“Do you enjoy leading from kings?” Cy the Cynic asked me in the club lounge. “You told me you once had a partner who wouldn’t lead from one under any circumstances.”

“He’s left us,” I shrugged. “I don’t know where he is now, but he may be holding hands with all four kings and is obliged to lead from one of them.”

“I’ll tell you what’s worse,” Cy said, showing me today’s deal. “I was West with all four queens, and North-South rolled into 6NT. Which queen should I Iead from?”

“A diamond from your longest suit, I guess,” I mumbled. “Maybe you’ll give away a third trick but not a fourth.”

Cy told me he had led a diamond: six, nine, jack. South was a capable declarer and wondered why Cy, a decent defender, would lead from a queen — a dangerous move — after a point-count auction to 6NT. There could be only one good reason: to lead any other suit would have looked as bad or worse. So South took the ace of clubs and let the jack ride. He took the king of diamonds, the A-K of hearts and the ace of diamonds, pitching a spade from dummy, and then cashed three more clubs, throwing hearts.

With three tricks left, dummy had the K-5 of spades and jack of hearts, and declarer had the A-J-6 of spades. Cy had to keep his queen of hearts, so only two spades, and South took the K-A of spades, dropping Cy’s queen, and won the 13th trick with the jack. Making seven.

“This was in a duplicate event,” Cy told me glumly. “We would have gotten a few matchpoints if we’d been minus 1440. I’ll let you guess how many we got for minus 1470.”

South dealer

N-S vulnerable

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