[Trinidad]

We played this hand last weekend. I was on opening lead as South.

---

I gave the bidding as it was explained by my screen mate (West). The explanation of 6♣ and 6♦ seems wrong (6♣ should ask for the void, with 6♦ showing clubs), but I didn't realize that at the time. At the time, I expected declarer to have a six card suit (for showing the queen when he didn't have it). I was hoping that dummy would have only 3 spades.

If partner holds a doubleton trump, there are three cases:
- West has the ♠AK. I will not get a trump trick, no matter what.
- East holds the ♠AK. I will get a trump trick since declarer will apply restricted choice.
- The trump keycards are split. This is the interesting case:
Declarer is most likely to play the trump suit automatically correct, if he wins trick 1 in dummy: He will play towards a top trump in hand and he won't have a choice any more. Similarly, he will apply restricted choice, if he wins the first trick in hand.
So, one would have to lead so that declarer wins in hand. Given that declarer cued in hearts and clubs, it should be one of those suits. But that comes with the drawback that it might save declarer a guess in the suit. (In hearts it actually does save declarer a guess and in clubs it could have if the ace and queen were exchanged.) And who knows, maybe declarer needs to do something in trick 2 first and ends up in dummy anyway when he starts playing trumps. Then I have solved his guess and I won't get a trump trick anyway.

I got the idea of leading a trump. At least it wouldn't give up a trick in a side suit and it would be save if they had the expected 10 trumps. I chose the ♠J. The only thing is that I saw one huge problem with it:

Is this now still a case of restricted choice? I am not sure it is.

Fortunately, declarer didn't even think much about it. He called for the ace from dummy in three seconds. Meanwhile, my screen mate asked to see my hand and I showed them. I saw his face turning white as declarer called for a small trump in trick 2. (Due to the screen, declarer didn't have this unauthorized information. ) And the grand was down in trick 2.

The reason why I think this isn't restricted choice. The lead of the queen and jack are not symmetric:
- One could lead a singleton jack, if partner can't have the Qxx. (And that is how the auction was explained to me.)
- One would not lead a singleton queen, since partner could have Jxx. Hence, the lead of the trump queen would "promise" a second trump. Therefore, leading the Queen would give the show away. (However, that would be a great reason to lead the singleton queen, anyway. Declarer would figure that you wouldn't lead the singleton and try to drop your jack while your partner holds it.)

In short, three days after the deal I am still horribly confused. Can anybody reason for me whether this is restricted choice or answer the question how restricted it is?

Rik

[han]

This is indeed not restricted choice for the reasons you stated. Also, the jack from QJ tight seems to be a quite popular lead. Too popular. I think the chance of beating the contract is better if you lead anything else. It shouldn't matter which hand declarer wins the first trick, there is no reason to lead up to an honor instead of cashing an honor from your hand. Still, you are right that most people tend to lead towards an honor instead of cashing from hand.

My partner and I merely played 6S on this hand, in the west. North led the diamond queen. Declarer won and played the spade ace, the jack falling with south. Now declarer can strip the clubs and diamonds, come to hand with the heart king and finesse in spades, claiming either way.

[JLOGIC]

I am surprised han agrees with your analysis, it is circular.

Now if you want to talk about what people ACTUALLY do that is fine but your logic does not hold up that one could not lead a stiff Q of trumps.

[WellSpyder]

JLOGIC, on 2011-November-16, 03:55, said:

I am surprised han agrees with your analysis, it is circular.

Good point!

1) It's wrong to lead a singleton Q because partner might have Jxx
2) So if you lead Q declarer will play you for QJ
3) If declarer plays you for QJ then he won't pick up partner's Jxx
4) So it's OK to lead a singleton Q
........

[mikeh]

In my experience the only times I have ever seen a Q or J led against a slam or grand, it has always been from QJ, and the J seems to be the more popular. Thus, if you did this against me, I am going to make, but might well have failed on another lead.

The J ought not to be more popular, but I think the situation rarely arises so people don't develop an ingrained randomizer, unlike how most experienced defenders at least try to randomize their usual restricted choice plays. Humans are very bad at intuiting this sort of thing. However, if you led the Q against me, I'd still think that it is more likely from QJ than from stiff Q.

Otherwise, I agree with Justin's post.

[AlexJonson]

Resticted choice scenarios are quite common.

I guess a problem with this case is that you probably wont meet it from either side of the table in your lifetime.

The usual psychological arguments about restricted choice (do people lots more often play x than y) just don't apply.

So, well done Trinidad.

[Trinidad]

AlexJonson, on 2011-November-16, 14:57, said:

Resticted choice scenarios are quite common.

I guess a problem with this case is that you probably wont meet it from either side of the table in your lifetime.

The usual psychological arguments about restricted choice (do people lots more often play x than y) just don't apply.

So, well done Trinidad.

What surprised me was that declarer took no time at all to think about the trump suit. It took me about 30 seconds to come up with the lead. (Declarer didn't really know that, since he was on the other side of the screen, and I might have been asking about the auction.) I was going over all these restricted choice arguments. It took declarer no time at all to decide to take the trick in dummy and finesse. I would have expected him to think a little about it.

Rik

[whereagles]

Just lead the jack of clubs

[han]

JLOGIC, on 2011-November-16, 03:55, said:

I am surprised han agrees with your analysis, it is circular.

Now if you want to talk about what people ACTUALLY do that is fine but your logic does not hold up that one could not lead a stiff Q of trumps.

If the defenders know all the cards and defend perfectly then of course it is restricted choice. Or more precisely: the strategy of always cashing the honor in dummy first and finessing when an honor appears with the opening leader is optimal and cannot be exploited.

That's all very well theoretically but in practice the opening leader doesn't have all the information. This is especially the case when the explanations do not match the actual hands, such as here. I do think that when the opponents have told you that they hold the AKQ of trumps, leading a singleton jack is more appealing than leading a singleton queen. It doesn't matter that you might also lead a singleton queen, in order to get the 2:1 argument in favor of finessing that we know from "restricted choice" one would need to lead from Q, J and QJ equally often. In practice that's just not the case.

[JLOGIC]

han, on 2011-November-17, 04:04, said:

If the defenders know all the cards and defend perfectly then of course it is restricted choice. Or more precisely: the strategy of always cashing the honor in dummy first and finessing when an honor appears with the opening leader is optimal and cannot be exploited.

That's all very well theoretically but in practice the opening leader doesn't have all the information. This is especially the case when the explanations do not match the actual hands, such as here. I do think that when the opponents have told you that they hold the AKQ of trumps, leading a singleton jack is more appealing than leading a singleton queen. It doesn't matter that you might also lead a singleton queen, in order to get the 2:1 argument in favor of finessing that we know from "restricted choice" one would need to lead from Q, J and QJ equally often. In practice that's just not the case.

Like I said, if you want to argue about what people actually do, that is fine and obviously worthy of a discussion. Maybe that was the point of this thread and I missed it.

That said, even in practice I'm just not seeing the stiff Q is less attractive than stiff J argument. Why is it bad to lead the stiff Q because partner might have Jxx if they're always going to play you for QJ anyways? I'm not seeing it. This suggests stiff Q should be MORE attractive because you talk them out of picking up the suit that they might otherwise have guessed.

[Free]

Why would anyone assume a lead is honest against a grand slam. Whenever the J is lead, it's like telling everyone you have the Q or singleton J. (Btw, leading J from Jx is irrelevant. Either declarer finesses your partner, or he takes in hand to play to dummy. But if you show up with a small ♠ in trick 2, he shouldn't finesse because with QJx you probably would've lead another suit)

If you lead the Q, most often you won't have the J, again, why lead honestly?

So imo a variant of restricted choice applies. But it's a psychological game ofcourse...

[JLOGIC]

huh

[Trinidad]

JLOGIC, on 2011-November-17, 06:25, said:

huh

It seems I am not the only one who is still confused.

(You may read that in any way you like.)

Rik

[JLOGIC]

Another reason this reasoning is flawed:

We are assuming that when we have stiff jack, the opps always have the queen to be in grand. However, we are assuming that holding stiff Q is an actual possibility for us with partner having Jxx.

Obviously either

A) It is untrue that when we have stiff jack, partner never has the queen or
B) We never have stiff Q with them only having a 9 card fit.

I mean if stiff J is 100 % safe because we put them on AKQ every time, then stiff Q is always safe because they always have 10+ trumps. More likely, sometimes when we have stiff J partner has the queen.

I have gained something from this thread though...if I'm ever on lead with stiff Q of trumps vs a grand I am definitely leading it. Unfortunately these days with keycard, that is unlikely, and the few times in my life i have the spot it is very unlikely partner will have Jxx.

I am also never leading any honor from QJ doubleton. Unless my opp read this thread. !!!

[han]

Justin, here the opponents have asked for the queen and confirmed that they had it. If I had the jack I'd believe them.

Earlier I was also thinking that now I'd lead the stiff queen if I had it!

[Trinidad]

han, on 2011-November-17, 08:28, said:

Justin, here the opponents have asked for the queen and confirmed that they had it. If I had the jack I'd believe them.

Earlier I was also thinking that now I'd lead the stiff queen if I had it!

Well, one of the reasons why I led the ♠J, was because declarer had shown the queen. (I was hoping for trumps to be 6-3, not for 5-4 and a bidding misunderstanding.) I wanted to put into declarer's mind that I believed that he held the queen.

Unfortunately, declarer -in his mind- never promised the ♠Q, so my "try to make declarer believe" just struck air.

Rik

[JLOGIC]

You believe them when you have the jack but not when you have the queen? Come on, that's ridiculous, how can they not have 10 trumps when they promised the queen in this spot? By the same logic stiff J never costs, stiff Q should also basically never cost.

Anyways, I don't even know where this thread is headed at this point. I feel like in a theoretical world, this is restricted choice. In the real world, I would play for QJ doubleton on the lead of any honor, as I think most people would. Leading the stiff Q or the stiff J is not likely to ever be relevant when they showed the queen as it is impossible for your partner to have the other Hxx, so it's not like someone can base their lead strategy with stiff Q or stiff J around that possibility. In the real world people lead the J from QJ almost always, but it doesn't matter because they probably are not leading the stiff Q ever, so the Q lead is more likely to be QJ doubleton imo.

This situation is more interesting imo against like 4H. Then stiff jack is a less plausible lead than stiff Q, which just means you should lead the queen from QJ doubleton more frequently than the jack if you are trying to be unexploitable (but obv vs bad players lead the jack because it denies the queen!)

[Fluffy]

JLOGIC, on 2011-November-17, 08:45, said:

Come on, that's ridiculous, how can they not have 10 trumps when they promised the queen in this spot?

On this kind of sequence (at the start) where a balanced hand raised a 5+ card suit it is conceibable for someone to think he has (or might have) the 10th trump when he is only holding the 9th. I am mostly referring to the balanced hand with 4th trump thinking its the 10th.

This has nothing to do with this late sequence where they just had a missunderstanding. But it could had been.

[JLOGIC]

Fluffy, on 2011-November-18, 01:07, said:

On this kind of sequence (at the start) where a balanced hand raised a 5+ card suit it is conceibable for someone to think he has (or might have) the 10th trump when he is only holding the 9th. I am mostly referring to the balanced hand with 4th trump thinking its the 10th.

This has nothing to do with this late sequence where they just had a missunderstanding. But it could had been.

This might be true, but the guy who showed 5+ is the guy who showed the queen!

edit: sorry, I guess that's what you meant by the last sentence lol. I am dumb.

[gwnn]

reminder: next time I have a stiff Q of trumps against jlogic, lead it!