[luis]

I concluded a statistical study of leads against the 1N-3N auction when the opening leader has a balanced hand from 0 to 7 HCP. The conclusions are very interesting.
When you have a 3 card major and a 4 card major the best opening lead is usually the 3 card major, this includes hands where you have an honor in the 4 card suit and nothing in the 3 card major. Even with QJxx in a major and Jxx in the other the 3 card suit is best on average.
The simple reason is that you can find pd's long suit and he has the entries to stablish the suit.
When you have a 4 card major and 2 cards in the other the best lead is the doubleton major or a minor suit most of the time.
With Kxxx or Axxx in a suit it is wrong to lead that suit.
Maybe this is cool for you or maybe not I found it interesting.

Luis

[hrothgar]

I [for one] find this quite interesting.
I will note that Paul Marston advocates canape leads in many circumstances. I've had a lot of luck with them. [Some would say too much luck]

[DrTodd13]

Luis,

Was your statistical analysis completely automated? Did you programmatically
use a double-dummy solver to compute the effect of each possible opening lead?

A question for all...is there a double-dummy library I can link in with a program
so that these things can be simulated quickly without human intervention?

thanks,

Todd