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Lead? Mea Culpa (Textbook?)

Poll: As West, you hold K7432 J943 4 KJ5 (12 member(s) have cast votes)

What do you lead after P (1D)1S(1N)2D(5D)AP

  1. SA (3 votes [25.00%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 25.00%

  2. Sx (2 votes [16.67%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 16.67%

  3. Hx (4 votes [33.33%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 33.33%

  4. Dx (1 votes [8.33%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 8.33%

  5. CK (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

  6. Cx (2 votes [16.67%] - View)

    Percentage of vote: 16.67%

  7. Other (0 votes [0.00%])

    Percentage of vote: 0.00%

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#1 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-January-18, 16:51

Harry Smith's LockDown Teams.
As West what do you lead to South's 5 contract

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#2 User is offline   gszes 

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Posted 2021-January-18, 17:23

ouch I am first so I better try to defend myself right away:) neither opp appears to have 4 hears so leading low from J hugely unlikely to give away more than 1 trick (if any). Spade A might score up a trick but also might allow declarer to ruff out a couple of partners spade honors and give up as many as 3 tricks (KTxxx? again hugely unlikely). Club J (I would still hate but much prefer a low club) the ONLY reason I would choose this lead is because it appears as a choice in a lead problem. Rho apparently has zero use for 3n and giving away a possible club trick (or 2) just seems strategically hopeless in light of the fact that clubs and spades are the only suits where dummy might have dangerous length. Let me go put on my armor and feel free to whale away sigh.
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#3 User is offline   shyams 

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Posted 2021-January-18, 17:37

If declarer's bidding has to make sense, then it is more likely that declarer is short in hearts. If South held a suitable heart stopper, an attempt of some sort for 3NT would at least have been made.

In such a case, I feel it is best for us to give declarer a nasty guess at trick 1. I keep my fingers crossed and underlead my spade Ace. The material risk in such a play is for East to finesse dummy and play an interior honour card. If partner does that, I will take the blame.

My reasoning is that if I lead hearts OR a neutral trump, it will give declarer the time to investigate as to which high cards are held by partner thereby improving their odds of a correct guess in spades (if that's what is needed to land the contract).
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#4 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2021-January-18, 20:13

This is pretty close to a pure guess. I lead a low club. Could well be disastrous but for any lead I can think of, I can construct a plausible lie of the cards on which said lead was fatal.
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#5 User is offline   Douglas43 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 09:56

Please ignore my comment below, I misread the auction. Sorry. Posted Image
I would lead SA. I agree with mikeh it's pretty much a guess and anything could be costly. Subject to partner's overcalls being reasonably sound, this may be OK (although if dummy has QJx, small spade is better). I'd have preferred 4S instead of 2D though, despite responder's 1NT. We have 10+ card fit and I'd like to tell partner a.s.a.p.

This post has been edited by Douglas43: 2021-January-21, 22:29

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#6 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 11:48


On my trump lead, declarer can make the contract. :( How? Partner said "Read my textbook. Never lead a singleton trump" :)

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#7 User is offline   DavidKok 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 12:28

I've recently read the two opening books by Bird & Anthias, and they present convincing evidence against leading a trump in most situations. That's why I picked a small heart here, and as the cards lie partner is in a fine position to rise with the ace and return a club.
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#8 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 13:16

View PostDavidKok, on 2021-January-19, 12:28, said:

I've recently read the two opening books by Bird & Anthias, and they present convincing evidence against leading a trump in most situations. That's why I picked a small heart here, and as the cards lie partner is in a fine position to rise with the ace and return a club.


I don't remember the book nor the author, although it may have been a book by Ewen on Opening Leads, but a phrase that has always stuck in my mind is 'there is a special place in hell reserved for those who lead a singleton trump'

I don't think one needs double dummy analysis to see how rarely a stiff trump will work, and how often it picks up the trumps for declarer, and/or blows a tempo. It does both here:)
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#9 User is offline   akwoo 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 16:14

At IMPs, where your goal is to set up a trick to defeat the contract, I think a small club is best. LHO has a spade that you might set up with a spade lead. (In the worst case, which isn't all that unlikely on the bidding, LHO has K and declarer a void.) The singleton trump is definitely out. The club is better than the heart because a heart lead requires partner to have KQ to set up a trick, whereas the club only requires partner to have Q to set up a trick.

At MPs it's trickier because while the club is more likely to set up a trick, it's also more likely to give one away.
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#10 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 17:26


Several commentators endorse my partner's admonition "Read my textbook. Never lead a singleton trump"

I fell from grace to lead 4 :(
Luckily, however, In practice, the contract was one-down. :)
With good views, declarer can succeed by running trumps ...
South's 3 subjects West to this pretty strip-squeeze :)

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#11 User is offline   DavidKok 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 17:54

View Postmikeh, on 2021-January-19, 13:16, said:

I don't remember the book nor the author, although it may have been a book by Ewen on Opening Leads, but a phrase that has always stuck in my mind is 'there is a special place in hell reserved for those who lead a singleton trump'

I don't think one needs double dummy analysis to see how rarely a stiff trump will work, and how often it picks up the trumps for declarer, and/or blows a tempo. It does both here:)

The Bird & Anthias books are based on double-dummy computer simulations, typically generating 5000 deals consistent with a fixed West hand and auction and figuring out which lead scores best at IMPs and matchpoints. I've been told the Ewen book is better, but have so far been unable to find a copy of it (and if I run into the Sowter, Martens, Lawrence or Blackwood books on opening leads I'll pick those up too - computer analysis is great but only up to a certain point). A surprising conclusion of the Bird & Anthias book was that even if the trump is not singleton it is frequently not the best lead, even if the alternatives are mildly unpleasant.
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#12 User is online   Cyberyeti 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 18:11

View Postnige1, on 2021-January-19, 17:26, said:


With good views, declarer can succeed by running trumps ...



He could still have succeeded starting out how he did, interpolating heart to the 10 and A, club to the ace and cashing the Q does nothing to break it up.

The key position is:



Where the 3 forces W to pitch the club whereupon you pitch the heart and play a spade.
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#13 User is offline   nige1 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 18:11

View PostDavidKok, on 2021-January-19, 17:54, said:

The Bird & Anthias books are based on double-dummy computer simulations, typically generating 5000 deals consistent with a fixed West hand and auction and figuring out which lead scores best at IMPs and matchpoints. I've been told the Ewen book is better, but have so far been unable to find a copy of it (and if I run into the Sowter, Martens, Lawrence or Blackwood books on opening leads I'll pick those up too - computer analysis is great but only up to a certain point). A surprising conclusion of the Bird & Anthias book was that even if the trump is not singleton it is frequently not the best lead, even if the alternatives are mildly unpleasant.
IMO,
Ewen's book is good but the Bird/Anthias book is better. The latter received good reviews. One of my favourite partners, David Barnes says I anticipated most of their suggestions, and they have improved his defence. Hence I am disappointed to have I fallen from grace in the OP hand. Another favourite partner, John Matheson, has also written an excellent book on Opening Leads.
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#14 User is offline   mikeh 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 18:42

View PostDavidKok, on 2021-January-19, 17:54, said:

The Bird & Anthias books are based on double-dummy computer simulations, typically generating 5000 deals consistent with a fixed West hand and auction and figuring out which lead scores best at IMPs and matchpoints. I've been told the Ewen book is better, but have so far been unable to find a copy of it (and if I run into the Sowter, Martens, Lawrence or Blackwood books on opening leads I'll pick those up too - computer analysis is great but only up to a certain point). A surprising conclusion of the Bird & Anthias book was that even if the trump is not singleton it is frequently not the best lead, even if the alternatives are mildly unpleasant.

I’ve got both the suit and notrump B & A books. They have a lot of good information but they, imo, grossly understate the bias arising from double dummy analysis. A typical, and maybe worst, problem is that they often suggest leading an unsupported Ace, which (as they note) gives leader a chance to see dummy and partner’s card.

I found that disingenuous. All experienced pairs have agreements as to what information partner should give in response to the lead of an Ace. But for the double dummy analysis to work, partner must often give a signal based on opening leader’s hand. IOW, the signal is made double-dummy rather than in accordance with an established agreement as to the Ace lead.

However, provided one uses critical judgement when reading the books, they do indeed help considerably. I was initially very put off by this flaw but then took another look and found that both were helpful.

Ewen’s book is now very old, and I haven’t looked at it in over 30 years. It’s much simpler.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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#15 User is offline   sfi 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 19:29

View Postmikeh, on 2021-January-19, 18:42, said:

However, provided one uses critical judgement when reading the books, they do indeed help considerably. I was initially very put off by this flaw but then took another look and found that both were helpful.

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. A few years ago my partner picked up the NT book and changed his leads. For about three months I had no idea what was going on, until I read the book and got some insight into how his thought process had changed. On the other hand, I read the suit book first and changed my leads substantially because of it. It didn't impact his defence at all even though I hadn't told him.

It highlighted two things. First, tell your partner when your ideas change. Second, defence against NT is largely about finding long suits, and when partner starts trying to hit yours, you need to know that's what they are trying to do. Defence against suits is more about finding high cards and avoiding blowing tricks by leading away from them at the wrong time. Changing to more passive leads impacts partner less since they already know it's a possibility.
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#16 User is offline   Stephen Tu 

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Posted 2021-January-19, 22:16

View Postmikeh, on 2021-January-19, 18:42, said:

I've got both the suit and notrump B & A books. They have a lot of good information but they, imo, grossly understate the bias arising from double dummy analysis. A typical, and maybe worst, problem is that they often suggest leading an unsupported Ace, which (as they note) gives leader a chance to see dummy and partner's card.

I found that disingenuous. All experienced pairs have agreements as to what information partner should give in response to the lead of an Ace. But for the double dummy analysis to work, partner must often give a signal based on opening leader's hand. IOW, the signal is made double-dummy rather than in accordance with an established agreement as to the Ace lead.

Presumably if you are going to embark on trying a method that suggests leading unsupported aces a lot more often than traditional human rules-of-thumb, one would also want to switch to Rusinow or old-fashioned standard where the ace denies the king and have your signals cater to that. I recall Justin posted a few times that he preferred old-fashioned to ace from AK since he tended to bang down bare aces more often than most.

If the unsupported ace is recommended on a double dummy basis, presumably with that sort of hand on a particular auction it isn't blowing a crucial trick outright too often in comparison to how often it should "work" in theory.

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