they teach in bidding 101 of course.