[Fluffy]

when they have a running suit instead of balaned hands and I have a reasonable chance to hit partner with a spade lead?

I'd hate to see partner with ♠Q98 and giving away the contract on the lead, also horrible that someone has doubleton spade and we have a diamond trick coming.

For a spade to be vital, we need a side trick to cash on their running suit, where is it?

[Jlall]

Siegmund,

12 points with 5 hearts is a very bad metric for a guy who simply forces to slam opposite 18-19 with 3 hearts when they had a ton of room to investigate if they chose to do so. If they are simply bidding on power/HCP, we are very unlikely to set this because partner won't have anything (RHO will surely have more than 12!), and if we can it's not like a spade lead will blow it that often. If RHO has some shape which is very likely, especially in instances where we can set them, a spade lead just stands out.

[Phil]

Run the sim with 13-16 HCP please.

Agree with the spade leaders except initially like Josh I thought the strong hand was on my right. Don't love the spade traveling around to the holding on my right but what can I do?

If the strong hand were on my right (say a t-walsh or precision sequence) I doubt I'd be leading a spade.

[Fluffy]

yes, if RHO is unbalanced a spade lead will improve, but my read form the bidding was that RHO had all the 4 level to investigate and failed to, would he bury a grand slam if partner had the perfect hand? well I think not, but I won't calim to be right there.

[jdonn]

Jlall, on Jan 11 2010, 05:48 PM, said:

I don't understand how any bridge player could say:

1) I like leading aggressively vs slams but
2) This is not the hand for it.

Trumps are breaking. If there is a finesse in trumps it's likely on. If there is a finesse/double finesse in diamonds it's likely on. They had a complete power auction, rather than a tentative auction. LHO is very strong.

If this isn't the time for it, what is?

If that was referring to my comment, please note I had the opponents' hands reversed (so the finesses were off instead of on), then realized it and changed my lead. If it was not in response to me, never mind. But it seems like it was.

[Siegmund]

I wish you could explain to me what you think South has beyond "some shape," and what a spade lead is accomplishing, beyond "it stands out."

As you said, South passed up a chance to do some more exploring. A lot of the 2-5-1-5 type hands need to know which kings partner has; he didn't cuebid to find out. To me the auction screams that South is semibalanced and hovering right around that 14-point cutoff for a slam on power, i.e., that he cares only about North's controls in bulk. (Still, the sim left all the 5521s in, only kicking out the voids because of the jump to 4NT.)

One area where my sim stacked things a bit unfairly against the spade lead is that I required exactly one ace or trump honour to be missing, so it was only when that missing key was SA, or HQ and partner also had SQ, that the spade had a chance.

Still, we need two tricks against this slam, and I feel like one of them has to be the SK -- for which we either need SQ+ in partner's hand, or SA in declarer's (and I don't lead a spade unless partner also has SQ), or (SJ in partner's hand, SA in dummy, SQ in declarer, and I don't lead a spade). I am hoping my second trick will come from partner having DJ, CQ, or CT, and declarer needing four tricks out of that minor to make it. SA in South plus any of several stray cards in East feels like a far better bet to me than SQ specifically in East.

FWIW I reran the sim with the restriction forcing one key to be missing removed (and limited South to 12-16 HCP since he didnt look for a grand.) Of course the slam makes much more often now but there's more variety in what random honours partner can have. Now we have, in 1000 trials, club 71, diamond 59 heart 59, spade 43.

[jdonn]

I think a sim here gives declarer way too much of an advantage. He will guess the diamonds. He will guess the hearts if partner has Kxx. He may guess the clubs. He will guess the spades like if we lead one and there is a QT in dummy with partner having the jack. I am not surprised slam will almost always be good if declarer does exactly the right thing.

[awm]

I like a club lead here.

The issue is that the auction really sounds like declarer has a lot of points. He didn't cuebid, so either they have roughly 33 high and he's just checking to make sure they're not off two keys, or he has control of every suit. It seems not that likely he has control of every suit given LHO has the strong hand, unless again they have a lot of hcp.

Assuming I'm right about this, partner won't have much. For a spade lead to work, I pretty much need partner to have either the spade ace or queen. But the points are such that partner doesn't likely have an ace, and while partner could easily have the spade queen it'd probably be his only card. I'm not really sure how I'm setting then -- sure I get a spade trick established but diamonds are the only other real hope and my diamonds are in front of the diamond length.

A better chance seems to be hoping that my spade king just scores naturally if I don't lead from it (i.e. declarer has the ace and nowhere to pitch). Since this just requires a layout (and not partner holding anything), it leaves the possibility that partner has a trump trick (like queen third behind the jack -- declarer won't smother my ten, or the king behind the ace or jack) or that partner has a scoring club king.

Note that leading a trump potentially gives away many of the trump positions described. The club seems like a more effective passive lead.

[Siegmund]

Our hand being so strong is a huge factor, I think.

If we had Kxx Tx T9xx J9xx, I'd be fine with the spade lead. (And the sim confirms that - putting the spade way out in front with that hand, by about as much as it is behind on the actual hand. Make the diamonds JTxx and it's a tie.)

It really is going to come down to whether we are sure that declarer has a strong square hand. JLall seemed convinced that wasn't what this auction showed.

[jdonn]

Siegmund, on Jan 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

Our hand being so strong is a huge factor, I think.

If we had Kxx Tx T9xx J9xx, I'd be fine with the spade lead. (And the sim confirms that - putting the spade way out in front with that hand, by about as much as it is behind on the actual hand. Make the diamonds JTxx and it's a tie.)

It really is going to come down to whether we are sure that declarer has a strong square hand. JLall seemed convinced that wasn't what this auction showed.

Have you considered that your hand being stronger makes it more likely declarer is lighter than otherwise?

[mikeh]

Siegmund, on Jan 11 2010, 07:48 PM, said:

Our hand being so strong is a huge factor, I think.

If we had Kxx Tx T9xx J9xx, I'd be fine with the spade lead. (And the sim confirms that - putting the spade way out in front with that hand, by about as much as it is behind on the actual hand. Make the diamonds JTxx and it's a tie.)

It really is going to come down to whether we are sure that declarer has a strong square hand. JLall seemed convinced that wasn't what this auction showed.

I read Justin's post quite differently.

He doesn't argue that declarer can't be strong and balanced/semi-balanced. He argues that if he is, then our lead probably makes little difference, because they simply have too much stuff.

I agree with him. There are some hands where there is no meaningful chance.

However, declarer will sometimes be less strong and more shapely...now is when we hope for partner to hold an entry or trick and now when we lead aggressively.

BTW, in terms of estimating our opps.....I am sure that there are very strong players out there who use new minor forcing over 2N rebids, but my expectation is that most strong pairs use one of the better alternative methods. New minor is woeful at uncovering secondary fit slams. So I'd not expect rho to be top-notch, based on the limited and possibly misleading clues so far afforded.

I chose a spade lead before I read any other post, and I have seen nothing in the thread to dissuade me.

[akhare]

Add me to the list of people who misread the auction and assumed that they were leading into the hand that rebid 2N.

In any case, I will go with awm's reasoning about declarer being a relatively balanced hand too and stick with my original ♣ or ♥.

So, how did it the various leads pan out on the hand in question?

[Fluffy]

the simulation more or less said that leading a spade is half as good as anything else when RHO is strong semi-balanced.

Now make RHO shapy and weaker and lets have a look.

[ron]

Thanks for your replies.

Since someone asked: the spade lead was the winner this time.

[gwnn]

so what did RHO have? we all want to know