simple lead question

[Shugart23]

Bidding has gone 1NT-3NT and you have decided to lead from A-K 8-3......are you leading the 3 or an Honor? ( I do Journalist leads, but for this question, I don't think that matters)

[paulg]

Do I have another possible entry in my hand? Is this a major or a minor?

 

I was taught to lead fourth best, but I think about it more nowadays.

[Shugart23]

Do I have another possible entry in my hand? Is this a major or a minor?

 

I was taught to lead fourth best, but I think about it more nowadays.

 

You can answer it 4 ways if you want:

 

a) It's spades and you have other entries

b) It's spades and you don't have other entries

c) It's diamonds and have other entries

d) It's diamonds and you don't have other entries

 

And For extra credit, do you have a different answer if the holding is A K J 4 ?

[eagles123]

Bidding has gone 1NT-3NT and you have decided to lead from A-K 8-3......are you leading the 3 or an Honor? ( I do Journalist leads, but for this question, I don't think that matters)

 

I call director, if I only have a choice of 4 cards to lead from something has gone wrong!!

 

 

ps obviously I'm being sarcastic, but it would really help here to see our complete hand, maybe we don't even want to lead this suit!

[Shugart23]

[

You can make up any hand you want as long as you decide to lead from this four card holding A K 8 3

[eagles123]

[

You can make up any hand you want as long as you decide to lead from this four card holding

 

well sorry but it's a truly pointless question then in my opinion, could be right to lead high or low entirely depends on the rest of the hand.

[Shugart23]

well sorry but it's a truly pointless question then in my opinion, could be right to lead high or low entirely depends on the rest of the hand.

 

Can you make up two different hands, where in one case it is right to lead the Honor and in the other case it is right to lead the 3 ?....(not counting a hand where you can take 5 tricks off the top)

[steve2005]

generally lead 3♥

only time its wrong is if opps have Qx, QJ or singleton Q and partner has jack

it works our better even without the Queen if you can set up 3 or more tricks in suit.

 

it will also work out better to lead AK if opps have 12 tricks outside of the suit and you are fortunate to just take 2 tricks

[smerriman]

Against 1NT-3NT I think the card I would lead is "another suit".

 

But if I had to lead the suit then the generic advice is high from AKxx and low from AKxxx. It's just too dangerous giving away a trick to the queen in the first case, and blocking the suit in the second.

 

(Leading low bases your entire defense on partner having the queen, or that you have to set up the suit, when in the best case you only gain one trick. At least the high lead gives you a chance of switching.)

[LBengtsson]

The actual hand does matter as there is a small inference that one of the opponents hold the minor suits as they have not gone through Stayman or any other convention. eagles123 is right!

[mikeh]

Historically, at least as I learned the game…to the extent I can be said to have actually learned the game…one led low from AKxx.

 

Current expert practice is now quite divided.

 

I do agree that one ought never to make a lead decision without reference to the rest of the hand…and it’s not as simple as saying…’after due consideration, you’re leading this suit.

 

Bearing that in mind, and assuming I’m leading the suit, then there are definitely hands on which I’d lead a high one..,and hands where I’d lead low…and hands where it depends on how I’m feeling.

 

I do increasingly think that, on many hands, high is best.

[Shugart23]

The actual hand does matter as there is a small inference that one of the opponents hold the minor suits as they have not gone through Stayman or any other convention. eagles123 is right!

 

I didn't disagree with Eagles, nor with some of the other comments here. There is, the small inference you refer, but with a 4333 or 4342 hand, I'm not so sure I am going to bid Stayman ( but I might on the latter)

 

My thinking on this hand is I am leading the 3

 

If the consensus is 'it depends'. then can you (or anyone) construct a hand where leading one of the Honors is the correct lead the majority of the times ?

[smerriman]

If the consensus is 'it depends'. then can you (or anyone) construct a hand where leading one of the Honors is the correct lead the majority of the times ?

Bird/Anthias had examples of this in their book.

 

With AK54 87652 T4 A9, for chance of beating contract / average tricks taken:

 

♠A/K: 47.1% / 4.63

♠4: 34.1% / 4.17

♥: 39.4% / 4.22

♦: 34.0% / 4.02

♣: 39.1% / 4.24

 

Note their numbers are always weighted towards winners since they can guarantee finding the right continuation, so take this as you will.

 

steve2005 mentioned a few important cases where low goes badly, but there aren't actually many where it goes better - most of the times low works, high also works. Bird/Anthias state examples like dummy having QT4 and partner the J, or Q in dummy and partner having the T, only happen about 2.75% of the time.

[johnu]

I lead my singleton and hope to find partner's suit.

[johnu]

Bird/Anthias had examples of this in their book.

 

With AK54 87652 T4 A9, for chance of beating contract / average tricks taken:

 

♠A/K: 47.1% / 4.63

♠4: 34.1% / 4.17

♥: 39.4% / 4.22

♦: 34.0% / 4.02

♣: 39.1% / 4.24

 

Note their numbers are always weighted towards winners since they can guarantee finding the right continuation, so take this as you will.

 

Yep, part of the advantage of the A/K lead is that after the opening lead, you can switch to the another suit if that is best. The deficiency of double dummy is that even seeing the 1st trick and dummy, you still may not know whether to continue the suit or to switch.

[sfi]

Yep, part of the advantage of the A/K lead is that after the opening lead, you can switch to the another suit if that is best.

Another related part is that partner (mostly) needs three spades if your tricks are coming from that suit. So if it's right to do so, you can still duck the second one and maintain communication.

[TMorris]

I would lead the Ace. If it's the wrong suit I have time to switch. I don't lose to Qx when declarer scores up eight more tricks outside. Ace for me asks for (reverse) attitude.

[Douglas43]

If I have a strong hand, the Ace. If I have a weak hand, the three.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

if you want to set up the 4th spade, lead low otherwise high.

if you have all (most of) the combined strength, i.e. besided AK add.

values, A will be safer, you get a look, and you can continue with a

low one, you dont expect partner to get in.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

PS: The given Bird / Anthias hand is a hand, that would fall, you have most

of the strength, i.e. high.

[bluenikki]

I would lead the Ace. If it's the wrong suit I have time to switch. I don't lose to Qx when declarer scores up eight more tricks outside. Ace for me asks for (reverse) attitude.

 

Under what circumstance does ace request unblock?

[TMorris]

Under what circumstance does ace request unblock?

 

for me the King would ask for unblock (or count).

[smerriman]

Hi,

 

if you want to set up the 4th spade, lead low otherwise high.

if you have all (most of) the combined strength, i.e. besided AK add.

values, A will be safer, you get a look, and you can continue with a

low one, you dont expect partner to get in.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

 

PS: The given Bird / Anthias hand is a hand, that would fall, you have most

of the strength, i.e. high.

I ran a couple of sims of my own.

 

To keep things extremely basic, I assumed any balanced 15-17 HCP for South, and any 10-15 HCP for North, either 4333 or 4 card major; I assumed no singleton as well.

 

My results for the original hand over 1000 sims were:

 

SA: beats game 26.9%, averages 4.13 tricks

S4: beats game 15.7%, averages 3.86 tricks

 

Obviously all of these are a lot lower than their stats since I assume they included some 9 HCP acceptances as you would expect from a human - can rerun with more accurate acceptances if someone wants to provide a good definition - but it shows a similar advantage for SA.

 

If I then replace the club ace with the club 2:

 

SA: beats game 14.5%, averages 3.40 tricks

S4: beats game 7.3%, averages 2.86 tricks

 

With the latter, weaker hand:

 

- on 74 occasions a high spade beat game and a low spade didn't

- only on 2 occasions a low spade beat game and a high spade didn't

 

- on 316 occasions a high spade took more tricks

- on 22 occasions a low spade took more tricks

 

Again, double dummy blah blah - there were 32 cases when partner held Jxx(x), dummy held the Q, and dummy/declarer held the T, where low may cause declarer to misguess and give us an extra trick. But I'd be surprised if double dummy advantage is going to provide such a big swing on the remaining holdings - there are very few where low gains anything, and many where it costs.

[mycroft]

"In before smerriman": -) "Ace or something else?" is one of the worst double-dummy sims out there (and Bird and Anthias point this out about page 4). Because, double-dummy, if another lead is better, it usually still wins after "ace-and-switch", which they will always find.

 

Not saying there's anything wrong here with the analysis, necessarily. Just that that needs to be in one's mind.

 

 

No, I'm not upset about your - very correct - comment on the other thread. Just amused at the parallels.

 

[smerriman]

"In before smerriman": -) "Ace or something else?" is one of the worst double-dummy sims out there (and Bird and Anthias point this out about page 4). Because, double-dummy, if another lead is better, it usually still wins after "ace-and-switch", which they will always find.

:) You didn't get in before me though, since I beat you to it in my post in page 1 ;)

 

In this case I don't think there are too many parallels though - it's true that if another lead is better, double dummy will find the switch, which means you can't compare the ace to another suit lead.

 

But most importantly, here you're comparing it to the same suit - if another suit is better a low spade will be virtually always at least as bad (cases where you still have time to find the switch later are cancelled out by double dummy picking that up on the low lead too).

 

So the comparison between the two, while still having a few flaws (like the case I mentioned above, though it's too rare to affect the results on its own), is a lot more valid - and the ace at least gives a human some chance at finding the switch, compared to the zero chance of leading low.