lead 4th best

[sceptic]

Hi I would like your opinions on the following please

 

Assuming you lead 4th best

 

holding AQ932 or KJ832 or something similar as long as the 3 and 2 are in the hand

 

you should lead the 3

 

what happens to the rule of 11 if you lead the 2 instead of the 3?

 

does it still work if you have 4 higher rather than the 3 you are supposed to?

 

if someone was to lead like that, is it allowed?, is it cheating?, is it plain stupid?, is it treating your partner unfairly?

 

if you wanted to play like this should you change to 3/5 leads?

 

any comments you have on this please woudld be welocmed

[paulg]

Hi I would like your opinions on the following please

 

Assuming you lead 4th best

 

holding AQ932 or KJ832 or something similar as long as the 3 and 2 are in the hand

 

you should lead the 3

Correct.

 

what happens to the rule of 11 if you lead the 2 instead of the 3?

The rule of 11 fails to provide partner and declarer with the information they expect!

 

does it still work if you have 4 higher rather than the 3 you are supposed to?

The rule of 11 works on the rank of the cards, not the card itself, so this is the same as the previous questions.

 

if someone was to lead like that, is it allowed?, is it cheating?, is it plain stupid?, is it treating your partner unfairly?

Assuming you are playing 4th best, then leading 5th best is permitted as long as it surprises partner as much as the opposition. The key point is that you must not have a concealed partnership understanding.

 

Generally not following your system is a poor idea as it destroys partnership confidence.

 

There are times when you may wish to mislead partner and declarer with your lead, and perhaps the most common is when you hold most of the defensive points against 3NT and decide to show imply a four-card suit by leading the 2 from AQ932. Declarer may believe the suit is splitting evenly and take a different (less successful) line because of this. The reason I mention holding the majority of the points held by the defence is that you do not expect partner to get the lead, so the deception is less likely to affect him.

 

if you wanted to play like this should you change to 3/5 leads?

If you prefer to lead the lowest, then yes! Use the rule of 10 for 5th best and rule of 12 for 3rd best leads.

 

An alternative style may be "attitude" leads - instead of showing a count, a low lead implies a stronger holding and a high lead a weaker one. Popular with some world-class pairs.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[Walddk]

4th best lead: The Rule of 11 applies.

3rd best lead: The Rule of 12 applies.

5th best lead: The Rule of 10 applies.

 

These are all mathematical calculations. When playing 3rd for example:

 

Subtract the spot card from 12, and the result gives the number of cards higher than the one led in the other three hands.

 

Similarly, if playing 5th leads: Subtract the spot card from 10, and the result gives the number of cards higher than the one led in the other three hands.

 

Since these are a mathematical formulas, they are rules without exceptions. Try it yourself. Also with the Rule of 11 (4th best leads). No exceptions.

 

It is obviously allowed to lead 3rd and 5th instead of 4th. Many partnerships have that agreement, especially against suit contracts. Many also retreat to 4th best against notrump.

 

You are entitled to deviate from your agreements with partner as long as they are not based upon a partnership understanding. If you don't follow the rules you agreed with your partner, he will be fooled as much as declarer, and in the long run it is a bad idea not to stick to your agreements. It's simply bad for partnership morale.

 

But it's not cheating.

 

Personally, I like to play 3rd and 5th leads against suit as well as notrump with the following addition: I play 2nd and 4th through declarer. This has worked very well for me. On the other hand, you don't stop playing bridge just because you have a set of rules. Take this suit as an example:

 

AQ92

 

Say you agreed on 3rd and 5th leads, also against notrump and you want to lead from that combination. The "correct" card to lead is then the 9 spot, but that could be quite expensive (could easily cost a trick), so most would lead the 2 nevertheless.

 

Hope you got what you were looking for, Wayne.

 

Roland

[Trumpace]

4th best lead: The Rule of 11 applies.

3rd best lead: The Rule of 12 applies.

5th best lead: The Rule of 10 applies.

These can be consolidated into 1 rule: The rule of 15.

 

If the lead is say 4th best, you subtract 4 from 15. We have 11. Now apply rule of 11.

 

If the lead is 3rd best, subtract 3 from 15. We are left with 12. Now apply rule of 12.

 

Basically if the lead is xth best and spot card y is led, number of high cards outstanding (higher than y) is 15-(x+y).

 

Hope that helps.

[Blofeld]

I prefer to regard them all as variants of the rule of 52.

 

They're much easier to work out for yourself than remember as an arbitrary number.

[luke warm]

I prefer to regard them all as variants of the rule of 52.

 

They're much easier to work out for yourself than remember as an arbitrary number.

huh?

[helene_t]

I prefer to regard them all as variants of the rule of 52.

 

They're much easier to work out for yourself than remember as an arbitrary number.

huh?

Yes, there are 52 cards in a deck so if partner leads one card it means that 51 cards remain.

[mike777]

.

 

"An alternative style may be "attitude" leads - instead of showing a count, a low lead implies a stronger holding and a high lead a weaker one. Popular with some world-class pairs."

 

Yes play this against no trump, low means I like the suit,..not third or fourth or fifth do not give declarer count. Your partner is too confused already so just tell them to return your suit not count your suit. Let declarer fool around with these count rules.

 

Of course playing this you must ignore BBO law number one which is never return partner's lead or at least it seems to be the LAW here.

[luke warm]

I prefer to regard them all as variants of the rule of 52.

 

They're much easier to work out for yourself than remember as an arbitrary number.

huh?

Yes, there are 52 cards in a deck so if partner leads one card it means that 51 cards remain.

oh :)

[ochinko]

.

 

"An alternative style may be "attitude" leads - instead of showing a count, a low lead implies a stronger holding and a high lead a weaker one. Popular with some world-class pairs."

 

Yes play this against no trump, low means I like the suit,..not third or fourth or fifth do not give declarer count. Your partner is too confused already so just tell them to return your suit not count your suit. Let declarer fool around with these count rules.

 

Of course playing this you must ignore BBO law number one which is never return partner's lead or at least it seems to be the LAW here.

That's my style too. Undisciplined count on the lead is no different than falsecarding, which is fairly common. If you assume that the declarer is better at counting than your partner, why give a proper count? If you suspect that your partner may read the 7 from K9873 as a high card why lead the 7?

 

That's why I almost always lead my lowest card beneath an honor. Partner rarely complains when you make one trick more than expected in the suit.

 

It depends very much on the style. Many (most?) good players insist on giving count on every suit, so that they can reconstruct the declarer's hand. I prefer giving and receiving attitude everywhere, and Lavinthal when it's obvious that attitude is useless. But then again, I'm not very good at counting :)

 

Petko