[Jinksy]

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I slightly miskeyed this - W should have been dealer, so ignore S's first pass (vul is correct).

E/W playing natural methods, reasonably competent club players but not star level. This hand is from the Whitelaw Cup VuGraph, where one of the commentators was friendly enough to chat with me about the lead. I'll just repost the conversation:

Quote

roswolf→Table: club lead i suppose

Jinksy: why would you prefer a C to a H lead here? i would have thought the clearer count it gave, the better honour holding, plus the fact that it's a major all point to Hs?

roswolf: declarer is ready for a heart lead by bidding 3nt therefore a club is the better lead looking at the black suits

Jinksy: that seems like it's getting into regress - if dec is drawing attention to majors by not bidding them, but directing the lead away from them by showing he's ready for it, surely that directs him to bid it on a weak H holding on that knowledge and so on ad infinitum...

roswolf: too deep for me but bluff bridge (pysching) is rarely encountered in england these days. human nature is to be ready for the "obvious lead" therefore do something unexpected if reasonable

Jinksy: i just mean it seems like when you have a regress like that, your optimal strategy in that pos is probably something like 'bid 3N with stoppish holdings in both suits and hope the opps get the lead wrong'

I've seen this kind of reasoning in books before (they 'look ready' for lead A, so make lead B instead), but I've always had this problem with it.


(I'll post the other hands in the first reply since I'll lose them otherwise - obviously don't look at it before picking a lead if you want to treat this as a lead problem)

[Jinksy]

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[MickyB]

This doesn't feel like an auction where declarer should particularly expect a heart lead as opposed to a club. It is somewhat dependent on style, but most likely they have no more than four cards opposite three in either of these suits - opener can have four hearts but won't usually have four clubs, while the opposite is true for responder. Admittedly, responder is more likely to have four clubs than opener is to have four hearts.

I would lead a club because QTxx is an attractive holding to lead from, while KTxx is an unattractive holding to lead from. Think about possible layouts of the suits - if you find partner with anything there, the lead from QTxx is likely to work fairly well.

[gnasher]

I'm surprised he didn't tell you that ♥10 was automatic. Maybe he just hadn't spotted it.

[Phil]

Declarer won't have four hearts on this auction.

Declarer also isn't a forum member - 2♣ looks clear

[Free]

Phil, on 2011-September-04, 06:44, said:

Declarer also isn't a forum member - 2♣ looks clear

Over 1♥ this would indeed be a clear 2♣ response. But over 1♦ openings as well?

[Phil]

Free, on 2011-September-04, 06:56, said:

Over 1♥ this would indeed be a clear 2♣ response. But over 1♦ openings as well?

No I guess not. Misread the auction.

[FrancesHinden]

The club holding is a more attractive suit holding to lead from.

However, the heart suit is a much more attractive suit to lead in the first place: declarer has basically denied four hearts but could easily have four clubs. Dummy is more likely to have four hearts than four clubs, but both are possible. The 'preparedness' argument on its own is pretty silly: generally if the auction suggests an obvious suit to lead, you should lead it.

Try swapping the jack of clubs and the 9 of hearts between North and East and decide which suit is better.

I think it's a complete guess which is the right lead.

[paulg]

FrancesHinden, on 2011-September-04, 09:29, said:

declarer has basically denied four hearts but could easily have four clubs

In some, perhaps even many, parts of the world he could easily have five or more clubs.

[aguahombre]

paulg, on 2011-September-04, 09:39, said:

In some, perhaps even many, parts of the world he could easily have five or more clubs.

I guess, if responder started out with less than G.F values, then upgraded because of a nice diamond fitter, this could be true. Think I would still have tried a low club, though.

[paulg]

paulg, on 2011-September-04, 09:39, said:

In some, perhaps even many, parts of the world he could easily have five or more clubs.

aguahombre, on 2011-September-04, 09:51, said:

I guess, if responder started out with less than G.F values, then upgraded because of a nice diamond fitter, this could be true.

No. I mean that in a significant number of places responding 2♣ denies a four-card major whatever your values or distribution.

[sasioc]

Just thinking about what you said about psychology of bidding something because you think that oppo won't want to make the "obvious" lead, a couple of things to point out:

1) I suspect a lot of players won't think about it in those terms and if your oppo aren't likely to think "I mustn't make the expected lead" then bidding 3nt without a guard in the suit that the auction suggests should be led is very risky. In short, you have to be pretty sure oppo won't make "the obvious lead" for this to work and I don't think that this is that common. I've certainly not had that kind of luck often!

2) If you don't have a guard but bid as if you do there is a pretty decent chance that the opponent on lead will have some of those cards you are missing and hence a clearer lead of the suit (ie can see you are bluffing or just knows it's a safe lead and possibly wants to knock out your guard) - you're not going to talk him out of leading from KQJx, KQTxx etc, which is a reasonably likely type of holding if neither you or p have any cards in the suit. Note that a cheap overcall of 1H over 1D was available to RHO so LHO probably rates to have the length in H. Of course, you may talk LHO out of leading from a shortish or gappy suit - there is also the chance that with that holding a H is not his natural lead anyway.

Separately, I would also lead a club on that hand (presumably because I learnt most of my bridge from MickyB) because QT87 is a very appealing holding to lead from. I don't think a H lead is especially clearly indicated in the auction - west can easily have 4H, just as E can easily have 4C so I'd lead one of those suits based which holding I felt was safer to lead from/would gain more of the time.

[JLOGIC]

sasioc, on 2011-September-05, 20:49, said:

Separately, I would also lead a club on that hand (presumably because I learnt most of my bridge from MickyB) because QT87 is a very appealing holding to lead from. I don't think a H lead is especially clearly indicated in the auction - west can easily have 4H, just as E can easily have 4C so I'd lead one of those suits based which holding I felt was safer to lead from/would gain more of the time.

This is like saying rolling a 7 is just as likely as rolling a 12, because either one can come up! LHO is of course far less likely to have 4 hearts than RHO is to have 4 clubs. I mean, RHO usually won't have 5 spades since he didn't check for a fit there, will never have 4 hearts, and their partner has 6+ diamonds, so RHO will not be super long there. 4333 is possible but 4234/4324 must be much more likely. It would not surprise me if RHO had 4 clubs like 50 % of the time. There is no way that LHO with 6+ diamonds has 4 hearts anywhere close to 50 % of the time. So even though "LHO might have 4 heart, and RHO might have 4 clubs" is true, one is much more likely than the other.

[phil_20686]

I think this auction mildly suggests a heart lead, but only mildly, and not enough to outweigh the fact that your club holding is attractive. I think a spade lead is slightly disfavoured relatively, but all three will work a decent proportion of the time. Since a spade is probably the least likely to give away a trick declarer could not get for himself, it is likely to work out when a passive defence is called for.

I also think one should be careful about how much weight you give to things like "rho might have 4". Even if he does have 4 clubs it could easily still be the right lead. Given your good pips even if he has AJxx it is still the right lead. (partner can lead back the 9). Further, while when one player is known to be balanced, you wish to avoid leading a suit in which the other might have four cards, as then they will have a decent number of cards in the suit. If one player is unbalanced his partner having four cards doesn't matter as much. I would not feel bad about declarer having four clubs here if dummy puts down a void.

I would lead a club. I do not think a heart is bad.

[sasioc]

JLOGIC, on 2011-September-06, 00:45, said:

This is like saying rolling a 7 is just as likely as rolling a 12, because either one can come up! LHO is of course far less likely to have 4 hearts than RHO is to have 4 clubs. I mean, RHO usually won't have 5 spades since he didn't check for a fit there, will never have 4 hearts, and their partner has 6+ diamonds, so RHO will not be super long there. 4333 is possible but 4234/4324 must be much more likely. It would not surprise me if RHO had 4 clubs like 50 % of the time. There is no way that LHO with 6+ diamonds has 4 hearts anywhere close to 50 % of the time. So even though "LHO might have 4 heart, and RHO might have 4 clubs" is true, one is much more likely than the other.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that I thought LHO had 4 hearts with the same probability that RHO had 4 clubs - I don't think that at all, although I'll admit that I didn't put a lot of thought into things from that angle when posting! You say that LHO has 6+ diamonds - I'm not sure about in the US but here is it not at all uncommon for players to have 2452 or 1453 hands to bid 1d:1s, 2d, rather than rebidding 1nt or 2c. I believe this hand came from an English women's teams event so I would expect 2D to be routine with either of those shapes or with 6D.