[manudude03]

Scoring: IMP

---

P-1C-1S-2H
2S-4H-4S-4NT
P-5H-P-7H
P-P-7S-P
P-7NT-AP


As it was, I was caught sleeping and went down anyway on a non-optimum lead. However, only 1 suit will beat it if played properly.

[kayin801]

No real idea, but lead trumps against grands? Probably need to lead something to break communications, but I don't know which minor it is :/

[effervesce]

IRL I'd have led a lazy spade, but since this is a problem - they probably have 6 heart tricks, 1 spade trick, 3 diamond tricks, 2 club tricks since clubs onside - so we may have to break up a minor-suit squeeze by leading a club.

[JavaBean]

It's pretty hard for leading a club to break up a minor-suit squeeze. Dummy has the club threat for sure, and declarer has the diamond threat on the auction (dummy can't easily have four diamonds). So even if you remove dummy's club entry on the lead, declarer will have entries both ways in diamonds, and he can pitch clubs from dummy while he cashes major-suit winners. In the unlikely event that all the diamond winners are in declarer's hand, dummy is likely to have the ace of spades as an entry after cashing hearts.

More plausible is a double squeeze around spades, which will be broken up only by a spade lead; presuming on the auction that partner's spades are any good at all, this won't blow a spade trick. If, unlikely as it may seem, partner guards diamonds as well and declarer still has 12 tricks (AKQx opposite stiff, or Axx opposite Kxx with seven heart tricks), declarer has a compound squeeze available and again a spade is the only way to break it up.

In real life, though, I lead a lazy heart. Partner's gutsy 7♠ save at these colors suggests he may have some stuff outside spades (how else can he expect to take eight tricks?), in which case they won't have enough tricks unless I blow some suit or other, and the singleton heart is the one card guaranteed never to give away a trick in its own suit. It's the "only one suit will beat it" clue that makes me realize that (a) a spade might be necessary, and (b) think harder about how unlikely it is that a spade will cost a trick.

I like your lazy leads better than mine.

[gszeszycki]

given the bidding there seemed to be only 1 kind of hand where 7n has a decent chance of making where the lead makes any difference. something like

void--------Ax
KQJx-------Axxxxx
xx----------AKQx
AQJTxxx---x

here it seems the only way to prevent our hand from being squeezed is to start with a low club --This eliminates the delayed club finesse after the run of the hearts (and spade ace) squeezes us in the minors forcing us to hold 6 cards in the form of Kx clubs and J9xx dia.

[manudude03]

gsze, the hand you gave is impossible (5H response to RKC).

Anyway, I seem to have misplaced the hand record, but it was something along the lines of:

---

Yes, 7S is 7 down with perfect defence. In 7NT, it requires a diamond lead to beat it. I will edit the actual hand if I happen to come across it again.

[lmilne]

For a second there, I thought your partner had bid 1S, 4S, 7S all by himself vul against not! Then I realised it was only partial insanity instead of total.

Interesting play hand - is this like a non-simultaneous double squeeze or something...

[aguahombre]

If I don't have an ace to lead, forget it.

[lmilne]

Partner probably has two high cards for an unfav overcall, and it's not that surprising (after looking at the hand ) that they are K♠ and a diamond card, most likely the queen. Still, diamond could still cost. Wouldn't lose any sleep over this one.