Contract Bridge

Let’s say you’re West and South gets to six spades on the bidding shown. You’re on lead, and the question is whether to lead the jack of hearts or the jack of diamonds. The suits are exactly the same, and offhand, your choice of which jack to lead would seem to be a tossup.

However, as in many similar situations, there is an inference you can draw that should persuade you to lead a diamond, which defeats the slam, rather than a heart, which lets declarer make it.

The reason for the diamond lead lies in East’s pass of North’s five-heart bid. The pass is significant in a negative way: If East had desired a heart lead against the slam toward which North-South seemed headed, he presumably would have doubled five hearts. East’s failure to double suggests lack of interest in a heart lead.

To illustrate the point in a different way, let’s suppose East held the K-Q-8-7-5 of hearts instead of diamonds. In that case, he surely would have doubled five hearts to induce West to lead a heart.

Of course, East might have no preference at all for either red suit, in which case his pass of five hearts would be meaningless. But in the long run, East’s silence is more likely to imply preference for a diamond lead, so West would do better to choose that suit if he has no good reason to do otherwise.

As for South, it would have been wiser for him to bid six spades directly, without bothering with Blackwood. North was certain to have either one or two aces for his jump-shift to three clubs, so the inquiry for aces had the potential to be more helpful to East-West than to North-South.