Unusual leads(1):Underleading Aces vs suit contr.

[Chamaco]

Hi all and merry xmas and happy new year !

 

This thread (and a few companions) are about "unusual" opening leads, e.g. leads that beginners textbook suggest to avoid.

 

Yet, sometimes we see experts making them.

If experts make them, there must be a reason, so they cannot be *always* bad, but there must be specific details that help suggest when they might work.

 

So, I'd like to know from the experts which are the "symptoms", the details that help to diagnose when a lead that is usually "bad" could be considered.

 

Please avoid posting "diagnostic details" such as "table feel", "intuition" or "state of the match" :) What I'd really like to know is if there are diagnostic details to recognize by deductive thinking from the bidding and our own holding ;)

If you have any example about some such decisions, all the better ! :D

 

Thanks

 

Mauro

 

===========================

The first issue is:

 

Under which circumstances might it be ok to underlead an Ace vs a suit contract ?

[ardf10987]

Under which circumstances might it be ok to underlead an Ace vs a suit contract ?

Never pls... but I can accept...

1) with AQJ109, the A having fallen down the table, seeing only QJ109... :)

2) against a slam contract, with control shown/supposed at our left AND no special hope for trump tricks (last time I had a singleton trump, leading low from ace and founding dummy with KJx... after misguessing it was 3 off... but he could and should have made putting the king)

3) when it is right, but it can't be right more that once a year. So check carefully... and if in doubt, pls avoid it...

[Guest Jlall]

If you have a void and want a ruff. Don't just arbitrarily do this though, it should be in desperate times (such as opponents trying for slam and then signing off in game or if you know a key suit is splitting well for them etc).

 

If no other lead is attractive, i.e. the opponents bid hearts and spades and you have Qxx Qx in those suits, and then are on lead vs 2S and have both minor suit aces. Sometimes (not often) the underlead is least of evils.

 

Any time you know LHO has most of the strength and RHO does not have a stiff in the suit you're leading it may be ok to lead under certain circumstances.

 

If partner has made a lead directing double of a cuebid of this suit after you overcalled, you would generally lead low as pard may have Kx.

 

If the opponents cuebid every other suit and clearly were off a control in this suit, you would lead low especially from length as again partner could have Kx. The same applies to the opponents not bidding 3N because they have no stopper in this suit.

 

If the opponents POWER into a trick based slam (IE righty shows solid hearts, lho has solid spades, and they bid blackwood and stop in 6) and lho is known to have a control in the suit I want to lead at imps/rubber/something I would always underlead my ace. It's clear we need 2 tricks in this suit to beat the contract, so the underlead is fine. At MP it is not clear and usually the ace lead is right.

 

If you have 4 aces.

[42]

Yesterday (we do not want to discuss the bidding here :) ):

[hv=d=w&v=b&n=sakqhj65dq10cq9532&w=s9hk93dk752caj1064&e=sj1087653h84da96c7&s=s42haq1072dj843ck8]399|300|Scoring: IMP

1♣ Dbl 1♠ 2♥

pass 3♥ 3♠ ---[/hv]

South led ♥ 10!!

 

It was tricky and the cumulating arguments (in no special order) for underleading the A may be:

- lead goes through the strong hand

- opener did neither support ♠s in any way and therefore will not have a singleton in ♥, nor did he double 3♥

- when opener has the K, nothing is lost, A is onside, but a lot can be gained: declarer might misguess (and did so)

- doubler may have the K and it doesn't matter

- declarer has only a few points, given from the bidding and chances increased that he has not the K

 

The general fears what underleading an A in a trump contract would do:

- opps make a trick with the stiff K,

- declarer scores his K

- partner might be confused and not take his K because he thinks that declarer has the A --> partnership trust might suffer

- the lead sets up at least 1 trick for opps

 

Of course the hand here was not played in an expert's match, but after the board I wondered why undeleading the ♥A worked well. Funny that this posting arose today...

Caren

(Best wishes for 2006!!! And thx for the fish :))

[pclayton]

Not sure there are a lot of 'absolutes' to this rule, but heres some pointers:

 

1. I'll do it anytime dummy has shown strength. This is the most important rule for me.

 

2. Underleading from Ax when pard has a little strength can work real well, since pard can win (hopefully) and fire back the suit leading to a quick ruff for you.

 

3. Underleading from Axxx(?) can work well when pard has Qx or a doubleton and a trump entry can also work well, especially when you don't have an outside entry.

 

4. If you have an outside void, underleading an Ace (or AK, or more...) can be dramatic. It is not for the faint of heart and your pard better be awake. My favorite example from a team game just about a month ago:

 

[hv=n=s1064&w=sakqj982&e=s73&s=s5]399|300|[/hv]

 

I had a heart void and this was the club suit (and had preempted). I led the TWO, Declarer (not suspecting anything) played low from dummy and pard gave me standard count with the SEVEN and won the trick! And led back the suit - I couldn't believe it (its actually sort of a complicated hand; I'll post it one of these days).

 

4. After some harrowing experiences, my partnership and I have agreed that an Ace underlead is significantly more common than an underlead of a Jack. Specifically we had the following situation:

 

[hv=n=s1064&w=sakqj982&e=s73&s=s5]399|300|[/hv]

 

Dummy had shown considerable strength and I underled. Pard took 100% of the charge for not rising with the King.

 

5. There is an occasional time where its still right to underlead an Ace even if you suspect declarer is short, because its your tap suit against a suit contract. I did this is a regional a few years ago and actually underled A-K!. Sure enough Dummy had QTxx and pard won the first trick with the Jack! Alas, we needed a side suit to be slightly stronger, so it still made.

 

Underleading Aces can be fun and effective, however doing so will backfire occasionally.

[mikeh]

Underleading Aces can be fun and effective, however doing so will backfire occasionally.

This statement is technically true (apart from the 'occasionally' bit), but my estimate would be that of you play 1000 boards a year, the number of times when the underlead of the Ace was both necessary and effective can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with room left over for several years to come.

 

I am probably at the ultra-conservative end of the spectrum, but I have underlead aces only a few times in my life. I have seen aces underled against me far more frequently, and very few of those leads led to any great outcome for the leader.

 

My advice to beginners, intermediates, advanced and BBO experts is: don't.

 

And doubly don't at matchpoints.

 

BTW, phil, if you preempted with AKQJxxx and led the 2, no player with a pulse would get that wrong: they'd fly with the 10.

 

At a recent event we reached a slam after an auction in which partner did not keycard until after I cue bid a ♠ control in a balanced hand. It was clear that declarer had Qx or worse in ♠. The Grand Life Master on lead led a small ♠ and I laid down KJx while declarer held xx. Declarer gave the problem the thought that it required and paid the GLM the compliment that was due, and called for the K. Making 7.

 

I think I have earlier posted my best triumph re underleading an A. The same player who was my partner on the other hand was playing against me and responded to his partner's strong 1N with gerber, and then placed the contract in 6N. I knew that he would NEVER bid that way without at least an Ace or a King in each suit. I held Axx♦ and out. Since I knew that he had to have a running source of tricks (which I had to hope was not in ♦) I led the small ♦. Dummy had KJ doubleton and declarer misguessed and we beat 6N several tricks.

[Free]

[hv=d=n&v=e&n=sq2hk72daq6cak952&w=s9875haq95djt82c7&e=sthj63d9543cjt643&s=sakj643ht84dk7cq8]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

Bidding went:

1♣ - 1♠

2♦? - 2♥ (4th suit)

3NT - 4♦

4♠ - pass

 

South tried for slam, but North signed off after his not so bright 2♦ bid. West lead the ♥Q. South thought: "I'm not going -1 in slam this time" and "ok, they found that lead". Small from dummy and the Q held. LHO plays ♥5. South still convinced the A is with RHO plays small, RHO makes the ♥J, and returns his last ♥, south turning red already :) LHO takes the Ace, and continues ♥ in triple void, to get trump promotion!

 

4♠-1, at the other table 6NT= (rightsided) :)

 

Since West knew North had ♥K, he might as well try to confuse South...

[Winstonm]

When to underlead an ace.

 

1) When you have played the deal before and you know LHO has KJx and RHO xxx.

2) When you haven't played the deal before but LHOs show you the KJx and RHO is known to hold at least xx in the suit.

3). When you are in third seat and declarer shows you the KJx in his hand and dummy is known to hold at least xx. Underlead the Ace out of turn - maybe declarer will accept it.

 

Although sometime fun and spectacular, the ace underlead carries a high risk of losing a tempo - and once lost that tempo can never be regained.

 

Winston

[TheoKole]

I don't consider myself an expert but after having read Lawrence's book of opening leads (and following his advice) I have found that my leads have improved DRAMATICALLY! I heartily recommend this book to everybody.

 

When it is my turn to lead I always consider the bidding (even if I have what would be considered an obvious lead (AKQ, KQJ, etc...). Have the opponents had a powerful auction or a weak one? Has one or both opps shown shortness in a suit? Do I have strength in the opps suit or suits? Has dummy indicated ruffing values by taking preference for a suit contract? Are there indications of a strong side suit in dummy? How many high card points can I hope for partner to have as indicated by my hand and the bidding of the opponents?

 

After I consider these factors, my own hand comes into the consideration. First I consider which suit to lead as indicated by the bidding and then I look at what I have in this suit. If I have an unsupported Ace in the suit indicated, I always look at the other suits, to see if I can justifiably lead them with a hope of success as indicated by the bidding. (Usually going from worst leads and eliminating them to "Not so Good" leads).

 

If the other suits seem hopeless, I would go back to the Ace unsupported suit and see if I could justifiably lead it. If after all this I decide to lead the suit I have to decide if I would lead the Ace or underlead it.

 

Approximently 99% of the time I would lead the Ace of the suit. The biggest reason for this is that if the King is in dummy and my partner has the Queen and declarer the J, the declarer will almost always play low from dummy. My partner would also play low or play a middle card and declarer would win with the J.

 

To add insult to injury declarer can then lead up to the K and get 2 tricks in the suit or a trick and a discard. This would make my partner and me both look like fools and I respect my partners too much to give them this type of abuse.

 

In order to underlead an Ace, I would need a specific reasons to believe that my partner had the King of the suit, AND that I NEED to underlead it RIGHT AWAY in order to GAIN a trick or tricks. These reasons can only come from the bidding.

(If my partner has the King he will play it, he probably will not read me for the Ace, but he would read me for the Queen, until declarer plays low and then he will start thinking...) **Note that there is still room for partner to get the position wrong and return another suit, even if the cards are as you have calculated, partner may think that declarer is holding up the Ace to "rectify the count" for a squeeze**

 

I have underled an Ace in a suit contract exactly twice in the past 5 years that I have been playing.

 

In the first case the opps had a VERY strong auction, dummy and declarer indicated strong side suits and declarer asked for a stopper in the unbid suit which dummy denied and the bidding stopped at 5 hearts. I looked at my holding in the unbid suit and saw AJx. The bidding had practically told me that my partner had the King of the suit so I decided that this MIGHT be an unusual exception to the rule about underleading Aces. (These opps were very experienced bidders and with Kx(x) of the suit, declarer would have bid the slam)

 

This worked like a charm, as partner had Kxx and declarer Qxx of the suit. Underleading the Ace was the only lead to defeat the contract. If I didn't lead the suit declarer would have had time for 13 tricks. By the way, I appologized (spelling?) to my partner for making my lead so difficult to read.

 

In the second case, I also had a stong reason to believe that partner had the King of the suit. Declarer had shown a 2 suiter in the minors and had sacrificed over our spade game. I underled the Ace with the 2, as a suit preference for clubs which I was void, because I was certain that we would get no more than 1 trick in the suit.

 

Dummy turned up with King, Queen in the suit, declarer played the King from dummy and discarded a heart from his hand. Luckily we got that trick back when I ruffed declarers Club Ace. The 5 diamond contract ended up -5 doubled anyways for a top, but again I appologized to partner for the bad lead (partner knew I had underled my Ace but luckily declarer didn't figure it out in time to realize the suit preference).

 

So after 2 times in 5 years, 1 time the lead turned out well, and the 2nd time the lead turned out neutral. I see many players leading or underleading unsupported Aces about once every 5 hands, (I'm not kidding!). When I'm declaring these players sacrifice loads of contracts or overtricks or simply timing (by not attacking dummy's ruffing value by leading trumps).

 

Just my thoughts,

 

Theo

[Winstonm]

theokole: I have underled an Ace in a suit contract exactly twice in the past 5 years that I have been playing.

 

You are 1 ahead of me. :)

[ArcLight]

>Under which circumstances might it be ok to underlead an Ace vs a suit contract ?

 

Terence Reese metntions this in one of his books (I don't remember which).

 

When Dummy opened 2NT.

Its very likely they have the K, rather than declarer, and its possible this may allow pard to make the Q and return the suit. Or pard may have the K.

Do this with a specific reason, such as other leads are worse.

[hrothgar]

Here's a couple interesting examples taken from Cathy Chua's book "Fair Play or Foul"

 

Assume an auction where dummy has (roughly) 20-21 HCP and Declarer has shown 5+ Spades.

 

You hold

 

♠ Q94

♥ T9654

♦ Q8

♣ AQJ

 

Chua notes that this is a standard case where it is correct to underlead the Ace of Clubs.

 

Here is another example hand

 

The auction starts

 

(1♠) - P - (P) - X

(2♥) - P - (P) - 3♣

(3♥) - 4♣ - (4♥) - X

All pass

 

You hold

 

♠ 7652

♥ T2

♦ AT86

♣ 976

 

The defender chose to lead a low Diamond

 

Here is a final example hand

 

(P) - P - (1♠) - 1NT

(3♠) - 4♥ - (4♠) - P

(P) - X - All pass

 

You hold

 

♠ AT9

♥ AQ85

♦ KQ2

♣ A73

 

The defender (the same as in hand 2) chose a low club

[mikeh]

These examples remind me of match reports in the Bridge World from the early to mid 1970's, wherein a professional pair enjoyed a remarkable run of success, until they resigned in the middle of the US Team Trials under a cloud of suspicion. I believe it was Edgar Kaplan whose reports described a number of leads that were, to him, remarkable. Kaplan had a great command of the English language and, especially reading the reports years later in the aftermath, one can see that he was very delicately treading the fine line between expressing astonishment at these repeated and usually successful leads and calling it the way he no doubt saw it: cheating.

 

Whether the players in question were cheating or whether they possessed either an uncanny insight into the game or phenomenal luck is not for me to say. However, neither has regained the level of success they once enjoyed even after the ACBL caved into their legal pressure and allowed them to rejoin.

[Winstonm]

Chua notes that this is a standard case where it is correct to underlead the Ace of Clubs

 

I would think this depends on which way the pencil is pointed. :)

[hrothgar]

These examples remind me of match reports in the Bridge World from the early to mid 1970's, wherein a professional pair enjoyed a remarkable run of success, until they resigned in the middle of the US Team Trials under a cloud of suspicion.

Chua chose the hands in question because they generated a fair amount of controversy...

 

The last two hands both involved the Manoppo brothers. One of them was featured in an article titled "Eeny-Meeny-Manoppo" written by Ron Klinger which expressed a fair amount of skepticism regaridng whether these leads could be found legitimately.

 

For what its worth, Chua included these examples because she felt that the criticisms of the leads is quite poorly considered. Chua tends to be quite critical of many expert players who are extremely quick to make thinly veiled accusations of cheating.

 

The second deal was also feature "The Hidden Side of Bridge" by Reese.

[temp3600]

10 or so pages of Mike Lawrence's Falsecards are dedicated to this specific point. Like most of Lawrence's books, it's a great read.

[whereagles]

The famous mathematician Emile Borel once calculated the odds of blowing a trick by leading or underleading an ace vs suit contracts. Leading was 5%, underleading was 10%. You can check these figures in Blackwood's book on opening leads.

 

But then again, there's no substitute to good judgement in deciding what to lead.

[Finch]

my estimate would be that of you play 1000 boards a year, the number of times when the underlead of the Ace was both necessary and effective can be counted on the fingers of one hand, with room left over for several years to come.

 

I am probably at the ultra-conservative end of the spectrum, but I have underlead aces only a few times in my life. I have seen aces underled against me far more frequently, and very few of those leads led to any great outcome for the leader.

 

What he said.

 

Perhaps rather oddly, I (or my partner) have underled an ace against a slam probably more often than against a lower level contract. Other people have given examples of when it's right: when declarer has denied a control in the suit and dummy has bid a slam anyway. The related hand type is when they have looked for a slam, found no control in a suit and stopped in five: now the lead from AJx(xx) might cash three tricks if declarer has Qxx.

[Finch]

The other time when it can be right is when dummy has shown strength in a suit that you and partner have bid and raised, and declarer has shown a void, and you want to force declarer off. You are looking for a holding such as

 

Q10xx (dummy)

 

A98x (you) KJxxx (partner)

 

If you lead the ace, partner can no longer attack the suit.

 

This is the complement of the other unusual lead: the King from K empty to length, when dummy is known to be short and you are worried about

 

10 (dummy)

Kxxx (you) A9xxx

 

QJx (declarer)

 

and you want to take your trick but prevent a ruffing finesse.

[Fluffy]

When leading against NT contract, I often lead top from 3 cards (Qxx,Jxx,10xx or 9xx) on declarer's likelly singleton (dummy's suit). To pin singleton J/10/9/8.

 

 

 

I underlead aces against suit when opponents are likelly balanced. Or when chances of dummy having the King are great.

 

 

Against NT with AQ109x I like leading the Ace if I have a side entry, to kill singleton honnors or Jx.

 

 

There is a famous fake play for leading the Q with Qxx hoping to find partner with Jxx, but that normally happens only during play.

[pclayton]

BTW, phil, if you preempted with AKQJxxx and led the 2, no player with a pulse would get that wrong: they'd fly with the 10.

Sure Mike - but I wouldn't have a story either :rolleyes:

[awm]

I've actually had fair success underleading aces against suit contracts, and in general I prefer to underlead an ace rather than a king. Of course, there's a time and place for everything, and I think others have already commented on most of the features needed to underlead an ace.

 

On another note, there are interesting inferences from partner's lead tendencies. For example, partner leads a small heart against 4♠:

[hv=n=shkt2dc&e=shq87dc]266|200|[/hv]

 

Declarer plays low from dummy. What do you play? If you know partner would virtually never underlead an ace, then the ♥Q will give the suit away, whereas the ♥7 will be successful when partner lead from ♥J9x(x). On the other hand, if you know that partner would virtually never underlead a jack, it seems obvious to play the queen since it cannot matter if declarer has the ace and jack, but the queen will be right if partner underlead the ace.

 

I actually know plenty of players who will swear up and down that underleading a jack is bad bridge. And I certainly know plenty of players who would never underlead an ace against a suit contract. Personally, I almost never underlead kings. Regardless of the merits of these types of leads, if you know that partner holds one of these opinions, you are at a distinct advantage on the defense. It's interesting that this information can also be useful to declarer, but there's nowhere to disclose it on a normal convention card and I have never heard any declarer ask about this type of thing. Seems like an interesting problem of ethics and disclosure.

[mikeh]

I've actually had fair success underleading aces against suit contracts, and in general I prefer to underlead an ace rather than a king.

You are in a very, very small minority.

[Finch]

Regardless of the merits of these types of leads, if you know that partner holds one of these opinions, you are at a distinct advantage on the defense

 

Yes. I think I have mentioned before that my partnerships generally prefer to make very aggressive leads against suit contracts. This helps enormously with inferences during the defence: e.g. if there are two unbid suits and partner leads from xxx in one of them, he didn't have something like K10xx in the other because he would have led it.

 

I agree that there isn't a space anywhere on the cc for disclosure, but I've certainly asked experienced partnerships about their leading tendencies in the past.

[Winstonm]

An opening lead story.

 

I was playing a pairs event with a friend in a Las Vegas sectional and came up against the late Byron Greenburg and his partner, who shall remain nameless.

 

The first board had the auction of 1N-3N by the opponents. I had no real good lead to make so elected to try a deceptive play with the J from Jxx and hit gold.

Byron's dummy held AK9x of the suit and declarer the Qxx. Eventually declarer finessed and lost to the 10xx. You could see the steam start to rise.....and finally, director!

 

I thought RHO had lost his mind.

 

RHO wants the director to ask if we have an agreement to lead this way as our card is marked low. Director asks partner if he had ever seen me do this before. In all the years - off and on - that I have played I had never had the occassion to make this lead, but only recently in a club game an almost identical opportunity had arisen and I had again led an unsupported jack - twice in my lifetime and they both happened to be with this partner and within the span of one month. So partner honestly answered that yes he had seen me make this lead before.

 

So now director in his great wisdom tells me that we have to alert this lead agreement from now on.

 

I was beside myself. I said, you mean anytime I decide to falsecard I have to alert the opponents? The director backpedalled with an er...a..

 

I was livid by this point - I hadn't played in a while and I was certain this director was just coddling the "known" player and expected us to just go along with it.

 

Wrong!

 

I continued, you are saying that I always have to lead what is on my card so "xyz" here will always know how to play the hand? I can't ever make him guess? That's ridiculous. I was on a roll now and said, neither of us are members of the ACBL (at that time) and if you try to enforce that ruling we'll get up and leave right now.

 

I guess at this point the concept of having to find two subs for an entire tournament was more of a concern than appeasing "xyz" so after suitable mumblings and fumblings and a review that indeed we had no agreement to make this type of lead, that it was an abberation and a falsecard lead, the director reversed himself and disappeared as quickly as possible.

 

The next board arrived and the auction began, 1H by me, 1S by pard, 2C by me, 3S by pard and I alerted: RHO asked - just what I wanted. I looked at him and said, "Might be a bad bid."

 

The director was not summoned.

 

Winston