The Full Deal
It’s clear that a trump lead is bad for EW, but what about the other possible leads? Here is one avenue to understanding the play and defense: EW should always make a spade trick, a trump trick (or a ruff), and the Ace of clubs. If declarer loses a second club trick to the Queen or ten, or if declarer loses two club ruffs, declarer goes down. To make ten tricks, declarer needs to guess the actual club position (AQ10x with East), lead clubs three times toward the South hand, and the third round of clubs can’t be played until declarer has drawn three rounds of trumps. Viewing the deal in that way, you can see that leading a club is helpful to declarer, and that major-suit leads help EW by attacking dummy entries that declarer will prefer to use later, to lead clubs toward the South hand.
Bonus from Val: : It’s a complex deal. After a club to the Ace and club return, declarer should make the contract by playing for the actual club position. Interestingly, the defenders can prevail after a club lead if East wins the Ace and returns a major suit, but that’s a play that few would consider at the table. For EW, plus 200 would score 95%, plus 500 would score 99%, and minus 710 would score 2%. Deal L064.
To explore alternative lines of play and defense, use this link: https://tinyurl.com/2s49cxta