[manudude03]

---

Partnership agreement is that preempts can be undisciplined, what do you lead?

[CSGibson]

manudude03, on 2014-January-08, 18:39, said:

---

Partnership agreement is that preempts can be undisciplined, what do you lead?

Heart. Seems to take the least to beat this.

[nige1]

manudude03, on 2014-January-08, 18:39, said:

---

IMO ♥ = 10, ♦ = 7, ♣ = 6, ♠ = 5. partner should be more disciplined, in 2nd seat.

[Hanoi5]

Why would I lead anything other than a heart?

[HighLow21]

♥. To me this is a case of creating problems where none exist. If partner was unprepared for a heart lead in case his LHO declares, he shouldn't have bid them. If some other lead works out better, that's too bad.

[manudude03]

Full hand below:

---

A diamond lead guarantees -1 here, a club lead might work. North at the table led a heart and led to a fairly easy make even after finding the diamond switch upon winning the first round of trumps.

[HighLow21]

This seems like an obvious case of "resulting." There's no reason we can't often win the first 3 tricks on a heart lead, and equally no reason why it isn't the case that a diamond lead is the only one to allow the contract to make.

[MrAce]

I would lead ♥, of course. I am with Highlow21 on this one. I would not even blame pd for his bid. Imo he made a reasonable bid and it had downsides. This was one of those "pay off" boards of your preempt/overcall style.

[mcphee]

I like a D lead this sort of hand, seems to me that is a place to build tricks quickly. I doubt a H lead will present a problem for declarer.

[gszes]

came in late and saw all the hands but I would have led a heart even if p did not

bid 2h. there seems to be too little probability that a dia lead will succeed in being

effective against two "opening" distributional hands.

I applaud anyone that feels the dia lead is right and maybe you are headed for greatness:))

[HighLow21]

I realize there are some serious problems with their methodology, so their results have to be taken with a grain of salt, but David Bird and a colleague wrote books called "Winning Suit Contract Leads" and "Winning No-Trump Leads" in which they analyzed all possible opening leads against 5,000 simulated hands that fit the auction, covering all kinds of different scenarios/defensive holdings. The goal was to determine which leads from which holdings perform the best over the long run (at IMPs and MPs).

Several of their takeaways I find suspicious -- maybe a result of the assumption that everything is played double-dummy after the lead, and the bidding system is assumed to be fixed and rigid. (For this reason, blank Aces performed well, because they enable the defenders to always defend double-dummy from that point forward. It also assumes a Stayman bidder, for example, NEVER has 5 of a major.)

All this aside... two of the most interesting takeaways, that I believe make perfect sense when you think about them, are:
(1) Singleton leads very frequently work out well, even when a ruff doesn't develop (and they also work well under the right conditions at No-Trump).
(2) Opening leads from hands that have broken honors -- K-J-x-x, K-T-x-x, Q-T-x-x, even Q-T-9-x -- perform pretty poorly against NT and exceptionally poorly, most of the time, against suit contracts.

For a diamond lead to work well here, we need partner to hold the AK, or the A and declarer the K, or we need partner to Jack (and the King would help a lot); these scenarios all are greatly augmented if dummy and declarer each have 3 of them. This is a successful parlay on this hand but, in my view, a big loser in the long run to the simple play of leading your singleton in partner's suit while holding 4 trumps and control of the trumps.

And just imagine the problems with partnership morale if the heart lead would have worked and the diamond lead permitted an overtrick!