[pilowsky]

I found this lead problem and the question was "What to play from dummy after a ♥J lead from west"
The answer was the ♥A and not my choice of the ♥9. "Assume 4th best spot leads and standard honor leads".
In the problem only the hearts and the bidding are shown. http://rpbridge.net/cgi-bin/gt11.pl
Why?

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[smerriman]

The J lead denies the Q with standard leads. So win the Ace, and you can later finesse through East.

[apollo1201]

Opps have a combined 12 HCP and will tend to lead honor sequences or short suits to get a ruff. Here the HJ clearly looks like a singleton or a doubleton honor, that clearly places E with the Q. Actually, W drew the picture for you and the easiest way to 12 tricks.

In all cases, it seems you could recover with the (unnatural and very DD) line of ruffing out CQ to discard a H on the CJ.

[Cyberyeti]

You can recover the trick you lose.

Basically you can establish J♣ by ruffing out the Q, pitch your heart and ruff dummy's

[pilowsky]

Thanks.
I saw the idea of West leading from Jx and being able to finesse twice if I take in dummy.
This would have made more sense in a NT contract.
Given that the bidding was 1S-2S-4S, the problem I was faced with was trying to imagine a layout where South had enough to bid 4S, North only had enough to bid 2S, neither East nor West had enough length or strength to poke their heads above the parapets and it was still critical to take the first trick in dummy.

[smerriman]

pilowsky, on 2022-February-12, 16:29, said:

I saw the idea of West leading from Jx and being able to finesse twice if I take in dummy.

It's just one finesse since you only have 3 cards.

In the specific hand you posted the trick lost in hearts gets replaced by the club as mentioned by others, but it's rare that giving up an entire heart trick is going to work out well whether it's a suit contract or not. (Just swap the A + Q of clubs and it now costs).

[thepossum]

Thanks for the pointer to that section of Richard Pavlicek's site. Hadn't played with that page before