irishwolf wrote: ↑Tue Feb 04, 2020 11:14 pm
What is interesting about this hand, suppose 1st round gets back to the dealer.
What is the best lead that Eldest should make to stop this loner?
If S1 leads a heart, this will force S3 to sort their hand towards covering spades with their protected King. And since S1 has clubs covered with his ace, there is no escape for a S4 loner. No matter which black card he discards, he's dead.
If S1 instead incorrectly leads his AC, and the dealer trumps in, S3 will end up sorting her hand towards covering hearts, which is no good for us.
If S1 leads the JS, and the dealer trumps in, S3 will again end up sorting her hand to hopelessly cover hearts.
So the heart lead is best here if we could see the cards, but what's interesting is even if we could NOT see the cards the heart lead is
still best.
1) Never lead a single ace in this spot, so the AC lead is out.
2) After that, we wanna lead the suit our P is most likely void in, hoping they can trump in on the first lead and possibly stop a loner that way, hoping to catch the maker with an off Ace of that suit or some other card in that suit.
3) There are 3 hearts unaccounted for and 5 spades unaccounted for. Therefore my P is more likely to be void in hearts than spades, so lead the heart.