[AL78]

Opponents playing Acol weak NT:

---

Your lead?

[DavidKok]

A small diamond. I've done worse things before and clearly haven't learned from them.

On the auction a small club might be good, if we're lucky we can give partner a ruff (for example if the clubs are 4-5-1-3 around the table with us having the four).

[TMorris]

I might lead a club, alternatively Ace of hearts to look at dummy and be able to make a more informed lead at trick two

[AL78]

I decided to lead the heart ace to get a look at dummy. Unfortunately that eliminated the possibility of declarer getting the hearts wrong as partner held ♥J52.

---

After that start I only took the two red aces which was yet another joint bottom. Three others held it to 10 tricks after leading a black suit and one pair was in 3NT+1.

I had a potentially awkward defence problem during the play. Declarer had drawn trumps and cashed three rounds of clubs then lead the ♦2. Do I take my ace or duck? I flew up with my ace, but on similar layouts I wonder if ducking is the better play hoping partner has the jack or queen. At the time I had to make the decision I knew declarer was 1543 and I couldn't come up with a diamond holding where ducking would work better, yet could think of layouts where it would blow a trick, but on another hand I can imagine hitting air with the ace will lose.

[mikeh]

AL78, on 2023-January-06, 11:40, said:

I decided to lead the heart ace to get a look at dummy. Unfortunately that eliminated the possibility of declarer getting the hearts wrong as partner held ♥J52.

---

After that start I only took the two red aces which was yet another joint bottom. Three others held it to 10 tricks after leading a black suit and one pair was in 3NT+1.

I had a potentially awkward defence problem during the play. Declarer had drawn trumps and cashed three rounds of clubs then lead the ♦2. Do I take my ace or duck? I flew up with my ace, but on similar layouts I wonder if ducking is the better play hoping partner has the jack or queen. At the time I had to make the decision I knew declarer was 1543 and I couldn't come up with a diamond holding where ducking would work better, yet could think of layouts where it would blow a trick, but on another hand I can imagine hitting air with the ace will lose.

Declarer won’t have the KJ of diamonds. With those cards, he’d lead towards the KJ, giving himself a chance if he guesses well or if your partner held AQ. Btw, a good player with KJ would infer that you held the diamond ace, rather than the queen, due to the lead.

Similarly, he won’t have the KQ, giving your partner the Jack, since it would be silly to lead low from, say, KQx(x), losing to the Jack.

Finally, if he has, say, QJx(x) and you duck, now he runs the Q through you next time for a ruffing finesse.

You need to THINK about possible holdings and then ask….how would a non-beginner play the suit with each imagined holding. Don’t worry…once you start doing that, it becomes easier and easier

If you watch first rate defenders and wonder how they (usually) get these things right, it’s due in part to this ‘reverse engineering’ of declarer’s hand. The worse the declarer, the less reliable this is, and I do know that you play with and against non-experts, but even non-experts won’t usually make completely bizarre plays.

[thepossum]

Small club? EDIT my reasoning - it seems the safest
Now to read the thread