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Taking the Right Lead.

Today’s story revolves not just around making the right opening lead but is also a story of bridge ethics, of doing the right thing at the right time. Ironically, the choice of opening lead did not matter greatly as the end result would likely be the same whatever choice was made but that need not have been so.

Under the conditions given (the opposition bidding), we gave you a rather unusual bidding sequence:

1NT was 15-17 and we told you that 2 showed both majors. Despite that, East-West ploughed on to game in 4 though encouraged by their partner’s unusual 3 bid, North bid on to 4 with East producing a red card.

If you take in all the facts above, then there can be only one card for you to lead. Logic must take precedence to guidelines about never leading a singleton trump. You have been told that South has four hearts. East must have at least three hearts to invite game. Therefore, you know North has at most one heart, very likely less, and that the declarer will want to ruff their losing hearts in dummy.

A different explanation

So, the trump lead was not hard to find. Yet, the bidding was conducted with a different explanation given to South’s 2 bid. It was alerted and explained as any single-suited hand. While West may or may not have bid 2 had they known South held both majors (I suspect not and that West might have doubled hoping their partner could handle 2 as West would relish the prospects of defending 2 doubled), they had no qualms about bidding 2 or even raising to 4 on the given explanation without worrying unduly about a bad heart break.

So, that was the situation during the bidding. South announced their "suit" as spades.

The time to tell

Based on the explanation given, the opening lead was not hard for West to find, Q. It was almost on the table before South pointed out the explanation was incorrect and explained that they held both majors. Absolutely the right time to correct the misexplanation. Had South been a defender, they would have had to keep quiet until the end of the play and perhaps suffer the consequences of the misexplanation afterwards. As declarer, they could/should correct the wrong before the opening lead was made. Indeed, that was what happened.

You might query whether South should have bid 3. West would have raised to game even without South’s bid and would have been extremely hard-pressed to come to 10 tricks even if they guessed miraculously that South’s A was singleton. Declarer will concede a second trump trick (and thus the 4th trick for the defence) the moment K is played.

In 4x, the declarer won the opening trump lead in hand (East ducking, correctly), cashed A and ruffed a heart. Then followed a diamond ruff and a second heart ruff. East ruffed the Q continuation with South over-ruffing. South’s best exit was a club but soon found they had to ruff the fourth round of the suit.

Down to two losing hearts and AQ, declarer exited a heart and managed to avoid losing to the K (West was end-played into giving South their two trump tricks) but still lost three clubs and two hearts to be two down. Ironically, there would still be five losers after Q lead even though the same end-play would not occur. Declarer will lose to the K instead of the second heart loser.

Hamilton’s Nigel Gresson could not have known that when he corrected the wrong explanation. He played the game in the right manner. As declarer (or even as dummy), you must correct a wrong explanation before the opening lead.

 North-South may have suffered a penalty and not just  the -500. Had the true explanation been known earlier and West had doubled 2, North-South had two ways of getting a very good result, an unlikely one of 2x being passed out (a very comfortable make) or of East doubling 2 for penalties, which, as we have seen, would also make.

 

Would West have bid 4 had they known South held at least four trumps? They might but a directing panel might be required to adjudicate whether the infraction (wrong explanation) had caused the damage when 4 failed.

Some unknowns but what is certain is when dummy is known to be very short in declarer’s second bid (or not bid!) suit is that a trump lead is a good idea, no matter what trump holding the defender on lead has. Oh, they are excused from leading one if they are void in trumps!

 How Good is the News?

4 shows a singleton or void club with heart support. Oh, it’s forcing to game! How great are your ambitions? Worth a cue bid? Where to from here?

Richard Solomon

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