[Ant590]

Scoring: IMP

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You are sitting West. Opps are playing SAYC-based.

South deals and passes

(pass) - pass - (1♠) - 2♥
(dbl) - pass - (3♦*) - pass
(3NT) - all pass

* Unknown if the opps play good/bad 2NT here, but I'd bet my house that they don't. Admittedly the auction makes less sense without good/bad.

What do you lead?

[FrancesHinden]

heart. every time.

by the way, i would never lead the 10 of spades. ever.

[Ant590]

Whoops ♠J was meant to be the option. Not that I expect anyone to lead a pointy suit anyway...

[Fluffy]

Thank god I am not void in hearts, otherwise I'd lead a joker stating its the one of hearts.

[Codo]

I always lead a six if I have one.

At least if it is singelton in partners suit.
This is a non problem in my eyes.

[mtvesuvius]

I'm tempted to lead a ♣, but I have conviced myself otherwise. I voted for, and will lead a ♥, partner bid 'em for a reason.

[bid_em_up]

A systemic (2/4, 3/5) small club lead stands out by a mile.

My condolences to all of the heart leaders.

[Phil]

Good-Bad can't apply in this auction. What is opener supposed to do with a flattish hand with a heart stop?

Assuming the opponents are sane, declarer is very well prepared for a heart lead. I would expect at least a double stop. Diamonds look like their source of tricks. This might be a good time for a passive lead by the way, and a diamond isn't crazy.

A spade puts our eggs in one basket. While pard might have a nice holding like K9x or A9x, she might not.

I'm leading a club. Its possible pard may even have four, and Kxx is probably enough.

[foo]

Lead partner's suit unless you have a clear reason not to.

Whether you win or lose the board, you will win the postmortem.

[mtvesuvius]

foo, on Jan 16 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

Whether you win or lose the board, you will win the postmortem.

Does this really matter? Isn't it important to think of ways to do well at the table, instead of figuring out ways to deflect blame from you away from the table?

[matmat]

Ant590, on Jan 16 2009, 07:50 AM, said:

* Unknown if the opps play good/bad 2NT here, but I'd bet my house that they don't. Admittedly the auction makes less sense without good/bad.

What do you lead?

my (often wrong) instincts tell me the X was intended as penalties. i'm leading a club.

[peachy]

I don't want to lead a singleton in partner's suit. Leading clubs requires less from partner and several different club holdings will suffice while leading hearts requires KQJ10x and a side entry. If a heart lead would have set the contract, then we might get a bad board. If a club lead would set the contract and I led hearts then we get a bad board because I did not heed the good advice that leading singletons (even in partner's suit) against NT is rarely right.

[Ant590]

matmat, on Jan 17 2009, 04:54 AM, said:

Ant590, on Jan 16 2009, 07:50 AM, said:

* Unknown if the opps play good/bad 2NT here, but I'd bet my house that they don't. Admittedly the auction makes less sense without good/bad.

What do you lead?

my (often wrong) instincts tell me the X was intended as penalties. i'm leading a club.

To add to this, the LoLRHO grimaced as she doubled, then bid 3NT in a very forceful manner.

I was swung by this and lead a club, both take the contract off eventually (but hearts do much faster). I'll post the whole hand when I get a moment.

[foo]

mtvesuvius, on Jan 16 2009, 10:38 PM, said:

foo, on Jan 16 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

Whether you win or lose the board, you will win the postmortem.

Does this really matter? Isn't it important to think of ways to do well at the table, instead of figuring out ways to deflect blame from you away from the table?

You do not lead partner's suit because you are trying to "deflect blame" from yourself.

You lead partner's suit, unless you have a logically better idea, because you want the best session and best possible working relationship with pard.

The issue is Partnership Management. How to get the best game from partner while at the table and how to develop the best working relationship you can with partner overall.

If partner has reason to think you don't trust them, they are going to start acting like they don't trust you.

...and guess what happens to your scores then?

[Phil]

foo, on Jan 17 2009, 10:35 AM, said:

mtvesuvius, on Jan 16 2009, 10:38 PM, said:

foo, on Jan 16 2009, 03:01 PM, said:

Whether you win or lose the board, you will win the postmortem.

Does this really matter? Isn't it important to think of ways to do well at the table, instead of figuring out ways to deflect blame from you away from the table?

You do not lead partner's suit because you are trying to "deflect blame" from yourself.

MtVesuvius is right.

Partnership trust is about, well...trust. If my pard is so hell-bent on leading his suit, then we won't last very long. Winning the post-mortem is inconsequential.

The logic of this auction is that RHO has upgraded his hand since passed hands don't freely bid 3N opposite a 3rd seat opener.

My take is that his heart and diamond holdings are worth an upgrade. I'm short in hearts and LHO appears to be too. Pard does not have to have a semi-solid suit for an overcall.

At least thats what I'll tell my partner when it doesn't work. That's fine, he trusts me.

[foo]

No one board is worth risking a bad session or damage to a partnership.

If your partner does not care whether you lead her bid suit or not, fine.

If your partner cares, but is willing to accept some rationale on your part for not leading her suit, then you have exactly the degree of flexibility in your decision making as the variance in the quality of the rationale she is willing to accept.

I completely agree that a partner who is too rigid about you leading their bid suit is not likely to make a good long term pairing.

But the bedrock principle I'm trying to get at is that you are !not! trying to get just a good score on any given board, you are trying to get a good score for the session, the event, and for all the events you play with partner.

Bluntly,
Do not casually overrule partner when they go out of the way to take the risk of giving you a hint as to what your lead should be.
Lead partner's bid suit unless you have a =very= good reason not to.
Don't mastermind. Play partnership bridge

On this auction and with the given hand on opening lead, you do not have a better lead than what partner has requested.

Frances is right. A heart. Every time.

[Phil]

foo, on Jan 17 2009, 01:42 PM, said:

No one board is worth risking a bad session or damage to a partnership.

If your partner does not care whether you lead her bid suit or not, fine.

If your partner cares, but is willing to accept some rationale on your part for not leading her suit, then you have exactly the degree of flexibility in your decision making as the variance in the quality of the rationale she is willing to accept.

I completely agree that a partner who is too rigid about you leading their bid suit is not likely to make a good long term pairing.

But the bedrock principle I'm trying to get at is that you are !not! trying to get just a good score on any given board, you are trying to get a good score for the session, the event, and for all the events you play with partner.

Bluntly,
Do not casually overrule partner when they go out of the way to take the risk of giving you a hint as to what your lead should be.
Lead partner's bid suit unless you have a =very= good reason not to.
Don't mastermind. Play partnership bridge

On this auction and with the given hand on opening lead, you do not have a better lead than what partner has requested.

Frances is right. A heart. Every time.

Foo;

I'm sorry but I think this is a =very= patronizing attitude toward your partner.

My !session! is the sum total of the boards I play. There will be hands that we get right and hands we get wrong. If we've done our job, we should be north of 60% which will keep us in contention. All of our boards matter. I've never in my life used a mental crutch of refusing to think and just led partner's suit blindly. If you think a heart is correct, reason through it, but just don't lead it because you want to maintain some percerptual *harmony*.

For my money, if RHO weren't a passed hand, I would lead a heart and not think too much about it. In this case, RHO can have many hand types and a strong heart holding is not inferred. Even then a club could still be right, but I would lead a heart.

When my partners don't lead my suit, I don't think twice about it.

[MFA]

I strongly prefer a partner who thinks and doesn't automatically lead my suit. I also strongly prefer a partner who isn't scared of looking silly if his/her decision should work out badly.

On the actual deal I would choose a club, but I think it's very close between a club and a heart.

[mtvesuvius]

I think that as long as you understand that you will make a wrong decision every once and a while, and that partner will make a bad decisions occaisionally, that's fine. You previous comment just struck me as partnership damaging... I'm sorry if I mistook it.

[Codo]

I totally agree that nobody should blame his partner for leading the "wrong" suit in this example. But to bid 2 ♥ over 1 ♠ is a pretty strong lead director. So my hand is not enough about clubs to lead another suit.