[Bende]

What do you think is the most common card led? Are there any statistics on this?

My own guess is that it is the ♦K, although I have very little to back this up.

[bluecalm]

I think majors are lead more often than minors on the other hand it shouldn't affect honor leads too much..
My guess is that A♠ and A[♥] are the most common led cards

[helene_t]

Good players don't lead unsupported aces very often, and with AK they sometimes lead the king by convention. So the most often lead card is probably a king.

Against notrump, the most common lead will be a major, against suit it will be a minor since major suit contracts are more common and people won't lead the king of trump very often.

But from AK or KQ you will almost always lead an honor against a suit contract while you might lead a small card against notrump. Besides, the preference for leading majors against notrump probably affect spot card leads more than honor leads.

Since clubs is the least popular denomination I will go with ♣K.

[W Kovacs]

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say it's one of the low spot cards. "4th best" is something beginners pick up early, and so it should skew the results towards them.

Now as to which specific spot or which strain, that really depends on the hand leading. Maybe a 6? Strain should be equally distributed, so that is a much harder call.

[aguahombre]

Going with Kovacs, but allowing for 3/5, 4th, and attitude leads ---I vote for club 2.
Nobody plays in clubs, increasing the probability it is a side suit or that it is right to lead trump

[WellSpyder]

helene_t, on Aug 19 2010, 04:15 PM, said:

Good players don't lead unsupported aces very often

True, but don't they lead unsupported kings even less often?

[matmat]

meh. 4 of something
maybe the 5.

say. ♥4.

[Echognome]

I wonder if this is something researchable in bridge browser (or whatever the name of the database is).

[pooltuna]

We appear to be assuming the OP meant an opening lead or a lead by a defender. It could just as well be a card played from dummy or from declarer's hand?

[matmat]

pooltuna, on Aug 19 2010, 11:27 AM, said:

We appear to be assuming the OP meant an opening lead or a lead by a defender. It could just as well be a card played from dummy or from declarer's hand?

we're also assuming that the OP meant bridge. at hearts, for instance, the answer would be the ♣2.

[inquiry]

Seems a silly exercise, but I have to tools to investigate this.

I looked at 20,000 BBO hands all played on Feb 1, 2009. These were all main room hands so that each hand was played 16 times. This was from 1250 unique deals I(sample size is not large enough of course, maybe I should look at 1 million or 2 million hands). Perhaps a better question is what it he greatest opening lead versus a particular contract. There was no contract selection here.


The data I get from Bridgebrowser provided sthe opening lead.

Here is the results

Ld   times
DA 933
CA 926
SA 775
HA 731
C2 728 <<---- data flawed as po count as c2 lead. real number 438
CK 575
DK 542
HK 506
SK 475
H2 453
S2 436
DQ 435
D2 407
H3 404
C4 389
C3 382
D4 377
DT 375
D3 373
C5 363
S4 361
S3 354
HT 353
H4 348
H5 344
C6 335
CQ 325
CJ 320
CT 314
D6 314
D9 313
SQ 309
HJ 307
S7 306
C9 302
S5 300
S6 297
SJ 296
DJ 296
ST 282
H7 281
HQ 280
H6 279
D5 274
S9 265
D7 264
D8 256
S8 250
H8 233
C8 232
C7 222
H9 203

[aguahombre]

Wow, I came in 5th behind all the bullets.....so proud

[billw55]

interesting: 12 of the top 13 spots are held by the four aces, kings, and dueces. I think this is compelling evidence even considering the relatively small sample size.

[PassedOut]

aguahombre, on Aug 19 2010, 11:51 AM, said:

Wow, I came in 5th behind all the bullets.....so proud

Good thing I didn't guess the ♥9.

[TimG]

I would have guessed the ♦7 was last.

[inquiry]

Huge FLAW in above data...

I discovered that on passed out hands, the software records the CLUB TWO as the opening lead. Not sure why, but this obviously increased the club two opening lead to a stupidly high value.

When I take out the passout hand, the club 2 opening lead was decreased to 438

[jjbrr]

The disparity in the lead of Qs is interesting. Otherwise most of the ranks are closely grouped.