With nobody vulnerable (at matchpoints), I opened two spades (weak) as East. Partner, West, who had a big hand, raised me to six spades. (All other pairs stopped at four spades.) South doubled with ♠7 ♡KQJ9 ♢AQ95 ♣ JT84.

If one were playing South, it seems like the most logical way to defeat the contract was to lead the King of hearts, force out the ace, and hope to take a second round heart trick, followed by the ace of diamonds. A similar method (recommended by the club expert) would be to take the ace of diamonds first, followed by the king of hearts lead. South actually led the Jack of clubs, captured by dummy’s ace, which allowed me to make the hand, because I had gained a valuable tempo to set up discards.

So was the king of hearts or the ace of diamonds the theoretically better opening lead, or didn’t it matter? (Either would have worked as the cards lay.) Put another way, does South need to save his ace of diamonds as a potential entry to his hearts?

And should South have doubled at all? In his shoes, I would have felt lucky that the opponents overbid to six spades and not risked telling declarer where all the opposing strength lay. (North had nothing so East-West had the balance of the points.) If East had gone down, East would have gotten a “rounder bottom” instead of the “rounder top” but it would not have affected the matchpoints score.