[Jinksy]

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Pick yer poison.

[foobar]

♠8 for me.

[hrothgar]

foobar, on 2014-September-09, 12:15, said:

♠8 for me.

I like short suit leads versus NT with weak hands.
Leading 4th best club on this one

[billw55]

We had another thread very similar to this not long ago. I chose to lead from HHxxx in a minor. Rainer's sim indicated that this was close at IMPs, but that the ♠T83 (yes, exactly the same spots) was a clear winner at matchpoints. Maybe I will start trying the spade in this sort of situation.

[PrecisionL]

Quote

♠8 for me.

8♠ for me too, as per foobar and hrothgar ...

[Jinksy]

billw55, on 2014-September-09, 13:14, said:

We had another thread very similar to this not long ago. I chose to lead from HHxxx in a minor. Rainer's sim indicated that this was close at IMPs, but that the ♠T83 (yes, exactly the same spots) was a clear winner at matchpoints. Maybe I will start trying the spade in this sort of situation.

This looks quite different to me. With a hard entry in the C suit but not much else by way of defensive tricks there, I'd expect this to come out more strongly in favour of a major lead at IMPs. At MPs I'd guess the single honour is less risky than the KJ holding.

[BillPatch]

If I remember the chapter on leading from hands with 0-4 HCP, Bird-Anthias recommended leading from the shorter major on this auction. So I bet that a heart is best at both IMPs and matchpoints.

[whereagles]

Are you sure? I seem to remember that tripleton was slightly better than doubleton.


In any case that was when you didn't have a 5-card suit headed by the ace. If we had another entry, say the ♦K, I think a club would be the winner. As it is my money's on the spade.

[BillPatch]

whereagles, on 2014-September-09, 15:35, said:

Are you sure? I seem to remember that tripleton was slightly better than doubleton.


In any case that was when you didn't have a 5-card suit headed by the ace. If we had another entry, say the ♦K, I think a club would be the winner. As it is my money's on the spade.

In the other chapters, where opening leader had a stronger hand, a tripleton slightly outperformed a doubleton. This chapter the shorter short suit major won, except once in the quiz when a JTX tripleton beat a doubleton.

[mike777]

Does not his book assume double dummy defense on these short suit leads?

In any case I will try a small c.

[Jinksy]

BillPatch, on 2014-September-09, 16:01, said:

In the other chapters, where opening leader had a stronger hand, a tripleton slightly outperformed a doubleton. This chapter the shorter short suit major won, except once in the quiz when a JTX tripleton beat a doubleton.

Yeah, the gist seemed to be that the weaker leader's hand is, the shorter the major they should lead. It wasn't exactly conclusive, though.

[P_Marlowe]

Heart.

The discussion with the same spade holding, had a longer heart suit.

[billw55]

Jinksy, on 2014-September-09, 14:48, said:

This looks quite different to me. With a hard entry in the C suit but not much else by way of defensive tricks there, I'd expect this to come out more strongly in favour of a major lead at IMPs. At MPs I'd guess the single honour is less risky than the KJ holding.

This makes logical sense. One point of disagreement, declarer may have an easier time isolating the minor suit by holdups when he has the ace. Here we have it. Low club to partner's queen is now a much bigger problem for declarer.

Still, I suspect you may be right. I would like to see if it stands up to a sim. Paging Rainer ...

[ArtK78]

One thing I have learned by playing against Robots on BBO is that they inevitably lead their shorter major on an auction like this (and on many not like this). My experience is that these short major leads are surprisingly effective. So, even though we could conceivably have 5 clubs on the go, I am leading my top heart.

[Jinksy]

billw55, on 2014-September-10, 05:54, said:

This makes logical sense. One point of disagreement, declarer may have an easier time isolating the minor suit by holdups when he has the ace. Here we have it. Low club to partner's queen is now a much bigger problem for declarer.

Still, I suspect you may be right. I would like to see if it stands up to a sim. Paging Rainer ...

My guess is that both major and ♣ leads will have a higher chance of setting the contract on this hand than their equivalent on the other, but that the increase is greater for the majors, pushing one of them to the top. At MPs I would expect them both to increase again, with a smaller difference, but with major lead still coming out on top.

[Jinksy]

Incidentally, on the actual hand, partner had KQx of Cs and declarer had 10 tricks on top on any other lead.

That said, I was dummy with Axxx AQx xxx Jxx, and the sequence had actually been 1N 2♣ / 2♥ 3N. I wasn't sure about Stayman but decided with two bullets and two wide open suits it was worth a go. Since on that auction a ♣ lead stands out a mile, I wondered whether I'd blown the contract.

[whereagles]

On a Stayman auction the club lead seems way more attractive. It would probably be the Bird/Anthias winner, as they identified a minor-suit bias in that case.

[yunling]

My programme tells me to lead C6, and I trust her.
Certainly this is a good 5 count, not 0-4, so you cannot follow the recommendation for weak hands

[ArtK78]

Jinksy, on 2014-September-10, 07:29, said:

Incidentally, on the actual hand, partner had KQx of Cs and declarer had 10 tricks on top on any other lead.

That said, I was dummy with Axxx AQx xxx Jxx, and the sequence had actually been 1N 2♣ / 2♥ 3N. I wasn't sure about Stayman but decided with two bullets and two wide open suits it was worth a go. Since on that auction a ♣ lead stands out a mile, I wondered whether I'd blown the contract.

A club lead on this auction is far more attractive than on the auction 1NT - 3NT. That doesn't mean that I will make the club lead, but it is far more attractive.

[gszes]

The club suit does not really have the spots needed to make it safe
and there is also a decent chance that p may find a club shift it my

heart 6

lead is no good. p has at least 4 hearts and could easily have more and
never had a chance to show them due to the bidding (note this probability
is significantly less in spades). If we are going to try and hit partner
(the owner of the vast majority of our defensive assets) it seems to make
sense to try and hit their longest suit which rates to be hearts in this case.