Try Something Else!

[OliverC]

I end up saying this quite frequently when Opps have freely and emphatically bid to a 3NT contract over Partner's suit overcall and they woodenly lead 4th highest from KJ87x or similar and are surprised when their lead gives 1 or 2 tricks away and allows the contract to make. The following hand was a case in point. Suppose you are East against Precision Opps, looking at the following hand at Love All:


  7
  A1042
  KQJ95
  Q75


Bidding
West        North        East       South
No            1 ⁽¹⁾        No          1
1           1NT            No          2
No            3NT            All Pass

⁽¹⁾ Nebulous Precision 1

What do you lead? The thing you have to consider here is that North is anticipating and almost wanting a Spade lead here. The bidding makes that utterly clear. On this bidding, the likelyhood is that you have a considerably better hand than your Partner, despite the fact that they have overcalled and you have remained silent. So don't give North the tempo he's hoping for: Try something else!!!. The King of Diamonds would be on the table before the echoes of North's 3NT had faded had I been East, for example. Nothing on this earth would persuade me to waste time on a Spade lead here.

Now look at the hand from the other side. Samet (Doru77) and I were playing OCP, but it had been a while since he had used the system and was a little rusty:

North
  AQ3
  KQ
  A874
  10962

South
  9542
  J873
  -
  KJ843

We'll draw a bit of a vei, over the bidding, which you can see above. I really don't want to play this hand in 1 or 1NT on an almost guaranteed Diamond lead, hence my sub-minimum 1 response and 2 rebid. Unfortunately, Samet took my 2 as showing lots of extra values. Fortunately the defence were fast asleep and East tamely led a Spade to West's 10 and Samet's Queen. Samet didn't need a second chance: he ran the 9 to West's Ace. West was clearly still hoping to bring the Spades in because he continued the Spade attack, Declarer taking their Ace and East discarding, of all things, a Heart(!). Samet was now in complete control: He led the K to East's Ace. East finally led the K , but it was far far too late. Samet won the Ace, cashed the Q , took the marked Club finesse again and came to 10 tricks when East's 10 fell under Dummy's Jack because of their earlier foolish discard on the second Spade.

On a Diamond lead Declarer cannot possibly come to more than 7 tricks before EW rattle off 4 Diamonds and the two round Aces. The difference between 3N+1 and 3N-2 was about 14 IMPs.

Think about the bidding and the hand in general before you lead to trick 1!!!!

[lute57]

Thanks again, Oliver for sharing these sweet nuggets of defensive wisdom.

Totally different story if it were a Suit Contract.

I might lead a singleton to partner's overcall in a NT Contract but only if I suspected partner had some extra HCP [entries]. In this example that cannot be the case. The opponents probably have 25 HCP in order to bid their 3NT game. With 12 HCP in my hand as East, I should know partner probably has at MOST about 3 HCP.

In my mind, that means even if we can get West's  suit established, there is probably going to be no entries available for it. Better to seek fortunes elsewhere.

The only seat where auto-pilot can be engaged is Dummy.