Make a Plan by Ben Norton

A: ♠8. Given that West has driven to a slam with no encouragement from his partner, he’s very likely to have a Heart void, thus a top Heart lead will do nothing but give away a potentially vital tempo. Even if a Heart is standing up, you need to find a second trick from somewhere. That somewhere could be Diamonds, but it’s far too dangerous to lead away from your Q x. Instead you should kick off with a Spade. East most likely doesn’t have a Spade control because he didn’t cue-bid 4♠, so you may promote partner’s King, for him to cash when he gets in later.

Your result so far:

A: ♣A. A Heart lead is going to be ineffective. Partner didn’t take the chance to Double 2♥ for the lead so he won’t have an honor there. You can see that you might gain the lead twice more, once with the ♣A and again with the ♦K, but still that won’t be enough to set up and cash the Hearts. You do best to attack one of the black suits, and you need less from partner in Clubs than in Spades. Thus you should try the ♣A lead. You might be able to cash five quick tricks, which will be necessary when the ♦A is on your left, or you could be promoting some long Club tricks for partner to cash if he gets on lead with a Spade later on.

Your result so far:

A: ♣6. It’s easy to see where three tricks will be coming from this time. Partner most likely has a Heart entry, so you can lead your singleton, win the ♠A on the first round of trumps and lead to partner to receive your ruff. Any other lead risks letting declarer draw trumps before you can take a ruff.

Your result so far:

A: ♦K. It could be right to lead the ♣K, but that would be far too committal. It’s not often wrong to lead from an Ace-King in order to get a look at dummy, and on this hand you can’t really plan ahead without obtaining more information. By tabling the ♦K you will get a signal from partner while you still have a chance to change your line of defense.

Your result so far:

A: ♣A. You can see what’s likely to be three defensive tricks in your own hand, and the fourth trump could well be promoted into the setting trick. It would be a mistake to lead your singleton, since if partner has the ♠A you’re beating this anyway, and you can always play a Spade later on in that case.

Your best plan is to establish your long trump by forcing declarer to ruff, and the best suit to achieve this in is Clubs. That old adage ‘trump length, lead strength’ is based on the strong premise that when you have long (and strong) trumps it’s normally a good idea to wrestle trump control from declarer by forcing him to ruff, or ‘tapping’ his hand. Thus the ♣A is a stand-out lead. You plan to continue Clubs at every opportunity, unless it becomes apparent to turn your attention elsewhere.

Your result so far: