[phil_20686]

I think in general people put too much emphasis on what card to lead, and not enough on working out what kind of lead is right in the auction. Leading from xxx is very passive, whereas xx is very aggressive. One can often work out whether partner will be leading aggressively or defensively based on the auction. It was a good trick I learned when selecting leads to select the suits preferentially based on the auction, and then have a look at the cards in your hand to see if that changes anything. Trying to work out what partner has lead from is much easier if you try to imagine what you would be attempting to achieve vs a given auction.

[Hanoi5]

gwnn, on 2011-February-11, 05:42, said:

Ha! When Elianna said non-US, I automatically assumed European! I suppose it's the sister effect to what lead to 'American' being synonymous to US citizen.

I don't think it's the same.

And in what language is effect femenine? In Spanish it's masculine, in Emgllish it has no genre...

[gnasher]

Hanoi5, on 2011-February-11, 06:43, said:

I don't think it's the same.

And in what language is effect femenine? In Spanish it's masculine, in Emgllish it has no genre...

I think gwnn's usage was gramatically correct. He used "sister" as an adjective, meaning that it's closely related or of the same group. It's comparable to phrases like "sister company" or "sister town".

[gwnn]

Hanoi5, on 2011-February-11, 06:43, said:

I don't think it's the same.

And in what language is effect femenine? In Spanish it's masculine, in Emgllish it has no genre...

The technical term in English is "gender".

[Elianna]

jallerton, on 2011-February-10, 16:55, said:

I agree. We need to know the rest of Elianna's leading agreements (including any differences between suit and NT contracts) before we can usefully answer the question.

Adam already posted his and my carding agreements. These are the agreements that my other partner wishes (to the best of my understanding):

Vs both suit and no trump:

lead fourth best from an honor.

lead second best from length without an honor. (In NT, lead top of a four or five card suit without an honor.) She won't tell me what you're supposed to play after you play the second best.

lead top of doubleton

lead top of a sequence.

lead the T from KT9 and from KJT

And A asks for attitude, K asks for count vs. both NT and suit.

Carding otherwise is UDCA, first discard is attitude. And I taught her reverse smith vs. NT, but she's still missing it sometimes.

----------------------

For the last time we played, she refused to lead low from length without an honor vs suit, so I decided that the only way to make sense of this for me is to basically do attitude leads, and lead top of a suit without an honor, low from one with, and low from doubleton (vs suit, high from doubleton vs. NT).

We never discussed our sequence leads (no time, no energy), so who knows what we played.

[jallerton]

In that case, with your "other" partner you are playing something close to what is referred to in the U.K. as "2nd and 4th" (your honour leads are different than standard U.K., but that doesn't make any difference). Middle-Up-Down is the best option from xxx to be consistent with your other agreements. It is true that if you play 6 then 8, partner may not be able to tell the difference between H86 and 862 but there is a similar ambiguity if leading the 2 from 972.

With Adam, your leading system against suits (3rd and low) is count based, so it makes sense then to lead the lowest from xxx.

No leading system is perfect of course, for the simple reason that there are more messages you may wish to convey that there are sequences in which you can play the cards.

[Elianna]

jallerton, on 2011-February-11, 09:28, said:

In that case, with your "other" partner you are playing something close to what is referred to in the U.K. as "2nd and 4th" (your honour leads are different than standard U.K., but that doesn't make any difference). Middle-Up-Down is the best option from xxx to be consistent with your other agreements. It is true that if you play 6 then 8, partner may not be able to tell the difference between H86 and 862 but there is a similar ambiguity if leading the 2 from 972.

With Adam, your leading system against suits (3rd and low) is count based, so it makes sense then to lead the lowest from xxx.

No leading system is perfect of course, for the simple reason that there are more messages you may wish to convey that there are sequences in which you can play the cards.

But she says that she wants to play this solely for the reason of telling the difference between H86 and 862! This is the part that I don't get.

[awm]

It seems to me that there are three reasonable styles of leads. Basically we want to convey information about count (even or odd) and about attitude. So we have:

(1) Opening lead primarily about count. This is the popular US style and is what Elianna and I play. We use 3/5 leads against suits so would lead low from three small. Since this lead style doesn't give much attitude information, our later signals usually emphasize attitude and/or suit preference.

(2) Opening lead primarily about attitude. This seems to be the Polish style, where leading low indicates you want the suit returned. So you'd lead low from doubleton or from an honor, and highest affordable from a bunch of small cards. Presumably one might want to play count signals later in the hand after this sort of lead.

(3) Opening lead sends a mixed signal. This is the Slawinski style, where a lead might show either even length to an honor or odd length without an honor (or vice versa). This has the advantage that sometimes you can figure out one of honor holding or length from the bidding or play to trick one, and now you have both pieces of information. Of course, there are also probably situations where Slawinksi leads are confusing because you don't have solid information about either option.

Anyway, all of these make sense to me. Elianna and I usually play (1); it seems like with her new partner she has transitioned to play (2). What I don't get is how MUD fits into any of these standards. Leading middle cards basically causes confusion (could be top of doubleton, could be lowest from an honor, could be middle from three small) and even after the second play in the suit there is still ambiguity. Wouldn't it be better to lead highest affordable (risking only that partner thinks you have doubleton)? Or to lead low from doubleton and high from three small like the Polish style? In the USA, MUD is basically universally panned by experts; I have seen and heard many comments about how awful it is and how one shouldn't play it. Is the expert consensus different abroad?

[gnasher]

awm, on 2011-February-11, 11:48, said:

In the USA, MUD is basically universally panned by experts; I have seen and heard many comments about how awful it is and how one shouldn't play it. Is the expert consensus different abroad?

I've always understood that only the British and Irish think it a good idea, and everyone else thinks we're barking mad. It seems to go right to the top:

http://bridgefiles.n...ett-hackett.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...nlon-mcgann.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...balija-rees.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...n-greenwood.pdf

(That's one pair each from England, Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)

[Elianna]

gnasher, on 2011-February-11, 11:57, said:

I've always understood that only the British and Irish think it a good idea, and everyone else thinks we're barking mad. It seems to go right to the top:

http://bridgefiles.n...ett-hackett.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...nlon-mcgann.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...balija-rees.pdf

http://www.bridgegre...n-greenwood.pdf

(That's one pair each from England, Ireland, Wales and Northern Ireland.)

According to my friend, the Israeli experts like it too. That's partially why I started the thread, to find out if that was actually true.

ETA: But you've reminded me that I can find WBF cards online, and it seems that they DO play her carding (not the Polish style, though, that I made her play). But they don't do her A=ALWAYS attitude, K=ALWAYS count.

[Vampyr]

[The second card played is not the smallest, but the original third highest.]

gnasher, on 2011-February-10, 17:47, said:

Is it? I thought it was normal to give remaining count, so second then fourth from four, second then third from five, and second then first from three.

Perhaps I am wrong. I had thought that third-highest was played to show four cards in the suit rather than a doubleton.

[whereagles]

This issue has been debated in Jeff Ruben's book, Journalist Leads.

There is no "solution" to the problem, as both views (lead Xxx or xxX) have good points. The only thing that's more or less settled is that MUD (xXx) is rather nebulous. In the book Jeff recommends xxX against suit and Xxx vs NT. His resoning is count is more important vs suit and attitude vs NT.

[jallerton]

awm, on 2011-February-11, 11:48, said:

It seems to me that there are three reasonable styles of leads. Basically we want to convey information about count (even or odd) and about attitude. So we have:

(1) Opening lead primarily about count. This is the popular US style and is what Elianna and I play. We use 3/5 leads against suits so would lead low from three small. Since this lead style doesn't give much attitude information, our later signals usually emphasize attitude and/or suit preference.

(2) Opening lead primarily about attitude. This seems to be the Polish style, where leading low indicates you want the suit returned. So you'd lead low from doubleton or from an honor, and highest affordable from a bunch of small cards. Presumably one might want to play count signals later in the hand after this sort of lead.

(3) Opening lead sends a mixed signal. This is the Slawinski style, where a lead might show either even length to an honor or odd length without an honor (or vice versa). This has the advantage that sometimes you can figure out one of honor holding or length from the bidding or play to trick one, and now you have both pieces of information. Of course, there are also probably situations where Slawinksi leads are confusing because you don't have solid information about either option.

Anyway, all of these make sense to me. Elianna and I usually play (1); it seems like with her new partner she has transitioned to play (2). What I don't get is how MUD fits into any of these standards. Leading middle cards basically causes confusion (could be top of doubleton, could be lowest from an honor, could be middle from three small) and even after the second play in the suit there is still ambiguity. Wouldn't it be better to lead highest affordable (risking only that partner thinks you have doubleton)? Or to lead low from doubleton and high from three small like the Polish style? In the USA, MUD is basically universally panned by experts; I have seen and heard many comments about how awful it is and how one shouldn't play it. Is the expert consensus different abroad?

If your agreements against suit contracts include 4th highest from Hxxx and top of a doubleton, then it is probably more awful to:

(i) lead low from xxx. You're already leading low from Hxxx, Hxx and (presumably) xxxx. Now if you lead what appears to be the lowest card in your suit, partner can't tell the count (3 or 4) OR the attitude.

(ii) lead top from xxx. "Top of nothing" was in vogue about 50 years ago, until people got sick of seeing their partners following suit on the 3rd round when they were hoping to give a ruff.

MUD falls within your "mixed signal" category. Partner has more chance of working out the attitude than do users of low from xxx, and more chance of working out the count than do users of "top of nothing".

[jallerton]

gnasher, on 2011-February-11, 11:57, said:

I've always understood that only the British and Irish think it a good idea, and everyone else thinks we're barking mad. It seems to go right to the top:

In the 2010 European Championships, two of the three pairs from Israel seem to have been playing 4th highest and MUD. The third Israeli pair was playing "low from 3 or more cards".

Convention cards from all participants of that event can be found at:Ostend 2010 Convention Cards

[WellSpyder]

awm, on 2011-February-11, 11:48, said:

Leading middle cards basically causes confusion (could be top of doubleton, could be lowest from an honor, could be middle from three small) and even after the second play in the suit there is still ambiguity.

While this may be true in theory, it is extremely rare that this ambiguity exists in practice. MUD leads are the most common agreement for xxx both in the partnerships I play in and for the people I play against, and I can't recall the last time when the leader's partner was unable to distinguish between HxX and xXx after seeing the honours played to the first two rounds of the suit.

[shevek]

nigel_k, on 2011-February-09, 18:16, said:

Where I live (New Zealand) MUD is sadly very popular among weaker players. It's just about the only thing I will flat out refuse to play under any circumstances. I don't know where it came from but Kelsey liked it and Reese hated it and they are the two most respected authors. I'm blaming Kelsey for making it popular unless anyone has a better explanation.

In general, I prefer top from three small cards against NT and low against suits unless it is partner's suit and I have raised. But I can easily live with just leading top all the time.

MUD was invented by Les Longhurst of Sydney in 1932.
He played for Australia with Klinger in the 60s, died a few years ago aged about 97

[Quantumcat]

I think it is standard here (Australia) to lead MUD from three small, 2nd-then-4th from four small, top from doubleton, low from partner's suit if you haven't raised and have three or more.

[jvage]

No-one seems to have mentioned this, but my reason for a strong preference towards 3/5 (low from xxx) versus MUD (which is also popular in some parts of Norway) is not that 3/5 makes the defence easier. Having played MUD on some occasions I didn't feel there was that much of a difference. But as declarer my experience is that the MUD-style is much easier to play against, mostly because it spared me many early guesses regarding honour-location.

John

[matmat]

What is the systemic card to follow with to the second round, playing MUD, holding 942, or 853?

[Bbradley62]

matmat, on 2011-February-18, 13:02, said:

What is the systemic card to follow with to the second round, playing MUD, holding 942, or 853?

Middle, Up, Down. You'd play your highest in the second round.