[pclayton]

♠AQT8xx ♥7x ♦Kx ♣Q9x

1♦ on our right, 1♠ you, 2♠ by LHO, 3N RHO.

Your lead?

[mikeh]

I choose the Ace... 2nd choice the spade 8.. no other lead gets any support from me.

[cherdano]

mikeh, on Nov 2 2008, 10:51 PM, said:

I choose the Ace... 2nd choice the spade 8.. no other lead gets any support from me.

Yup. ♠Q is almost always wrong when you rate to have an entry. It is a plausible genius lead without one.

[H_KARLUK]

7 cards outside in Sp suit.
When opponents have 2 cards Probability of an Honor card being : singleton 52%, doubleton 48 %
If 3 cards then 26-52-22 %
When 4 cards 12-40-38%
I think conditions are same for partner. So any low spade lead fine for me.

[P_Marlowe]

Low spade, 4th best mean 8.

Partner did not double 2S, hence he wont have
the King, but our suit is strong enough, that the
jack with partner or xxx will be enough to establish
the suit.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[Codo]

If our opponents are sane, they have at least the king of spades and rho has it.

If he has K, I should lead the ace and hope pd has the jack.
If he has Kx, low is best, we hope lho has Jxx or shorter.
If he has Kxx low is best if pd has the jack. The queen wins if lho has J or Jx or no honor. If LHO has Jxx or more, anything is equal.
If he has Kxxx the ace, a low or the queen works, depending on the location of the Jack and who possess the singelton and in which hand there is the nine.

If He has KJ the lead does not matter.
If he has KJx a low one works best.
If he has KJxx, again a low one is best.

So a low card wins more often then any other lead. (I have not weighted how possibly any of these holdings is, I guess this depends a lot pn the opponents and how long they neeed for the 3 NT call).
The ace is second best and the queen is good for appearing in newspapers but will normally lose badly at the table.

I hope I did not miss a lot.

But the title is: Genius lead: So you are not allow to lead a low spade or the ace, you must lead the queen or ten.

[pclayton]

This was from a Cayne match yesterday and the defender led the Q, which qualifies for the Genius hall of fame.

The spade suit was actually:

---

Curious 3N call I might add. Declarer needed to knock out the ♦K for the ninth trick.

Naturally, many genius spectators were defending the Q lead, but either low or the Ace has to be superior.

I can't think of a single combo where the Queen works, with the exception of possibly K97x opposite J.

(Just noticed - woo-hoo, we have seven genii in our ranks!)

This post has been edited by pclayton: 2008-November-03, 09:33

[marcD]

pclayton, on Nov 3 2008, 10:32 AM, said:

This was from a Cayne match yesterday and the defender led the Q, which qualifies for the Genius hall of fame.

The spade suit was actually:

---

Curious 3N call I might add. Declarer needed to knock out the ♦K for the ninth trick.

Naturally, many genius spectators were defending the Q lead, but either low or the Ace has to be superior.

I can't think of a single combo where the Queen works, with the exception of possibly K97x opposite J.

(Just noticed - woo-hoo, we have seven genii in our ranks!)

Easy to make fun of this lead but I do not think it was a genius lead : it caters to J or Jx in dummy when partner has no entry (since you are looking at the DK it is a definite possibility that you will be on your own).
Interesting bid from South (and from North too unless he has a diamond fit)

[pclayton]

marcD, on Nov 3 2008, 09:49 AM, said:

pclayton, on Nov 3 2008, 10:32 AM, said:

This was from a Cayne match yesterday and the defender led the Q, which qualifies for the Genius hall of fame.

The spade suit was actually:

KJ AQT842 3 9765

Curious 3N call I might add. Declarer needed to knock out the ♦K for the ninth trick.

Naturally, many genius spectators were defending the Q lead, but either low or the Ace has to be superior.

I can't think of a single combo where the Queen works, with the exception of possibly K97x opposite J.

(Just noticed - woo-hoo, we have seven genii in our ranks!)

Easy to make fun of this lead but I do not think it was a genius lead : it caters to J or Jx in dummy when partner has no entry (since you are looking at the DK it is a definite possibility that you will be on your own).
Interesting bid from South (and from North too unless he has a diamond fit)

And why wouldn't the Ace work in either of these situations?

[marcD]

Sorry thought the consensus was to lead a pedestrian small spade. DS keeps entry fluid for defense if spades are 6223 in case partner does get in and does not tip declarer to go after say clubs instead of diamonds . Answer does not seem obvious to me . I do have sympathy for the SQ leader

[pclayton]

marcD, on Nov 3 2008, 10:16 AM, said:

Sorry thought the consensus was to lead a pedestrian small spade

Yeah; obviously the small spade works sometimes and the Ace works sometimes. It just depends if you think pard has an entry or not.

[jdonn]

I wish I didn't know the answer. The ace is definitely my lead. We can debate about what to lead without outside entries, but on the given hand I think anything but the ace is very inferior. Sure the defenders seemed unlucky, but I don't see what the queen was gaining.

[whereagles]

Ace for me. Been in a similar situation before and the ace worked. I see a pattern here

[cherdano]

Once upon a time, there was a hand where opening leader had AQTxx, dummy had Kxx and declarer had Jxx. Further, declarer didn't know that opening leader had no further entry, but his partner had, so declarer failed to duck at trick one on the lead of the queen.
Since then, surprisingly many otherwise reasonably bridge players think that there are a lot of auctions where the queen is the precentage lead.

Everytime this has come up on BBF it turned out that A was a superior lead by a simple case-by-case analyssi.

[whereagles]

Queen is percentage with you belive LHO has the K.