[kenberg]

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I believe that I have bid my hand perfectly, but now I have to lead. Your thoughts?

It's matchpoints, the 1♦ bid was a Precision type diamond with 11-16 highs and 2+ diamonds. I think their opening 1NT, had they done it, would have been 11-13. South took his allotted ten seconds or so after partner's 5♦ but there was no undue hesitation anywhere. South did shrug a bit before calling 5♠, as well he might regardless of what he is holding. That's pretty much what I can give you to go on.

[whereagles]

Lot of guesswork to do, so this seems like a good time for teh ye olde "ace to see dummy" lead.

[billw55]

Dummy is marked with shortness? Check. Declarer seems to be low on values? Check. No apparent discards looming? Check.

I lead a trump.

[kenberg]

Eagles, my partner will love you. You will get your ace as partner shows out, then he gets a ruff, then he cashes his ace of hearts. Anything else and they score it up. For example a heart lead goes to partner's ace, establishing declarer's king, and since partner has a club void he has no way back to you. I guess I should have led the club!

[billw55]

kenberg, on 2014-September-02, 10:53, said:

My partner will love you. You will get your ace as partner shows out, then he gets a ruff, then he cashes his ace of hearts. Anything else and they score it up. For example a heart lead goes to partner's ace, establishing declarer's king, and since partner has a club void he has no way back to you. I guess I should have led the club!

Aha, was that supposed to be a lightner double?

[kenberg]

billw55, on 2014-September-02, 12:20, said:

Aha, was that supposed to be a lightner double?

Well, we have no such agreement. I would say more of a "do something intelligent" double and that is always risky when playing with me. It seems to me we could go with either of two views here:

1. Partner seems to think we can beat this and he doesn't know I have a club Ace. Since I have it, we should beat this as long as I don't do something rash that backfires. This was my view so I led a diamond. I didn't really expect it to hold, I just figured it wouldn't blow a trick.

2, Partner is hoping I can contribute something. So I could lead the club and if everyone follows I could shift to a heart hoping for a rough somewhere. Of course that would only be the second trick if I cash the club and switch to a heart ruffed.

I went with plan 1. It's plan 2 that works. Sometimes after a hand is over, even if what i tried failed, I feel I would do the same next time. Here I really don't know.

The diamond ace is in the dummy. Partner's defensive tricks are the heart ace and the club ruff if I lead a club. The X is adventuresome I think, but it had potential.