[dickiegera]

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It takes a Heart lead to set this contract. North and south both had doubletons in Hearts, East held KJ 7times in Hearts.

I West did not double having no reason to believe that we could cash 2 Hearts.
Also not sure that a double asks for a Heart lead.

Partner East did not like leading from KJ in a slam.
Also believes that double would have asked for heart lead.

HELP
Thank you

[Stephen Tu]

Traditionally a Lightner double discourages the lead of the defending side's suits. East might well rethink his idea of not leading from KJ vs. slam, depends on the rest of the hand, but often the idea is just to hope partner has the Q and you get in to cash a heart when in. If you lead passively, opps who know what they are doing will have the tempo to pitch losers, if the lead loses to the Q, reasonably often the opps would have tempo to get rid of the loser anyway so it ends up breaking even. Of course it can give away the slam as well, but percentages often favor aggression.

Also it's kind of just bad luck if an opp jumps to slam holding xx in the suit and psyches your side out of leading it, as fairly large portion of the time 3♥ bidder is supposed to hold AK or KQ and has a totally normal heart lead, or just the ace which is often the best lead at MP (prevent opps from making 7, and also sets them when they are lunatics as here). Sometimes you get fixed but in the long run you should come out well ahead against reckless opponents like this.