[phil_20686]

JLOGIC, on 2012-July-24, 17:00, said:

Club is very obviously the 4th best suit

Yes, but he wanted to know about the best lead.

[dburn]

The truth, as anyone who has played bridge for any length of time will tell you, is that if you lead a club dummy will have ♣Q98x and declarer ace third. If you don't, they won't.

If you don't lead a diamond, declarer will run four heart tricks and five club tricks, while partner had ♦KQxx all the while. If you do, declarer's unsupported ♦K will be his ninth trick.

If you lead the nine of hearts, declarer will cover it with the ten from dummy's ♥Q108 and smile at your partner, who has king-low. If you don't lead the nine of hearts, it will transpire that specifically the nine of hearts was the only lead to beat the contract.

If you lead a spade, either the ace or a low one, it will turn out that you could have led any of the other ten cards in your hand for a one-trick set. But you didn't.

Since you didn't ask, I will tell you anyway - I would lead a low spade, because that seems to require least from partner to enable us to beat the contract even though suits are breaking well for declarer; moreover, a low spade seems to me less likely to blow a trick by force than any other suit. ♠A could work better than a low one in terms of preventing partner from doing something stupid (or something clever slowly, barring me from continuing the suit anyway). If you told me I couldn't lead a spade I would lead a diamond; if you told me I couldn't lead a spade or a diamond I would lead a heart (the nine, just in case).

If you told me I had to lead a club, I would join JLOGIC in the bar while you led a club. One of two things would then happen: your club lead would beat the hand and you would play the rest of the match while JLOGIC and I formed a mutual admiration society in the bar; or dummy would have ♣Q98x and declarer ace third. Still, as we took our seats for the rest of the session, JLOGIC and I would be both agreed on the demerits of a club lead and a couple of beers to the good.

[pigpenz]

it seems in bridge there are never any absolutes other than what is right at the time, I guess sort of the Rabbi Rule.

[dburn]

May be worth mentioning that the spot cards were't quoted in the OP, but they might matter. If your spades were, say, A32 and you led the two playing fourth best, partner would not duck his king from king fifth and out (well, give him a round-suit queen to prevent declarer from having nine fast ones) with ♠Jx in the dummy - why should you not have ace fourth? Nor would he duck his queen from queen fifth and out with ♠Kx in the dummy - again, why should you not have ace fourth and declarer have misguessed with ♠Jx? Attitude won't help in this position either; the only thing that will is playing third and low against notrump as well as against suits, and no one plays that. Perhaps I should lead the ace after all (or the eight from ♠A8x like a true Pole, if indeed ♠A8x was what I had).

[JLOGIC]

phil_20686, on 2012-July-24, 17:30, said:

Yes, but he wanted to know about the best lead.

I talked about it with him irl already. FWIW I think H>S mainly because the 9 of hearts (Axx Jxx I'd lead a heart). I am not confident about this, a low spade is certainly reasonable, but I did say that double dummy simulations will support SA but that doesn't mean that much. I think either major is quit a bit better than a diamond, and that a club is LOL.

There was a hand in the bermuda bowl, I don't remember exactly but it was something like AQx Jx KJxx QTxx, 1N p 3N. Basically some hand where I would not lead either minor or a heart from that suit ever on the auction. I led the SA. This worked well, I could beat it after that lead by finding the right shift, but not surprisingly I did not find the right play. Trick 2 is not just automatic in real life. If you add to that that you are often getting the wrong signal (since the SA from Axx or AQx is not the normal lead, and partner is signalling based on a different holding), you are certainly never getting things right 100 % in real life or close to it.

That is one flaw with simulation type ace leads. Also, when declarer is going to play double dummy and guess everything, things are more dire, you need to be very attacking since declarer is just awesome. This is on top of the fact that you will be double dummy at trick 2, so this is magnified. This is what makes leads like 2 small in a minor look alright to gib also, "passive" leads don't pickle partner/give stuff up ever, because declarer is always getting these right. On top of that, partner will never misread the situation if he gets in, he will play perfectly. This is not realistic.

IMO the SA is not nearly as good as a low spade in real life on this hand. I would never criticize a low spade or a low heart lead on this hand, the H9 and HJ just suffer from the same things, partner has no chance of knowing what the hell is going on (unless the 9 is your standard lead from this holding), so they are non options for me since I am playing in real life.

[chasetb]

dburn, on 2012-July-24, 17:52, said:

If you told me I had to lead a club, I would join JLOGIC in the bar while you led a club. One of two things would then happen: your club lead would beat the hand and you would play the rest of the match while JLOGIC and I formed a mutual admiration society in the bar; or dummy would have ♣Q98x and declarer ace third. Still, as we took our seats for the rest of the session, JLOGIC and I would be both agreed on the demerits of a club lead and a couple of beers to the good.

Save a spot at that bar for me. I agree with you guys here, and to pick both of your guys' minds would be a hell of a way to end a day in my opinion!

JLOGIC, on 2012-July-24, 20:59, said:

I talked about it with him irl already. FWIW I think H>S mainly because the 9 of hearts (Axx Jxx I'd lead a heart). I am not confident about this, a low spade is certainly reasonable, but I did say that double dummy simulations will support SA but that doesn't mean that much.

Did you mean that if you had a spot instead of the ♥9 you would lead a Spade? It's probably just a mistake, but at this point I'm too tired and not thinking too coherently.

[pigpenz]

yes as Pointed out earlier on the contrainsts I used,original problem
had just xxx....but boy some 9 or 8's make a big difference

also the type of scoring.

[JLOGIC]

chasetb, on 2012-July-24, 21:18, said:

Save a spot at that bar for me. I agree with you guys here, and to pick both of your guys' minds would be a hell of a way to end a day in my opinion!


Did you mean that if you had a spot instead of the ♥9 you would lead a Spade? It's probably just a mistake, but at this point I'm too tired and not thinking too coherently.

Yes I did, sorry

[uday]

I'm in love with some of the stuff in the David Bird book, my partners correspondingly a little less in love with me as a result.

I think Justin captured very well why sim-based leads don't work quite as well in real life as they "should."

FWIW, I'd lead the sA with my usual partner (she'll just roll her eyes if it doesn't work well) and a low spade with anyone else.

I think it would be an interesting game to generate a bunch of lead problems and have you scored on opening lead via sims, tho

[FrancesHinden]

dburn may have sounded like he was joking, but if you lead a spade I think you should definitely lead your middle one.
If you hid gold and find partner will Kxxxx or similar the one thing you want him to do is duck, which he will if he thinks you've led from two low or three low. he won't duck if you might have Hxxx.

You'll need to be playing smith peters or similar (e.g. some form of suit pref), and you'll also need to have agreed with partner that this is systemic, but it's definitely the right lead from that holding.

[JLOGIC]

Interesting

[wank]

the interesting thing for me is that the 10 is so much better than any other diamond.

[MickyB]

wank, on 2012-July-29, 17:15, said:

the interesting thing for me is that the 10 is so much better than any other diamond.

In the DD sim? Low number = bad, the ♦T was the worst lead

[MickyB]

I'm guessing the club-haters would consider ♣JT9 a better lead than the diamond but still worse than ♥/♠?