[Hanoi5]

All white, you hold:

♠JT763
♥KJ8
♦75
♣542

1♦-2♣
2NT-3NT

What do you lead? Would it make a difference if you're playing MP's or IMP's?

[aguahombre]

low spade

[BillPatch]

I prefer the J of ♠, second choice 6 of ♠.

I would be less enthusiastic about falsecarding with another ♠ opening lead.

I do not like the idea of leading from the major tenace in, would lead J of ♥ at gunpoint, if I believed gunman was serious.

As bad would be to lead one of their minor suits, perhaps opener has a three card ♦.

[Siegmund]

Spade seems clear. I expect the hearts to provide at least one and possibly two entries. The time you don't lead your long suit is when you expect to have no entry to it.

[the hog]

S for me. No doubt the K of H was the killing lead else this would not be posted.

[gszes]

assuming we have a realistic chance to defeat this p probably has around 10
hcp and was silenced so they are unlikley to have a very distributional hand.
The hearts are unlikley to provide timely entries so our lead needs to hit where
p has some goods and fast (clubs split dia finesses are in favor of opps etc)

A spade seems to fit the description the best and I lean toward the spade J since it
offers a bit of extra protection against declarer having A9x with say Qx in dummy. If
we can prevent declarer from taking 2 spade tricks our odds of setting go up
dramatically. By holding the opps to 1 spade winner our heart holding now starts
to stand out as a strong entry possibility.

[Cyberyeti]

 the hog, on 2012-August-04, 03:20, said:

S for me. No doubt the K of H was the killing lead else this would not be posted.

Probably J♥ rather than K, I'm leading a spade also

[Hanoi5]

Well I thought I was gonna get more support, so I simulated 100 hands and it turns out a spade is a 'safer' lead (it usually gives more tricks to the defense) but they are both as likely to defeat the contract. Maybe a larger sample will show a spade defeats it more often but it won't be by such a large percentage.

Hearts were not a suit to develop so I'm not so sure how often we'd have two entries from it.

So I guess you should usually lead a spade, unless 'you're feeling lucky, punk'.

[Quantumcat]

If a heart was the killing lead, partner might have overcalled 1♥.

[aguahombre]

 Quantumcat, on 2012-August-05, 18:38, said:

If a heart was the killing lead, partner might have overcalled 1♥.

There might have been problems with that, unless he corrected to 2H.

[the hog]

 Cyberyeti, on 2012-August-04, 08:30, said:

Probably J♥ rather than K, I'm leading a spade also

Not necessarily. Give pd 5H to the Q and an entry.

[aguahombre]

If I am declarer, the diamond 7 will be the best shot. But, OP is not leading against my 4=4=3=2 guaranteed distribution.

[Quantumcat]

 aguahombre, on 2012-August-05, 20:29, said:

There might have been problems with that, unless he corrected to 2H.

Sorry! It's obvious now if we are on lead we must have been the ones to bid over 1♦. I should check my facts before posting in future :-(