Opening Lead Problem

Opening leads are one of the most challenging parts of the game, and are one of the areas that I most enjoy.  It is also the area where computer programs that play bridge have the most difficulty.  There usually is just not enough information to make clear-cut decisions.  That is the situation that I faced in the following hand.

Playing at the Friday afternoon open duplicate game at Honors Bridge Club in New York City on January 27 this year, I encountered the following opening lead problem.  John Kranyak on my right opened the bidding with 1§, Melanie Tucker on my left responded 1©, and Kranyak rebid 1NT ending the auction.  My partner and I passed throughout.  What would you lead with: ªKJ5  ©K763  ¨AQ6  §1072?  I was playing with Justine Cushing, who is a highly advanced student of the game.

Melanie Tucker plays the same pretty standard convention card with multiple partners.  She would typically respond in a major suit with less than opening values, before showing a diamond suit.  Her selection as a partner today was Kranyak, one of the most successful US Junior players.  As you select your opening lead keep in mind that Kranyak likes to become the declarer at NoTrump contracts, and as young players sometimes are, he can be devious in his bidding. 

There is the Walsh school of bidding, where the 1NT rebid would be made on all balanced minimum hands, even ones holding 4 spades.  While you would not expect Melanie Tucker to bypass a biddable spade suit, you would not be surprised if Kranyak indeed has 4 spades on this auction.

Looking at your individual suits, no lead is appealing.  There are no good suits to attack, and it is hard to find any lead that confidently will be passive.  Any lead could easily cost a trick in that suit.  If partner could have overcalled, that would have helped.  But it seems likely that the opponents have around 20-23 high card points, so partner probably has around 4-7 points, which would preclude her from bidding most suits, even if she held a good suit.  A spade lead could be good if partner has good spades, but the lack of an overcall makes that less likely.  And a spade lead could easily cost a trick if partner has no spade honor.  Partner figures to have 2 or 3 hearts, 3 being slightly more likely, which makes that lead less desirable.  Leading a diamond could be successful, as partner could have 4+ diamonds, but leading the ace looking for partner could cost vital timing for the defense or give declarer an undeserved diamond trick if partner holds something like J9xx.  The lead of the diamond ace was my second choice of an opening lead.  Clubs does offer the advantage of not leading from a high card, but could easily finesse partner out of an honor in that suit, if your ten has some important supporting value.  A club lead could also make it easy for declarer to pick up the club suit, when he might have limited entries and has to guess what suits to attack. 

After due consideration, I guessed to attack in hearts.  I hoped that partner held some key cards in hearts behind the dummy.  At least declarer rated to be short in hearts, so it was less likely that he was dealt many honors in hearts.  And, in an attempt to help protect partner's spot cards in hearts, and also in an attempt to suggest to partner shift to a different suit when she gained the lead, I chose to lead the 7 of hearts.

And, my lead led to a spectacular swindle.  This was the entire hand:

Kranyak decided to duck the lead to his ace.  He apparently hoped that East would play a high card, but since Justine saw the 7, she had no reason to rise with her 9.  Kranyak won the ace and led the diamond Jack.  I took the ace, and continued with the heart 6, Justine beating dummy's 8 with her 9.  Justine shifted to the spade 8, and I won the jack.  I now continued with the heart 3, and after thinking, Kranyak feeling certain that Justine held the King and Jack, just called for a low heart from dummy - Justine winning the jack.  Justine continued with the spade 10, Kranyak winning the ace.  He now finessed my queen of diamonds and ended up with 6 tricks - 1 spade, 1 heart, 3 diamonds and 1 club.  In the meantime, the defense took 7 tricks - 3 hearts, 2 spades, 1 diamond and 1 club.

Declarer did not do anything bad in the declarer play.  If he had looked at my convention card, he would have seen that I normally lead second best from 4 low cards.  So, he could have known that my opening lead was not systemic.  If it was systemic, I would have held the 9763.  (Note that Justine did lead her second highest spade when she did shift to spades).   So, after my partner showed up with the heart 9, his only considerations was if it was more likely that I led from K763 or J763.  I think that he just felt that I led from 763 (top of nothing), and was expecting all the heart honors to be offside.  After I led the third heart, when he stopped thinking he just called for a low heart from dummy with a disgusted sound in his voice.  I think he would have thought longer in a major tournament, but here in a club game to save time he just went with what felt inevitable.

We were the only East-West pair to get a plus score on this board.  All the other pairs made 8 or 9 tricks, either in NoTrump or in Diamonds. We found the only defense to beat the contract.

I don't care for the choice of the opening bid.  I was young once and tried to mislead the opponents occasionally by opening my weaker minor suit.  But I have found that to be a partnership-damaging strategy - it is occasionally spectacularly successful, but more often either leads to the wrong contract or the wrong defense. I think it is disrespectful of partner to take so much control at the opening bid.  Here the club opening bid made it impossible to reach a diamond part score.

I think the main point of this hand is the thought process behind the opening lead.  By leading the 7 of hearts, I accomplished two things:  I hoped to win tricks with partner's heart cards, and I wanted partner to attack in other suits when she gained the lead.  The choice of the 7 was also crucial.  Partner afterwards commented that she was going to reach for the 9 of hearts, but when she saw my 7, she knew she didn't have to play the 9.