[bluecalm]

---

Opponents (Lauria Versace) bid:
1♠ 2♦
2♠ 2NT
3♥ 4♠

I believe opener promised 6spades.

Your lead ?

[aguahombre]

Answering the Thread Title: NO. Therefore, I bang the ace.

[awm]

It seems like we need to get our tricks before they pitch on the diamonds. This means a diamond or spade lead is pretty much hopeless.

A club lead could work, but we'd be pretty much betting on partner to hold the club king. We're unlikely to take three club tricks (declarer basically has to be 6403 for that to happen), so even when partner does have club king we will usually need to find two additional useful cards out of partner.

I'd lead a heart, hoping partner can win either this trick or the first diamond and put a club through declarer's king.

[aguahombre]

yeh, but there are other considerations....If the Club Ace works, Grandma will be so proud. If the heart lead works, she won't notice why.

[whereagles]

you have a problem with your relatives?

anyway, heart for me, though I totally accept the club ace could strike gold.

[bluecalm]

Helgemo led Q♣ which as it happens with the best was the only card to beat the contract:

---

Everything is against this choice though:
-my friends polled about it choose a ♥ every time
-my simulation shows that ♥ lead is the best and it's not close
-his partner (Helness) probably felt asleep for a while and ducked the diamond played from declarer hand later (despite count from Helgemo) letting the contract go

This was the first deal of WMSG semifinal in 2008. Norway lost by 100+imps and the play probably went unnoticed I dag it out from vu archives yesterday.

[awm]

Perhaps a possibility is that the lead depends on how certain you are of LHO holding the ♣K. It could be from the opponents style (with regard to 2NT bids) or from some table feel, Helgemo concluded that the ♣K was almost definitely on his left. This being the case, the club queen lead is starting to look quite a bit more appealing. Probably this wasn't included in a simulation?

[bluecalm]

It wasn't. I am also not familiar enough with Lauria - Versace system. Maybe 3♥ suggest hearts values (and therefore lack of ♣ values).
I would love to hear the whole story. For now I am going to run the simul assuming RHO can't have K♣

[aguahombre]

Interesting that the L/V system card says 2/1=GF. I guess their opening bids are stronger than most.

[dburn]

 aguahombre, on 2011-February-27, 14:04, said:

Interesting that the L/V system card says 2/1=GF. I guess their opening bids are stronger than most.

Not especially, but their dummy play is stronger than most, so they can afford to force to game with less than most.

Still, maybe Versace could have bid 3NT instead of 4♠. Not even Helgemo could have beaten that, with or without an awake partner.

[JLOGIC]

Lol @ simulating this. I mean, come on, the main point of the CQ lead is that declarer will just duck (usually twice) with Kxx opp xxx, and of course with Txx.

Also, how can you simulate it and not include the likelihood of the CK being in dummy, and the unlikelihood of it being in RHOs hand? If dummy does not have it then it's partner, RHO bid 3H and LHO bid 2N, it is just really unlikely RHO has the CK on this auction. I'm not sure how you quantify either of these things which is why a simulation is bad.

[whereagles]

well, club Q is probably the last card I could think of. But I've seen Helgemo do strange things.. at a junior championship he had like

K9xxxx

AJ

and, at trick two, he led the JACK, fishing out RHO's singleton ten. Go figure.. LOL

[Fluffy]

with the topic title ♣Q certainly was a strong option, but nothing close to the full hand crossed my mind.

[MrAce]

I would lead ♣ A, as most people here confessed Q would not occur to me.

I lead ♣ because i did not believe 3♥ was a natural bid, but showing weakness in ♣.

[Free]

I'm not surprised about the lead, chance is big that LHO has ♣K. The title just made it cristal clear that ♣Q would be a winner.

Look at my blog, I know someone who did it as well and declarer had Kxx opposite Txx. Obviously declarer ducked the Q, ducked the small continuation to his RHO's J, and lost to the Ace as well.

[jvage]

I didn't reply to the original problem as I knew the hand, as the question was very "leading" I was surprised not more people led the ♣Q.

 bluecalm, on 2011-February-27, 12:44, said:

Everything is against this choice though:
-my friends polled about it choose a ♥ every time
-my simulation shows that ♥ lead is the best and it's not close
-his partner (Helness) probably felt asleep for a while and ducked the diamond played from declarer hand later (despite count from Helgemo) letting the contract go

This was the first deal of WMSG semifinal in 2008. Norway lost by 100+imps and the play probably went unnoticed I dag it out from vu archives yesterday.

I agree with Justin that this hand is one of the least suited for DD analysis I have seen in a long time. As he says the main gain (declarer ducking the K in dummy) will not show.

The play definitely did not go unnoticed. I was in Beijing and still remember overhearing Helness berating his own play on this hand. He simply didn't consider the possibility that partner could have led from the ♣A, which maybe goes to show that this is not something you should try with an average partner. It also demonstrates the downside of simulations, declarer (most often) or partner will often be tricked into a play which is less than Double Dummy. I have later seen the hand reported at least twice in Norway.

[bluecalm]

While the hand is not suitable for simulation I believe that if difference is that huge (heart defeat the contract almost twice as often as Qc) dd lead is basically always correct.
I don't think there is anybody in the world who beats those double dummy simulated leads but to prove this I would need to go through too many hands manually as there is no easy way to automate the process so it's remain just my intuition (quite well founded though by analyzing tons of vugraph hands).

[jogs]

 JLOGIC, on 2011-February-27, 15:05, said:

Lol @ simulating this. I mean, come on, the main point of the CQ lead is that declarer will just duck (usually twice) with Kxx opp xxx, and of course with Txx.

Also, how can you simulate it and not include the likelihood of the CK being in dummy, and the unlikelihood of it being in RHOs hand? If dummy does not have it then it's partner, RHO bid 3H and LHO bid 2N, it is just really unlikely RHO has the CK on this auction. I'm not sure how you quantify either of these things which is why a simulation is bad.

The ♣ Q is a winner in this setup. Kxx opp Jxx. Pard has T9x. Doesn't matter who holds the 13th club.