Golden Ticket by Ben Norton

A: ♠K. Your trump holding is likely to be worth a trick, so there’s little purpose to leading your singleton, which could expose partner's holding. A Club would be unnecessarily risky and is unlikely to gain a great deal thanks to your length there. A top Spade is best.

Your result so far:

A: ♠2. It’s normally a bad idea to lead a trump against a small slam, since an attacking defense may be needed. However, here you have unattractive holdings to lead from in the side-suits. What’s more, you can’t expect partner to have much of use, and your own high cards could well produce two tricks.

Dummy may be short in one of the rounded-suits to justify his leap to slam, in which case a trump lead will be just what the doctor ordered. Partner can hardly have a Diamond void. After all, he didn’t make a Lightner Double.

Your result so far:

A: ♥7. Where will declarer get his tricks from? Not Spades, Diamonds or Hearts. Unless dummy has long, running Clubs there’s no particular rush, so you should scorn the dangerous Diamond lead in favor of a Heart. After all, you know declarer doesn’t have Heart length, else he’d have made a Negative Double. You can’t say the same about Diamonds though.

Your result so far:

A: ♥7. It’s best to lead passively against 1NT, since the play is rarely a race. Thus Spades and Diamonds are out, but despite the difference in spot-card strength, a Heart is superior to a Club. East has denied four Hearts, but he almost certainly has Club length, having failed to raise his partner.

Lead the ♥7 to make things clear for partner. He'll certainly interpret this as a high card, denying interest in the suit.

Your result so far:

A: ♠A. You have two options. Either you try to cash a Spade trick now or you lead a Heart, playing partner for a singleton, such that you can give him a ruff when you get in with the ♦A. How likely is it that a Spade is standing up? Not too likely, given that West took the push to slam, indicating extra shape.

By the same token, it could be that partner has only one trump, in which case a Heart lead won’t work. You could argue that a Heart is a mark-time approach, that you could get a look at dummy and decide whether to try a top Spade after you get in with the ♦A, but there’s a big downside to this.

You have weak Hearts, so isn’t it possible that declarer has two quick winners in the suit, on which he could pitch dummy’s Spade if West has 1.1.6.5 shape or the like? Don’t take the risk.

Your result so far: