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BOLDNESS PAYS.

It does not always. You make an attacking lead and immediately, you know that it is an absolute disaster. Sit there and wait to score your honours and you will be rewarded. Sometimes. The trick is to know when to wait and when to be aggressive.

 

5 showed two key cards and the Q. A swiftly bid slam. Your chance for a good lead.

Not a very scientifically bid slam. One presumes that two aces/key cards are not missing as otherwise, North would not have used Key Card. They should anticipate a 5 response and therefore find another way of investigating slam. “Should” is an important word. Do you trust your opponents?

Yet, they have stopped in small slam with, from your point of view, just one king missing. Although there is no guarantee, it would seem your partner has an ace or maybe the K. North did not look for grand slam.

Assuming that North has some source of tricks, it could well be a time to take your tricks early or not all. A passive red suit might not give a trick away but is not that likely to create two tricks. There seems no great benefit in trying dummy’s first bid suit. That may well be the great source of tricks. Had partner AQ, they could have doubled the slam asking for an unusual lead which is often dummy’s first bid suit. They did not do that.

All routes lead to...

All of which brings our attention back to the club suit. If partner does hold the A, then that is certainly the suit to attack. Often, leading away from a king against 6 of a suit neither gains nor loses where the slam is cold. It can create immediate pressure on declarer where, say dummy has AQ…or it can be vital in a not so uncommon situation as the following

:

North would have known from the 2 response that slam was close, maybe even cold. Asking for aces/key cards when you are missing AK of one suit is not ideal. As you can see, on a different day, a diamond lead might have worked had South’s AK been the K and A.

On this day, it was the club lead which was declarer’s “Achilles Heel”. Even though South could draw two rounds of trumps, discard dummy’s J on the fourth round of diamonds, and ruff a club in dummy, while West followed in some frustration, there were still two black suit losers, with declarer stuck in dummy.

The slam makes easily on any lead except a club. “Lucky” you might say but West judged correctly it was time to attack and the best suit to attack was the one in which West held an honour.

When Dummy is strong

Another time when attacking could be right is when dummy is known to be the stronger of the two hands, especially after the declaring hand opens weakly at the two or three levels. You might risk a little egg on your face on some occasions but you can be well rewarded. The Pairs game is so much about overtricks…and restricting them!

A spade seems safe and unspectacular, as would be the case. However, there was potential this time from doing the unthinkable, underleading an ace. West started with the Q!

 

The odds were fairly against South holding the K and so it proved. With only one trick to lose in each black suit, you might say that declarer had little to lose in putting up the K at trick 1, as forlorn a hope that might be. Psychologically, declarers play low in such a situation. After all, who leads away from an ace?!

There was no problem in making 10 tricks in diamonds on this deal except where West led the Q. Risky, but less of a risk than you might imagine after a minor suit pre-empt on your right.

The Q lead restricted South to 9 tricks and a poor Pairs result.

Interestingly, North was both right and wrong to pass 3. In theory, 3NT played by North cannot be made with both a heart lead (definitely) and a club lead (possibly) beating the 9 -trick game. However, after the normal “attacking” lead of 10, North is a very strong favourite to make at least nine tricks.

As you can see, “attacking” leads are not always winning leads! As East,would you lead a nice passive heart?

 

3 is a value raise, around 10/11 hcp

You are playing Pairs. Are you inclined to bid as East? If so, what?

Maybe Wednesday will bring better weather. It will bring the answer.

Richard Solomon

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