[nielsfoged]

mikeh, on Nov 27 2007, 09:43 AM, said:

I am not sure that the finessers have fully appreciated the folly of the lead of a stiff J. When the trumps are as we have them, it is a 'psychological' ploy. When trump are Q10xxx opposite A9xx or equivalent, it is a disaster: note that we may well be of a keycard on the auction.

It is far closer than I think the previous posters have suggested, and I'd like to be at the table (not that my table feel is remotely legendary, at least not in a good way)

I'm going to play for the drop... but I wouldn't if LHO had won any nationals.

For once I don't agree completely with you, Mikeh.

It seems to be an exceptional good day for a sophisticated LHO to lead a singleton ♠J. At both of the referred tables, the bidding included RKC from Responder (2NT-Opener showing 4 of 5 Aces). Normally, Responder should have (at least) 1 keycard for using RKC. Thus the risk of killing partner's ♠Kx(x) seems almost non-existing.

However, I must admit that LHO might reason differently holding the bare ♠QJ: "If I lead another suit than trump, I may unattendly attack a potential entrance on the Table in Trick 1, and thereby make it too difficult/risky for Declarer to play for the restricted choice, since Declarer then will need to draw trumps once (trick 2) to see the honnour from me, and afterwards (Trick 3) must find the entrance on the weaker Table before making the trump-finess. To play on restricted choice may well be fascilitated, if I lead the ♠J".

Still, my choice would be to finess the ♠Q against the very best and against all weak opponents, and play for the drop against the rest, even the quite good ones.

In the actual game, it would be a finess.

[rfedrick]

For what it's worth (not much, i concede), this hand was played in slam at 3 tables out of 4 in the match between Sussex and Leicestershire, on auctions very similar to the one quoted by Frances (at my table, the auction in fact was identical).

all three wests chose the spade Jack; 2 declarers finessed and failed, one banged down two top trumps (without pausing for thought, i'm told), and made six.

i finessed, for the reasons eloquently expressed by David Burn. i personally don't think it's very close - the psychological arguments are debatable and certainly not strong enough in my view to overturn 2:1 odds.

[FrancesHinden]

brianshark, on Nov 27 2007, 02:16 PM, said:

Finesse has everything going for it really. It's the normal play without the lead and an unusual lead is only more likely to make declarer do something unusual like play for the drop (as evidenced by the existence of this thread).

The only other thing of relevence is if West has most of the outstanding values or no attractive lead he may be more likely to want to lead trump regardless. I guess a discovery play might be to play the ♥A and then Q at tricks 2 and 3 (intending to ruff the Q) to see if it's covered. But I can't see it affecting my decision.

If you planning to finesse anyway, you shouldn't take this discovery play because you will run out of trumps if West has singleton club honour.

[PassedOut]

Interesting thread. I admit I would have finessed and gone down, figuring that the leader had no attractive choice.

Interesting to think that the singleton jack lead could be used to talk declarer out of taking the restricted choice play in trumps.

[skjaeran]

PassedOut, on Dec 1 2007, 11:04 PM, said:

Interesting thread. I admit I would have finessed and gone down, figuring that the leader had no attractive choice.

Interesting to think that the singleton jack lead could be used to talk declarer out of taking the restricted choice play in trumps.

Have you ever in your life seen anyone lead a singleton jack of trumps vs a slam?
Do you ever expect this to happen?

I've never seen it. I never expect to see it either.

[cherdano]

rfedrick, on Dec 1 2007, 12:56 PM, said:

i finessed, for the reasons eloquently expressed by David Burn. i personally don't think it's very close - the psychological arguments are debatable and certainly not strong enough in my view to overturn 2:1 odds.

These are not 2:1 odds. A good player would always lead the J from QJ, never the Q.

[Halo]

cherdano, on Dec 1 2007, 06:45 PM, said:

rfedrick, on Dec 1 2007, 12:56 PM, said:

i finessed, for the reasons eloquently expressed by David Burn. i personally don't think it's very close - the psychological arguments are debatable and certainly not strong enough in my view to overturn 2:1 odds.

These are not 2:1 odds. A good player would always lead the J from QJ, never the Q.

And this is based on the proposition that noone would ever lead the singleton Queen, or consequentially Q from QJ.

So if you see the Queen you 'know' it is from what?

If the answer is that we never see the queen, then I'll start the fashion and play it.

[PassedOut]

skaeran, on Dec 1 2007, 06:28 PM, said:

Have you ever in your life seen anyone lead a singleton jack of trumps vs a slam?

I don't recall seeing such a lead against a slam bid to make. That's what makes this an interesting thread for me.

However, I do remember beating a slam after leading low from J-x: declarer played partner for Q-J-x and reacted with irritation when he lost the setting trick to my jack.

[cherdano]

Halo, on Dec 1 2007, 05:59 PM, said:

cherdano, on Dec 1 2007, 06:45 PM, said:

rfedrick, on Dec 1 2007, 12:56 PM, said:

i finessed, for the reasons eloquently expressed by David Burn. i personally don't think it's very close - the psychological arguments are debatable and certainly not strong enough in my view to overturn 2:1 odds.

These are not 2:1 odds. A good player would always lead the J from QJ, never the Q.

And this is based on the proposition that noone would ever lead the singleton Queen, or consequentially Q from QJ.

So if you see the Queen you 'know' it is from what?

If the answer is that we never see the queen, then I'll start the fashion and play it.

If someone leads the queen of trumps against a small slam, I will always play him for QJ. That still makes it a big losing proposition for him/her to lead a singleton queen, as most of the time I have the jack, not his partner.

[dburn]

cherdano, on Dec 1 2007, 07:02 PM, said:

Halo, on Dec 1 2007, 05:59 PM, said:

cherdano, on Dec 1 2007, 06:45 PM, said:

rfedrick, on Dec 1 2007, 12:56 PM, said:

i finessed, for the reasons eloquently expressed by David Burn. i personally don't think it's very close - the psychological arguments are debatable and certainly not strong enough in my view to overturn 2:1 odds.

These are not 2:1 odds. A good player would always lead the J from QJ, never the Q.

And this is based on the proposition that noone would ever lead the singleton Queen, or consequentially Q from QJ.

So if you see the Queen you 'know' it is from what?

If the answer is that we never see the queen, then I'll start the fashion and play it.

If someone leads the queen of trumps against a small slam, I will always play him for QJ. That still makes it a big losing proposition for him/her to lead a singleton queen, as most of the time I have the jack, not his partner.

So what? The singleton queen of trumps is a safe lead against a slam unless partner has the ace and declarer the king. If you are going to lead from QJ, there is no reason to prefer one card over the other - you should randomize your choice as you would if you were following suit.

If you start "always" playing for someone to have done something, you will shortly become one of those people whom no one can convince of anything. Don't be a foo. Be a bar.

[skjaeran]

PassedOut, on Dec 2 2007, 12:59 AM, said:

skaeran, on Dec 1 2007, 06:28 PM, said:

Have you ever in your life seen anyone lead a singleton jack of trumps vs a slam?

I don't recall seeing such a lead against a slam bid to make. That's what makes this an interesting thread for me.

However, I do remember beating a slam after leading low from J-x: declarer played partner for Q-J-x and reacted with irritation when he lost the setting trick to my jack.

I've seen that too, twice. One declarer did like your opponent, and went down. The other just snorted and dropped the jack.

[mike777]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 27 2007, 05:54 AM, said:

We've had a very long thread on playing AKQ9xx opposite xx, and what you should do when the 10 is played on the first round. Here's another such hand. 

Scoring: XIMP

2NT  3♥
4♦ 4♥
4♠ 4NT
5♦ 6♠

---

Teams-of-8 round robin 12 board matches X-imps converted to VPs (Tollemache Cup qualifier)

2NT = 20-22
4♦ = non-minimum, diamond side suit (does not deny a club cuebid)
4♥ re-transfer

West leads the Jack of spades.

You may take the inference that West does not have a singleton club nor KQxx which increases the chance the you don't need two club ruffs in hand.

How do you play the spade suit?

The actual West is good enough to be in the top 8 players in his county, but has not won much in the way of national events that you are aware of.

Does it matter is West is a well-known expert?  A bunny?

AK of spades...next deal.

Bridge used to be a timed event.

[nige1]

FrancesHinden, on Nov 27 2007, 05:54 AM, said:

We've had a very long thread on playing AKQ9xx opposite xx, and what you should do when the 10 is played on the first round. Here's another such hand.

Scoring: XIMP

2NT 3♥
4♦ 4♥
4♠ 4NT
5♦ 6♠

---

Teams-of-8 round robin 12 board matches X-imps converted to VPs (Tollemache Cup qualifier)

2NT = 20-22
4♦ = non-minimum, diamond side suit (does not deny a club cuebid)
4♥ re-transfer

West leads the Jack of spades.

You may take the inference that West does not have a singleton club nor KQxx which increases the chance the you don't need two club ruffs in hand.

How do you play the spade suit?

The actual West is good enough to be in the top 8 players in his county, but has not won much in the way of national events that you are aware of.

Does it matter is West is a well-known expert? A bunny?

Having read the other posts I reckon that the argument for

the finesse is that if you had to play the suit yourself and LHO produced an honour on the first round of trumps, then you would probably abide by the principle of restricted choice and finesse on the next round.

the drop is that a singleton knave lead is dangerous in that it will sometimes remove a guess for declarer. Also a singleton Q is even more fraught, so the restricted choice argument is less compelling.

Droppers have slightly the better argument; but I confess I'd take the losing finesse

[ceeb]

I think Cherdano's argument is telling. Practically speaking -- as of the time the hand was posed, not some mythical perfect-bridge future -- players don't lead the Q of trumps from QJ. So the actual lead of the J obviates restricted choice.

By the way, after Frances revealed that the J was led at both tables, I had an impulse to reply that in that case I would be confident that the lead is from QJ. It's a joke of course, but isn't the point correct? Wouldn't you feel that both players might find the lead from QJ but for both to lead the J would be remarkable? If you agree with that, then you are agreeing that also at just one table, J from QJ is far more likely than from J alone.

[FrancesHinden]

ceeb, on Dec 3 2007, 03:04 PM, said:

By the way, after Frances revealed that the J was led at both tables, I had an impulse to reply that in that case I would be confident that the lead is from QJ. It's a joke of course, but isn't the point correct? Wouldn't you feel that both players might find the lead from QJ but for both to lead the J would be remarkable? If you agree with that, then you are agreeing that also at just one table, J from QJ is far more likely than from J alone.

....and fredrick told us that the jack was selected at 3 more tables. I don't have the email addresses of the other teams in the event, or I could find out the lead at more tables.

Personally, I would never lead either singleton Jack or QJ doubleton against a slam that was bid to make (unless the auction indicated that both a trump lead was right and that they had a huge fit). Neither would my partner (who was declarer on this particular hand, and finessed).

What I've learnt from this tale is that

i) when people lead from QJ doubleton, they 'always' lead the Jack
ii) a large percentage of people of tolle qualifier standard think that leading QJ doubleton against a freely bid slam is a suitable lead.

I don't yet know how many of the same people would also think jack singleton is a suitable lead, but I shall bear the above in mind next time this combination comes up.

[hrothgar]

While I haven't been particpating in this topic (nor on the AKQxxx v xx topic), I've found both to be quite interesting.

I haven't seen any examples of leading a stiff Jack versus a slam, nor have I seen discussions about the right lead from QJ tight.

My hope is that "we" might actually be contributing something new and unique here. Most experts know about restricted choice. With luck, this is a related example with an equilibirum solution.

I suspect that this hasn't received much consideration because one doesn't get to apply the technique that often. Then again, it can't be nearly as rare as some of those esoteric squeezes that people seem to obsess over

[PassedOut]

FrancesHinden, on Dec 3 2007, 09:33 AM, said:

Personally, I would never lead either singleton Jack or QJ doubleton against a slam that was bid to make (unless the auction indicated that both a trump lead was right and that they had a huge fit).

Same here.

If the jack lead is always from queen-jack and never a singleton, I wonder why anyone ever makes that lead instead of simply waiting for a natural trump trick? Given the comments here, it would seem that such a lead has to be a big loser, on balance. (Except against me, of course, because I lose to queen-jack doubleton whether or not the jack is led.)

BTW, I agree with hrothgar that this is a great thread. I truly appreciate reading the different perspectives offered here.

Life being short, we all encounter just a tiny sampling of the possible situations that arise in bridge, so it's most enlightening to learn the conclusions drawn by others. I'll surely be paying more attention to this particular problem from now on.

[han]

I remember once getting the queen of clubs lead against a slam, about 3 years ago. I thought about it for a long time and decided to play for the drop, which was right. Never occured to me again. My LHO was not a national British champion, in bridge nor chess.

[pclayton]

Strongly agree with everything Harald is saying here. I've seen the J lead from QJ many times.

The J lead is a Grosvenor of sorts obviously, but it works.

By the way, I think this is a more interesting problem when the A and K are split and the opponents can work that out.