[oryctolagi]

On this deal I was sitting East:

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South led Q♦. Now, I'm not conversant with every convention, true, but I'd have thought the lead of a singleton queen of suit bid by opponents, must fall very far down the scale. So what was it? Anyway I thought to myself, good, that places South with the J and I have three diamond tricks. I ducked and S continued with the 2♣, won by my 9. I then proceeded to take my 'marked' ♦ finesse. When S threw a ♣ and posted a chatline "Now I'll sit back and wait for the swearing to stop" - well I must confess that a succinct remark or two concerning South's parentage may well have escaped my lips: lucky that BBO doesn't have voice-over! Anyway I wearily played the K and tested the hearts. When they did not break, where was the ninth trick to come from? With a sigh I led ♠Q from hand, thinking that S had the K and might not cover. I didn't even realise at the time, I was neatly end-playing North in spades and diamonds, and he had no choice but to duck. That gave me nine tricks.

I don't claim any credit for any show of skill I may or may not have had, but I'm pretty chuffed over this hand.

[helene_t]

There is some logic to the diamond lead.

You are weak so partner is like to have some points yet he couldn't overcall 1♠. So a spade lead is not very productive and may well finesse partner.

A club lead is not so productive either as you don't have entries for the suit. Declarer has a club stopper so it could easily blow a trick.

Hearts is declarer's suit.

Diamonds is the only suit in which partner can have length and the lead won't blow a trick. Partner will be the one who has entries so we should try to set up his suit. Maybe the biggest disadvantage is that partner may take you for a bid more in diamonds since singleton leads against notrump are rare.

[oryctolagi]

I suppose, on the deal, a lead of J♥ is safe. But if I were sitting South, I wouldn't know any better than to lead the bog-standard 6♣ .

[1eyedjack]

East's 2NT bid seems to indicate Clubs well guarded, particularly in light of his failure to offer support for Diamonds or Spades, or to seek secondary Heart support from partner should East have extra Heart length, or to bid 4th suit 2C to seek help with a Club guard from West.
South, meanwhile, has no likely entry to the Clubs, and East can be expected to hold up where appropriate to sever communications in the Club suit.

So I can well understand South's reticence to "blow" a trick by leading Clubs into an expected Ace-Queen. As it happens East does not hold the AQ (AT9x being sufficient), and he is perhaps fortunate to find it in dummy rather than with North, although even if North had held it, South was still not going to get to enjoy his long Clubs here.

Where there is always some guesswork involved in opening lead, he may well on the auction, and given his own hand, anticipate his partner having the Diamonds stacked over West, and the Queen has the added attraction of suggesting the Jack (if that card is missing), as indeed you have observed.

[Vampyr]

oryctolagi, on 2015-November-23, 05:57, said:

I suppose, on the deal, a lead of J♥ is safe.

Well, it gives declarer a fourth heart trick, so I am not sure what you mean by "safe".

[oryctolagi]

Vampyr, on 2015-November-23, 13:56, said:

Well, it gives declarer a fourth heart trick, so I am not sure what you mean by "safe".

Knowing my clumsiness, I'd probably win it with A♥...