[benlessard]

Never said it was safe ive said SAFER than D. As east with Qxx in S and Kxxx(x) I would you X 4D 100%. With QJxx its less clear but I like double too since its highly unlikely that the cost is going to be higher than the benefits vs good players.

For sure If east turn out with 2 D honnors ill put the hand on BW to see if East should have made a lead directing X. and if west underlead from 2D honnors ill put the hand as a lead problem its going to be interesting one way or another. We will see if my reasonning beat Timo 100% confidence

[FrancesHinden]

benlessard, on 2014-September-15, 09:39, said:

Im surprised nobody take the lead into account. Why would west make an agressive lead under a D honnor here ? North didnt show a control in clubs and didnt a show a real suit.

Im more agressive than passive when it come to leads but here i wouldnt lead under Hxxxx, Hxxx if I have a safe alternative. In fact when I get low spot lead like this vs top notch players I tend to finesse in S one way or another (but not here obv). The 52-48% odds no longer applies when you get a non-S lead.

Obviously one needs to ask opponents about their leads.
If anything, I think the diamond lead makes it more likely the HQ is offside, because (i) I'd expect an aggressive lead on this auction and (ii) RHO didn't double 4D looking at a diamond honour, which implies that he also has a heart honour and didn't know what suit he wanted led.

[benlessard]

Good point about both Qh and Qd, maybe with QJ of D and Qh its dangerous to X 4D because its telling too much but at the same time it could break an endplay. However I disagree about the need to make an agressive lead here, dummy is 12-14 bal and didnt show a real suit, bidding 4NT keycard is often a sign of a club shortness, when you know partner doesnt have the K♣ the hand go up in value. Curious to see the full hand and curious to see why east didnt double.

[MrAce]

benlessard, on 2014-September-15, 16:39, said:

Never said it was safe ive said SAFER than D. As east with Qxx in S and Kxxx(x) I would you X 4D 100%. With QJxx its less clear but I like double too since its highly unlikely that the cost is going to be higher than the benefits vs good players. For sure If east turn out with 2 D honnors ill put the hand on BW to see if East should have made a lead directing X. and if west underlead from 2D honnors ill put the hand as a lead problem its going to be interesting one way or another. We will see if my reasonning beat Timo 100% confidence

Why not just ask them what you want to ask clearly and openly, if you are % 100 confident? Why do you need to spin around? Why would you ask them if they would dbl or not with QJxx or KJxx? And then make another topic asking them what would they lead from QJxx(x) KJxxx Kxxx Qxxx? Or whether they lead from this suit or not. There will be people who doubles and others who won't as there will be people who leads and who won't. And then you will try to wrap this up, and come to a conclusion about what this lead in hand suggests, whether it is as strong as you think it is. Why not shoot it straight brother?

Ben, why would you be interested in what majority of the players think about this lead anyway? Why not just ask to those who had proven themselves with frequent/big achievements in BW, since you seem to ignore those in BBF? Just pm to Weinstein-Woolsey-Gawin-and any other you can think of. I trust you, just do it and let us know. I am really not interested in John Doe's and Jane Doe's opinions. Haven't you learnt your lesson in forums yet? For example MikeH, a very good player and usually makes a good analysis of declarer play, in a recent topic wrote a line, which then later he admitted that it was not a good line. (Commonwealth Challenge topic) There were much better lines, yet he had the most upvotes. Does that tell you something about majority opinions?

At the end of the day, if we are going to play W for Q of hearts, this should be due to odds rather than some subjective analysis of the lead imo.(regarding the OP hand)

[benlessard]

Im only interest in majority opinions when its to know what is considered "standard" for when i play with a random/unknown partner. But for the majority of polls im interested in top level individual answers not numbers im pretty sure most people I know care more about expert opinions than about majority opinions unless they are in politics or marketing.

I don't think the lead and the failure to double are irrelevant in this problem. They have a real life influence on the odds and distributions of cards even if they are undisclosed and subjective informations. Overall here I don't know wich line is better but I find the D lead odd.

The classic case where I still see top level players miss is this one.. you have 9 trumps missing the Q and you have a sure outside loser. If you get a spot lead that has some risk you should finesse vs LHO even if the odds for the drop are a priori 52% while the finesse is 48%. The reason is that with trumps xx-Qx you are going to get a trump lead some % of times. While they will never lead trumps from Qxx-x so when you cash a big one from your hand and play low to dummy and lho follow twice the trumps are more likely to be Qxx--x than xx--Qx. This is of course not true if you get a lead from a sequence like JT(9 or 8).

[sfi]

What are you hoping to achieve with a non-diamond lead? Two cashing side tricks? That seems a faint hope at best given the bidding, so you have two aims in finding a lead from a hand that doesn't have a standout alternative:

- don't give up the setting trick
- set up a trick for your side

There is some inference that RHO might have both heart and club cards to go along with diamond weakness, so a diamond lead through whatever honours are in dummy looks like your best shot to achieve both these aims. A diamond looks enough like the normal lead that if LHO played a spot card in hearts or clubs instead I would wonder why.

If you think that lead directing doubles don't have a significant cost against good opposition, you're not paying close enough attention. They will often show declarer the right line of play, they will talk them out of bidding non-making slams, and they give both opponents a chance to exchange information about the suit you have just told them is dangerous. These negatives are very expensive and you need a high percentage of hands where they would have bid and made slam without the right lead to make up for them.

[rmnka447]

The only thing you know for sure about the hand is that East had 3 trnmps to the Q and West had 1.

In order to make the hand you have find a place to pitch the ♦ loser before East gets in with the ♠ Q to cash a ♦.

The only 2 choices are the ♣ and ♥ suits.

In the ♣ suit, you can find a pitch if ♣ breaks 3-3 or the ♣ J drops doubleton. But the doubleton J has to be in the West hand because East can ruff in on the 3rd round of ♣s and score the ♦ loser before you can pitch. This comes out to about a 44% chance without any other information.

But the trump distribution has also affected the hand. West has 12 vacant places and East has 10. That means the odds are 6 out of 11 or about 54% in favor of finding any particular card with West.

I think the best you can do is to cash the ♣ AK and see what happens. If the ♣ J drops from West's hand, then you have to decide if it is really doubleton. If it doesn't show, you're down to playing for a 3-3 ♣ split (36%) vs. taking the ♥ finesse (54%).

What's most difficult against good opposition is that they are capable of making plays in tempo to mislead you or give as little as information as possible. So some table feel comes into play if the J drops.

[awm]

There have been a bunch of requests for the full hand. I don't think it's particularly enlightening; in fact no line works after the lead and the spade misguess. Here it is though:

---

[benlessard]

I know I would auto X 4D here (im pretty convinced its losing bridge not to X) but anyone lead a 8H instead of a D here ?

[MrAce]

;-)

[benlessard]

lol..

Timo want me to put the lead or the lead directing X as a problem ?

[MrAce]

benlessard, on 2014-September-18, 01:41, said:

lol..

Timo want me to put the lead or the lead directing X as a problem ?

No, I was just amused by another strong word (auto double). Obviously you are very opinionated about the subject. I think I already answered your question, but if you want to do it then go for it. Imo there will be people to dbl and there will be others who won't, as there will be people lead ♥ and some others ♦.

I would not mind if you were my pd and doubled 4♦. However, I just don't see it as "auto", not even remotely with KJx. Imho the way you like to stamp the bids that goes in front of you, once in a while you will be appreciated by pd, most of the other times, however, appreciation will come from opponents for the reasons I already wrote up there somewhere in this thread.

[helene_t]

I recall a tip from Martens: W made an aggresive lead so he must have had a reasonable hope of finding values with his partner, this suggests that he doesn't have ♥Q. So I try to ruff it out.

[cherdano]

benlessard, on 2014-September-17, 23:05, said:

but anyone lead a 8H instead of a D here ?

It's automatic to make an aggressive lead on this auction. But if you won't believe PhilKing, I am sure you won't believe anyone else either.

[the hog]

benlessard, on 2014-September-17, 23:05, said:

I know I would auto X 4D here (im pretty convinced its losing bridge not to X) but anyone lead a 8H instead of a D here ?

I think an "auto x" is the height of absurdity. Sth IF he held AQ would know the finesse worked and be even happier to bid a slam. I also think a D lead is marked on the W hand on this holding. A S lead is very poor, a h lead is out for me and a C lead is poor.
Fwiw I would have gone down. AK of S, 3 rounds of H and then play on Cs.

[gnasher]

I think it's obvious to double 4♦ with the East hand. The best chance of defeating slam is to get a diamond lead (which is known to be through the ace) and then make a trump trick.

With the auction as it went, I'd lead a diamond anyway, but only because partner didn't double 5♥. It sounds as though declarer has a heart control, so a heart lead needs partner to have at least KJ. He is likely to have four or five of the suit. With that holding and no ♦K he'd have an easy double of 5♥.

If you gave me some other auction where I was on lead with the West hand and partner hadn't had a chance to double hearts, I'd lead a heart. That's partly because of the failure to double 4♦, and partner because my diamond length makes it less likely that we can cash a trick there.

I don't agree with the implication that a heart lead is passive (if that's what people were suggesting). When the opponents have a lot of high cards, leading from xx through length and into a short honour is far more aggressive than leading from Q10xxxx. Look how close the heart lead comes to letting through 6♠ on this hand.

[MrAce]

gnasher, on 2014-September-19, 00:37, said:

I think it's obvious to double 4♦ with the East hand. The best chance of defeating slam is to get a diamond lead (which is known to be through the ace) and then make a trump trick.

With the auction as it went, I'd lead a diamond anyway, but only because partner didn't double 5♥. It sounds as though declarer has a heart control, so a heart lead needs partner to have at least KJ. He is likely to have four or five of the suit. With that holding and no ♦K he'd have an easy double of 5♥.

If you gave me some other auction where I was on lead with the West hand and partner hadn't had a chance to double hearts, I'd lead a heart. That's partly because of the failure to double 4♦, and partner because my diamond length makes it less likely that we can cash a trick there.

I don't agree with the implication that a heart lead is passive (if that's what people were suggesting). When the opponents have a lot of high cards, leading from xx through length and into a short honour is far more aggressive than leading from Q10xxxx. Look how close the heart lead comes to letting through 6♠ on this hand.

Even thinking about ♥ lead from xx when pd seems to have length in this suit and did not overcall, seems wrong to me. But my leads sucks anyway and I maybe wrong. And if pd does not have length in ♥ suit, where is the ♥ loser going anyway, if there is any?

Otoh, I still believe doubling 4♦ is not even remotely auto or obvious for everyone. I believe it helps opps more in the long run. God forbid if S held the ♦ Q, this dbl would probably lead to defending 6 NT. Or on this hand perhaps this would stop NS from bidding the slam, or maybe not. It definitely gives extra space to opps. The benefits of it seems much less than the damages it can cause in the long run imo. There is only one thing obvious about this DBL to me, and that is whatever info it provides to pd, is also provided to opponents. There is nothing obvious about telling opponents "Hey, you guys are getting too excited but you may have a problem on this suit, here is your extra space to reconsider, since now you learnt what we will lead and if it is not a problem then use it as a little info about my hand, incase you may need it during the play"

Fwiw, If I doubled 4♦, this would be to prevent a spade lead rather than anything else. People lead trump way too often imo. ♥ lead being passive or not depends on how one defines the passive leads vs slams I guess.

[whereagles]

I wouldn't expect pard to dbl 4♦ every time he has ♦Kxx, but I know of good players who do it. I also know good players who don't, so there.

[MrAce]

benlessard, on 2014-September-18, 01:41, said:

lol..

Timo want me to put the lead or the lead directing X as a problem ?

I think you did it anyway in BW, http://bridgewinners...g-problem-5775/

So far 24 passers vs 8 doublers. 1/3 Ratio is far from being "auto" or "obvious" as I claimed without even seeing the poll long time ago.
No need to mention all the top players among voters chose to pass.

Ben, I have no problem with individuals who has strong opinions about this double. As I said "auto" and "obvious" are overstatements. I can even live with those statements. After all, I believe you and Andy are genuinely telling the truth that DBL is "auto" or "obvious" for yourselves.

However, in a play topic, if you are assuming that majority of people are thinking like you, thus they will lead (or double) just like you, which leads you to make the declarer play accordingly, in a way that overrides the odds, shows in this topic by BBF members and in the poll of BW that you are way off A- with your assumptions about majority of people. B-with your assumptions about decent players..... Sorry m8.

[benlessard]

Unfortunatly few of the big gun choose to vote yet.

The comments are weird IMO, like the D finesse thing (by one of my partner btw ) you have the Jd in your hand so if declarer got the Qd hes happy the KD is in RHO so Xing will encourage him not stop him (howewer if north got the AQd they might play in 6Nt).

Also few commented on the IRL aspect of the problem, you have a lot of pts, they make a slam try, if they bid slam partner partner is likely to be broke so X will be at least very tempting so even if you think passing is best will you be able to pass 4D in tempo ? IRL ive seen many BIT pass that barred the leader and still help declarer anyway.

Another way to see it is you got a near overcall and opps are bidding slam, its unlikely (and lucky for the non doubler) that partner got a club card & D cards; if he hold only one of these cards are you sure you don't want to double 4D ?? Note there is vienna squeeze if declarer got the Dq and you dont get a D lead.

As for the lead IDK, partner wasnt able to X 4D or 5H so I think ill lead D but im not 100% convinced about it, but like Gnasher if partner doenst have the chance to X 5H ill lead H before leading D.