[inquiry]

In the thread on original or remaining count, Jimmy asked the question of which leads are best. What he said was...

Quote

i play original count all the time, mainly because it's the way i was taught... but on the above quote, i think it might be a good idea for you to share with the rest of us the advantages of 2/4 vs. 3/5 or 4th  ... i've played both 2/4 and 3/5, but admit that i'm not convinced which is better...

I have to admit to never being a big fan of MUD, yet I now find I lead the middle card from three (but I play low on the next round)... I guess you would call it MDU.

A big advantage of 3/5 leads it seems to me is to very quickly determine if your partner has lead from a 3 or a five card suit. Of course, it gets a little fuzzy when he leads thirds from a four card suit.

I very much have begun to favor low from two, middle from three. With four, I make a decision, if I like my suit, I lead fourth best, if I am not thrilled about the suit I am leading I lead second best. This can carry over to five card suits as well. When you lead your second best, often your partner can determine what your biggest card is. My experience is that with 2/4 leads I am getting better results, but to be fair, I am using it with better players so it might be the players not the carding agreement. What does everyone else think. What do you play and why it is the best?

[luis]

I played 3/5 (2/4 vrs NT) for a logn time.
Then switched to an Italian system of leads.
And now I'm playing 2/4 both vrs suit and vrs NT.

In my experience the italian leads were superior by a large margin to 3/5 or 2/4 leads. But you need a pd that wants to play that.
Between 2/4 or 3/5 I think that 2/4 is better since it's more clear when you have something in the suit and when not and you don't have to waste your top card when you lead from nothing, sometimes those Tens and Nines are important spots.

About the italian leading system I used (not sure if this is Roman or what)

Low = Show interest in the suit being lead
High = Denies interest in the suit being lead
Odd = Denies interest in the suit of the same color (suggests range/alternate)
Even = Denies interest in the suit of the same range (suggests color/alternate)

Example:

If they are playing 4s

If you lead the h9
- Denies interest in hearts
- Denies interest in diamonds (colors) so you have something in clubs

Believe me it works very very well.
- We only gave count in cash out situations
- It does give information to declarer but that's not so tragic with the info the defense has.

This was combined with a revolving preferential method that was used instead of count/interest. But maybe I can describe this later :-)



Luis

[Trpltrbl]

Thx Luis, this was something I needed. I have been looking around for it for a while and know I found thx to you I am looking forward about the other stuff you are going to post.

I normally play 2/4 against NT and 3/5 against suit but I only lead 5th from even amount of cards, to make it more readible.

Mike

[mishovnbg]

Spoiler

------------------------------------------------------

Hi friends!

Spoiler

------

I played around year complete system of marking, polish invention named "combain". It was based on 3/5 leads and coded 9/10 leads. Often blocking of suits and lack of posibillity to guess high fillers as well as different way of leads and retuning of suit made me to give up playing 3/5.

Spoiler

------

Italian odd/even system of marking I also played around year. Some terrible mistakes due to lack of right odd or even card in critical boards made me to give up it too. By the way I played several times in BBO with pickup p odd/even again and again I had several times only even cards...

Spoiler

-------

Last my thoughts are about Fantony-Nunes way of lead - combination of count and interest in leading suit. For example lead small ♥mean: you have even cards in ♥ without interest in ♥ or you have odd cards in ♥ with interest in ♥. I believe in alternative meaninig of bridge play, both in bidding and defense, due to limited possibility to exchange information. I read many years ago in one polish magazine way of marking, based on total count of hands. No need to be genius, to understand that any hand of 13 cards any time have 3 odd + 1 even suit or 3 even + 1 odd suit. I didn't played yet same way of marking, despite like it very much. My new idea is to lead low when you have even total count(3 even+1 odd suits) and high if you have odd total count(3 odd + 1 even suits) and opposite if you have honour in lead suit. How this probably sofisticated way for you can help you in defense? Answer is very simple - form bidding and dummy you very often will be able to understand your p lead, this mean you will have full distribution of board as well as have your p honour in lead suit or not.

Spoiler

----------------------------------------------------------

Misho