Leading against 1NT P 3NT

[Jinksy]

Your RHO dealt and opened the bidding (1N showing 12-14), and you're on lead with

 

T8xx

98

xx

JT9xx

 

What do you lead?

 

(ETA: partner doesn't play lead directing Xes, if that makes a difference to your decision)

[hrothgar]

Your RHO dealt and opened the bidding (1N showing 12-14), and you're on lead with

 

T8xx

98

xx

JT9xx

 

What do you lead?

Torn between a low Spade and the 9 of Hearts

 

Probably I'm going to lead the Heart.

 

Partner is odds on to have 4+ Hearts and could very well have 5

[Crunch3nt]

Playing with an aggressive partner, his/her failure to double argues against a heart lead. I like a spade.

[Jinksy]

P doesn't play that sort of semi-conventional x, so you can't really infer anything about his holding except that he's not strong enough to double for penalties.

[mikeh]

Please post the form of scoring: this often impacts lead decisions. At mps, one wants to lead passively against strongly bid contracts. 1N 3N can be on a combined 30 count when responder has a balanced hand, and now aggressive leads often cost valuable matchpoints. At imps, however, one makes the lead one thinks has the highest expectancy of setting the contract, and overtricks are rarely a concern.

 

On this hand, I lead a pedestrian club. It needs the least help from partner: as little as Kxx or Axx may be enough.

 

My experiences with leading short suits on these auctions have been mixed, with far more bad than good. I find that I am leading opener's suit, sometimes a 5 carder, or I am picking off bad breaks for declarer. So I stopped trying to read the tea-leaves or the runes and just make the 'normal' lead on normal hands.

 

There is no compelling reason to expect a major to work. The fact that LHO didn't bid stayman can be a reason for choosing a major when faced with a real lead choice between major and minor: say I held 2 suits each J109x: I'd lead the major rather than the minor. But to assume that hearts are 'our' suit makes little sense to me.

[gwnn]

J of clubs. I have JT9, I lead JT9.

[Jinksy]

Please post the form of scoring: this often impacts lead decisions.

 

Scoring was Chicago total points.

[the hog]

8 of Spades; 2nd highest from a bad suit.

Many times when I led a heart on hands like this it proved to be wrong.

[bluecalm]

1000 hands simulation assuming opener is 12-14balanced without 5M and 7m and responder is 12-16 without 4+ card major or major shortness (people usually play methods to show those):

 

Winning lead:

 

3♠ - 135

9♥ - 234

5♦ - 120

J♣ - 128

 

Adding the possibility of responder being any 4-3-3-3 (including major):

 

Winning lead:

 

3♠ - 116

9♥ - 212

5♦ - 139

J♣ - 120

 

It looks like ♥ works almost twice as often as any other which isn't surprising to me at all as I did many simuls of this kind and old adage of leading majors from weak hands against 1nt-3nt auction is very reliable.

 

Same simulation at MP's (lead which is the best trick wise not taking into account setting the contract) :

 

Best lead:

 

2♠ - 613

9♥ - 727

5♦ - 562

J♣ - 578

[andy_h]

My longest and strongest suit.

[peachy]

1000 hands simulation assuming opener is 12-14balanced without 5M

This is a wrong assumption. 12-14 NT very often has a 5-card major, the whole system becomes pretty much unplayable if no 5c major allowed with 12-14 NT opener. There are some but not many 12-14 range hands where 1M is better.

 

Still, even without your sim, I would lead a heart, MPs or IMPs. I'm a little short on entries to run clubs...

[bluecalm]

This is a wrong assumption. 12-14 NT very often has a 5-card major, the whole system becomes pretty much unplayable if no 5c major allowed with 12-14 NT opener. There are some but not many 12-14 range hands where 1M is better.

 

This is not true at all. Maybe some systems becomes unplayable if you don't do that as well as some systems becomes unplayable if you don't open 15-17 NT with 5card M. Some players open every 15-17 5M-3-3-2 with 1NT and some others (like top Italian pairs) don't. This situation is the same with weak 1NT.

 

That being said I am not sure how the constraints should look for 1NT with 5M as then responder is probably either 3-3-(4-3) or 2-2 in majors as he didn't use puppet stayman ?

 

EDIT:

Assuming 1NT is possible with 5M and the responder is either 3-3-(4-3) or 2-2 in majors, the results are:

 

Winning lead:

3♠ - 105

9♥ - 197

5♦ - 105

J♣ - 94

[gwnn]

that's really significant. I wonder if this is a little bit because partner is assumed to switch to clubs whenever it's right. I found that short suit leads are sometimes difficult to untangle later in the play.

[Free]

It's interesting to see simulations, but I just wonder why a ♥ is so much better. Is it because we have ♥98 and not ♥32? Or is it because our ♠ aren't more solid like T982?

 

Simulations with similar hands could make this thread even more interesting. Keep them coming! :)

[MickyB]

[That being said I am not sure how the constraints should look for 1NT with 5M as then responder is probably either 3-3-(4-3) or 2-2 in majors as he didn't use puppet stayman ?

I'd say most open 1NT freely with a 5cM, and the vast majority of those don't play puppet Stayman, and would still be bidding 3NT directly with (23)xx and (43)33.

 

that's really significant. I wonder if this is a little bit because partner is assumed to switch to clubs whenever it's right. I found that short suit leads are sometimes difficult to untangle later in the play.

 

Mm. Also, on a club lead, declarer may make a mistake that he wouldn't have double-dummy [e.g. pard has AQx, declarer has Kxx] whereas on other leads we may be solving a guess for declarer.

[foo]

Since I play 12-14 NT's by preference, let me give bluecalm some realistic values for his sim.

 

12-14 HCP

 

4333,

4432,

5m332,

5M332 only if M is not worth 3.5+ tricks (so AKQxx, KQJxx, etc are NOT allowed as M suits in a 1N opening) +and+ only if all side suits have honors in them.

*if System is that 1H-1S;1N shows extras, far more 5M332 hands will HAVE to be opened 1N vs if 1H-1S;1N does not show extras.*

=2245, =2425, =2452 where the 5 card suit can not be worth 3.5+ tricks.

 

As one can see from the above, it is POSSIBLE to open a WNT with a 5card Major.

However, it is far from "common"; and it is certainly not something we do "freely".

 

Bottom line about opening 1N with 5M332 is that if the hand is at all M suit oriented, it is not opened 1N.

[paulg]

I did the double dummy simulation with similar results.

 

On 1,000 deals, 3NT failed on 262 occasions. On these occasions, the winning leads were:

 

♠x: 107

♥9: 185

♦x: 112

♣J: 90

 

It looks significant that the heart lead defeats the contract 71% of the time it can be beaten.

[foo]

The biggest reason the short suit lead is looking superior in the sims is the weakness of the OL hand.

 

Another valuable set of sims would be ones that varied the split of HCP between the defenders while the shape and relative suit qualities are held constant.

 

my strong suspicion is that the result will be different in these cases

a= OL is the by far weaker hand of the defenders

b= the values are split fairly evenly between the defenders.

c= OL is the by far stronger hand of the defenders.

 

This should be intuitive.

when "a", OL wants to maximize chances of establishing partner's hand.

when "b", We can only defeat the contract via good communications

when "c", OL wants to maximize chances of establishing their own hand.

[Jinksy]

It would also be interesting to see if the results are similar given a strong 1NT opening (and adjusted values to your left). I would guess the aggressive short suit lead would be more effective there, since most of the opps' points are now over most of your partnership's, and the contract's less likely to fail on its own terms.

 

Since I play 12-14 NT's by preference, let me give bluecalm some realistic values for his sim.

 

I also play them by preference, and with most Ps I just open 1N on any 5332 12-14 count. I don't know if it's optimal, but I don't think it's wildly unusual.

 

[ETA] (And we all play regular stayman.)

[Phil]

The biggest reason the short suit lead is looking superior in the sims is the weakness of the OL hand.

 

Another valuable set of sims would be ones that varied the split of HCP between the defenders while the shape and relative suit qualities are held constant.

 

my strong suspicion is that the result will be different in these cases

a= OL is the by far weaker hand of the defenders

b= the values are split fairly evenly between the defenders.

c= OL is the by far stronger hand of the defenders.

 

This should be intuitive.

when "a", OL wants to maximize chances of establishing partner's hand.

when "b", We can only defeat the contract via good communications

when "c", OL wants to maximize chances of establishing their own hand.

Hi Foo welcome back.

 

I think you could have said, "when we are weaker we want to lead partner's suit, and when we are stronger we want to lead our suit" in as many words as your post, instead of this pseudo-intellectual babble.

 

The fact that we have a long, safe suit to lead has a lot of merit to it, and there is no reason why partner can't have four, or they can't lay off the suit more than once.

 

Sims are kind of worthless here. With the strength I expect partner to have I would definitely expect a double with HHHTx of hearts + one entry or KJTxx or QJTxx of hearts and two entries.

 

Still, the results are interesting, but I'd want to look at the actual hands, even if it were a smaller sample. Maybe tomorrow I'll run my own.

[hanp]

Double dummy results are awful for determining the best opening lead imo.

[bluecalm]

Double dummy results are awful for determining the best opening lead imo.

 

Why do you think so ?

I find them very accurate. I spent a lot of time comparing best dd leads to actual leads made by world class players (mainly Meckstroth and Versace) and what I found is this:

a)in most situations they are the same leads

b)in hands where they are not the same dd leads would be better on average.

 

Of course those comparisons can be made only for hands with simple, well defined auctions and maybe I still suffer for too little sample size (only about 200 hands analyzed with simuls) but my experience with simuls taught me to trust dd results more than judgment of any player.

[cherdanno]

Double dummy results are awful for determining the best opening lead imo.

But usually they don't lead to such huge differences.

[Rodney26]

I think the heart is obvious from jump street; lead the shorter major on this auction with a couple stray jacks and where partner could not bid. Lead toward partner's length, not yours, when you have garbage. The books don't stress this enough.

 

The more interesting question on this auction is what to lead if you switch the clubs and spades; I don't know how double dummy analysis is going to validate the inference that Stayman wasn't used, or the opponents style in using Stayman when 3433 or holding 4 low in a major. I expect the heart is still superior especially since a club keeps coming up as the worst choice (for a beat) in all these scenarios.

 

One other interesting question; are we barred from leading a heart if partner takes a little more than 10 seconds to pass 3NT? Does a committee tell us we have to lead the obvious club?

[hanp]

By leading a heart here we can easily take away one of declarer's guesses. But double dummy, declarer would guess right anyway so it doesn't cost.

 

By leading a strong suit or an honor sequence we often give information that may help partner with the defense. Of course double dummy that is irrelevant.

 

Double dummy tends to warn against leads away from honors. Better to lead another suit, our double dummy partner knows to switch to our strong suit anyway.

 

Look for example at the xxx A109 xxxx xxx hand where Phil suggested a double dummy analysis. It is quite likely that double dummy analysis favors a diamond lead. But in real life, if we lead a diamond, partner often won't expect that we have such a strong heart suit!