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Always lead pard suit ?


dellache

What do you lead ?  

28 members have voted

  1. 1. What do you lead ?

    • Ace of Spades
      26
    • Heart
      2
    • Diamond
      0
    • Club
      0
    • Wait for partner to lead out of turn.
      0


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yeah Imps makes it easy, lets hope partner's got an entry, maybe its one of those deals where we must discard A

True hand from this Monday, club game:

 

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=sqj43haq3da74cq97&w=s76h62dkqt9653c64&e=s10985hj1085d82ca82&s=sak2hk974djckj1053]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Norths plays 3NT after west has overcalled in diamonds.

 

East leads the diamond 8, west wins the queen. West leads the diamond 9 which holds. West now plays the diamond 3, east pitching the club ace.

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yeah Imps makes it easy, lets hope partner's got an entry, maybe its one of those deals where we must discard A

True hand from this Monday, club game:

 

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=sqj43haq3da74cq97&w=s76h62dkqt9653c64&e=s10985hj1085d82ca82&s=sak2hk974djckj1053]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Norths plays 3NT after west has overcalled in diamonds.

 

East leads the diamond 8, west wins the queen. West leads the diamond 9 which holds. West now plays the diamond 3, east pitching the club ace.

How many reached 6?

 

Tony

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Maybe west (a very fine player) knew it was IMPs? He might have visualized:

 

[hv=d=s&v=b&n=sq543haq3da74cq97&w=s76h62dkqt9653c64&e=sj1098hj1085d82ca82&s=sak2hk974djckj1053]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv]

 

Is it possible that north (not as fine a player) had believed his carding and tried for a 3-3 split in a major?

 

Wait, this didn't make sense, declarer had only 7 tricks to start with.

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I'd actually want to lead a club. But I'd lead a spade.
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Since it's IMPs and I don't see great things from any other suit, I'll lead partner's spades.  No way I would do this at MPs though, too likely to blow a trick and not set them.

Apollo81 sum's up the impressing majority of votes for leading the Ace. At the table, I led a neutral 7, and it allowed declarer to make (she had stiff KQ, and pard had a terrible 6HCP hand... including the Ace). We missed the opportunity to gain 10 imps (same lead at the other table, 2NT-3NT without the 2 opening).

 

Partner wondered at the end of the match why I chose such an "exotic" lead, as Ace was obvious.

 

These were my thoughts :

1. Ace will often blow a trick (i.e. increase declarer trick potential [DTP] by one) ;

2. if the DTP was 8 tricks, we give him the possibility to make. It doesn't matter if WE can score 5+ tricks before she can score 9. Otherwise Ace was a mistake.

3. if the DTP was 9+ tricks, this is IMPS and we don't care: Ace becomes our best chance.

4. I know RHO very well : she bid a confident 3NT, and is never bluffing in those situations.

 

So what is declarer trick potential before my lead actually ?

 

Pard is usually 6-9 HCP, RHO has 20-21 HCP in average. It's not very likely that she has a strong running minor (6 good diamonds are only a remote possibility), and dummy will be disapointing. In average, they rate to have only about 23(24) HCP, and making 9 tricks with such a weak dummy might be taxing.

 

I decided that playing the hand neutrally was our best chance to set this (actually : to not allow this pushy contract to make). After all they bid 3NT under the gun, and my hand will be much much better than dummy.

 

Then I saw your answers (wow, I expected about 50/50 for Heart/spade!), and decided :

1. To call partner and apologize for bad judgement :(

2. to check I was really absolutely wrong by running a simulation.

 

And the simulation (20000 boards) results were... interesting and unexpected (please don't tell me that sims favour declarer/defense and so on... this is probably a very useful tool to check stuff like this here) :

- 7 beats 3NT 67% of the time

- A beats 3NT (only) 66% of the time

- 2 beats 3NT 63% of the time (!!)

- x beats 3NT 60% of the time...

 

At least the simulation tells us :

- that it is very close,

- even the unappealing minor leads are not that bad ;

- the contract is indeed usually a bad one.

 

As a matter of fact, if you compute the average of Imps gained when leading Heart Vs Spades, the final winner is Ace. Leading Ace will gain 0,10 Imps/board against 7 in the long term, because of the influence of over/under-tricks.

 

Well, actually "IMP *don't* make this simple" (antiquoting fluffy).

 

Thanx all for your thoughts.

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without knowing your opponents, the chance of a long minor on this sequence is greater than what you expect IMO

The simulation did take this into account, allowing for 6+m w/ a spade stop.

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