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Your Hand
♠ 10
♥ J 10 4 2
♦ K 9 7 4 2
♣ 9 7 3 |
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Q: 5 - What a wild set of boards this is!
It’s your lead to 6
♣X after partner opens 1
♥ and West leaps to 5NT – pick a slam…
South | West | North | East |
- | - | 1♥ | 1♠ |
3♥ | 5NT | Pass | 6♣ |
Pass | Pass | Double | Pass |
Pass | Pass | | |
A: ♦4. Your natural lead would have been a Heart, so it looks like partner wants a Diamond lead.
It’s true partner could be requesting a Spade lead, but from your hand it seems unlikely that the opponents will be able to take twelve tricks without the aid of the Spade suit at some point anyway, and partner can’t be Doubling with just the ♠A because he doesn’t know that you hold a singleton.
No, the most likely scenario is that partner has a Diamond void along with a side-suit Ace, and wants you to give him a ruff. This is in keeping with the auction, since West must have a lot of minor suit cards to justify his erratic 5NT bid.
When partner makes what you suspect to be a Lightner Double (remember, if you’re not sure if the Double is Lightner or not, consider if it’s possible for partner to have a Double based on power or not. If the answer is no, then it’s probably asking for an unusual lead), consider the following factors when choosing your lead:
- Could partner have Doubled an artificial bid for the lead? If so, don’t lead that bid suit.
- Is there an obvious/natural lead you would have made? If so, don’t lead that suit.
- Could partner have done anything differently in the auction if he wanted a certain lead?
- What makes sense on the auction? Could partner have a running suit? A tenace over dummy? A quick trick? A void?
- Look at your own hand. If you have a very long suit and partner Doubles a slam in a suit out of the blue, he’s probably void in that suit.
- If dummy has bid a suit naturally on his own, partner probably wants you to lead that suit (if dummy’s bid two suits on his own, partner probably wants you to lead the first bid one)
Essentially, when partner makes a Lightner Double, examine all the evidence from both the auction (including what bids partner could have made, and what your natural lead is if he hadn’t Doubled) and your hand. Remember the general principle though – don’t make the natural-looking lead!
Your result so far: