Yesterday we saw how a wildly different result can be caused by a minor difference in the opening bid. Today’s deal, from a recent team competition, shows how a different opening lead can achieve the same thing. It is not unusual for different opening leads to create different results, but it happens for an unusual reason in this deal. At this table the lead was the jack of clubs. “Sweet,” thought South, “a lead into my ace-queen of clubs.” East played low at trick one and South won with his queen. South led the queen of diamonds and overtook it with dummy’s queen to discard a low club on the king of diamonds. South now took the percentage play in the trump suit by running the nine of hearts. This lost to the queen and the defense later took three spade tricks for down one. At the other table, West chose to lead the 10 of diamonds. Declarer won with dummy’s king and discarded a low club on the ace of diamonds. There were no additional entries to dummy, so South had to avoid a loser in either hearts or clubs. He took his best chance by leading a club to the queen. When that won the trick, South played off the ace and king of hearts, hoping to drop the queen. The queen dropped! South drew the last trump and conceded three spades to the defense. Making four! Maybe that club lead wasn’t so sweet after all.