Fourth-highest can help leader

Gail Godwin, an author, said, “Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.” Enter stage left the West hand. What would you lead against three no-trump, knowing that declarer has four spades and dummy four hearts?

When the lead is fourthhighest from the longest and strongest, third hand may benefit from applying the Rule of Eleven. However, if third hand either wins the first trick or gets in and returns partner's suit, he should lead high with two left, or the original fourth-highest from three or more remaining. In the latter case, the opening leader can also use the Rule of Eleven.

In the auction, North might have rebid three clubs to show at least game-forcing values with four hearts and (usually) six or more clubs. That would presumably have resulted in North-South's reaching the laydown five-club contract.

Against three no-trump, West sensibly selected the diamond five as his lead. At the table, East won dummy's king with the ace and returned the two, showing an initial holding of exactly four diamonds. So, when South won with the queen, West thought that he could not afford to unblock the jack. Then, though, declarer drove out the club ace and took 10 tricks.

East should have led back the diamond six. West would have applied the Rule of Eleven (6 from 11 is 5) and noted that he had seen all five diamonds higher than the six: his jack-nine, dummy's king-seven and declarer's queen. So West would have known that it was safe to throw his jack under the queen. Then the contract would have gone down two.

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