Vul:N-S Dlr: W	10  Q43  AJ5  AJ9543
653  A1097  Q1064  Q2		Q8  KJ6  K732  K876
	AKJ9742  852  98  10

West	North	East	South
Pass	1	Pass	1
Pass	2	Pass	3
All Pass

This Real Deal was dealt by Andy Stark of Toronto for Larry to analyze.

The Bidding 

North has a routine 1 opening, and East, in spite of holding 12 HCP, should pass (a takeout double shows support for the other three suits). South bids spades of course, and 1 is the only appropriate call for this strength (most play 2 as weak, but much weaker than this). East-West are passing throughout. North repeats his club suit with 2 (showing a minimum with six or more clubs). South will now repeat his spades, but how many?

Two spades would be the weakest bid, pretty much a signoff. A jump to 3 would be invitational. In modern bidding, any jump to the three level in a suit that either player bid on the one level is invitational. South doesn’t have enough to jump to game in spades. With such a good suit, let’s make the aggressive jump-invite to 3. North does have two aces, but only one spade, and not enough to accept the invitation.

The Opening Lead

We don’t lead unsupported aces (nor do we underlead them), so hearts is out. Dummy’s suit is unattractive, so the choices are a passive trump, or a more attacking diamond. I would choose a diamond. Dummy might have a source of tricks/discards with the long clubs, so we need to try to develop tricks for the defense.

The Play and Defense

In a suit contract, we plan the play by counting our losers. We might lose a trump trick (looking at all four hands, we can see that we won’t, but when we plan, we think in terms of “what if”). We could easily lose three heart tricks. With this diamond lead, we will also lose a diamond trick. We won’t lose any clubs. So, we expect to lose four red-suit tricks and maybe a spade. The next thought is, “What can we do about it?”. Here, we won’t be able to set up or use dummy’s clubs (not enough entries). We can’t trump anything dummy. However, we might be able to use the diamond suit to throw a heart. How?

Notice our 98 of diamonds.  David Lindop wrote an article in Better Bridge about this exact topic. You can often use your spot cards to take advantage of the opening lead. If West has led from honor-ten in diamonds, you could be in business. Play low from dummy, and East must win the K. You now have a finesse position against West’s Q. You could hope to lead to the J and throw a heart on dummy’s A.

There is one other part of the equation needed to make this plan work. After East takes the K, declarer has to hope the defense doesn’t find a heart switch in time. When East wins his K, he has a tough decision at trick two. Should he make the very dangerous play of leading away from his K, when looking at the Q in dummy?

If declarer has the A, this will cost a sure trick. It is a true “risk/reward” situation. The reward here would be that West has the A and the defense can collect its three heart tricks. How can East tell that South has his actual heart holding? He can’t. South could easily have been dealt: AJ98765  A32  98  10. In that case, the heart switch will be costly.

So, if East finds the heart switch, the defense takes the first four tricks and holds the contract to nine tricks, 140 (declarer can’t go wrong in spades). If East doesn’t find the heart switch, declarer can finesse in diamonds and make an overtrick for +170 and an excellent matchpoint score.

Lesson points:

1) Jumps to 3 of previously bid suits are invitational.

2) When dummy has a long side suit, lead aggressively.

3) As declarer, look carefully at the spot cards and see if you can take advantage of the opening lead.

4) Leading from a KJ, especially with the queen in dummy is a very risky and aggressive defense, but sometimes necessary.