[InTime]

Is there any article on leading 2nd highest through declarer. What is the advantages in doing so?
Regards

[PrecisionL]

Information available to dummy is not useful, unlike opening leads with coded Js or Ts or 9s.

These rules often help the opponents, a better strategy is to use coded 9 and 10 against both suit and notrump contracts and to combine it with second highest from a worthless hold also called Roman Mud. Here Jack denies and ten or nine shows zero or two higher.

http://youth.worldbr...e-leads-course/

[aawk]

Playing 2nd to dummy gives your partner a lot of information how to proceed. That opponents also get this info doesn't matter because partner don't have to guess your holdings in the suit that is played.

I play 1/2/4 to dummy being :

1 if you hold a single or doubleton and interested in a ruff
4 if holdings in dummy would cost a trick if you play 2
2 in any other situation

example : you hold QJxx

if you don't play 1/2/4 the Q shows partner only that you hold the Q

if you do play 1/2/4 the J shows partner you hold J or Jx or AJ(+) or KJ(+) or QJ(+)

If you decide with your partner to play second to dummy you also should play current count.

This means if you play a suit for the second time to the dummy you play high from x or xx and low from xxx(+).

A good rule to agree on is that signals may never cost a trick. This means that if your partner plays a card you don't expect something special is going on.

[InTime]

InTime, on 2022-March-01, 05:53, said:

Is there any article on leading 2nd highest through declarer. What is the advantages in doing so?
Regards

Apologies All . . . I think my wording is incorrect and should maybe be the following:
Switching 2nd highest in a new suit through declarer. Is there any rationale in doing so?

[johnu]

InTime, on 2022-March-02, 15:00, said:

Apologies All . . . I think my wording is incorrect and should maybe be the following:
Switching 2nd highest in a new suit through declarer. Is there any rationale in doing so?

What are you trying to accomplish?

[PrecisionL]

Jack Denies, Ten Implies" is a lead agreement whereby the lead of the jack always denies a higher honor, but the 10 or 9 "implies" two higher (non-touching) honors. This convention is also known as '0 or 2 Higher' leads, or coded 9's and 10's.

American expert Larry Cohen, however, is less enthusiastic:

"This is very good against weak players as you give your partner a useful piece of information. Meanwhile, a poor declarer won't appreciate the inferences available. On the contrary, against good players, this is a horrible method. It gives way too much of an advantage to a decent declarer.

[HardVector]

InTime, on 2022-March-02, 15:00, said:

Apologies All . . . I think my wording is incorrect and should maybe be the following:
Switching 2nd highest in a new suit through declarer. Is there any rationale in doing so?

Yes. The idea is to get partner in to lead through dummy to a suit that you like. You may have AQ surrounding Kx in the dummy and want partner to switch to that. You lead a card that indicates no real interest in the suit you are leading hoping that partner will do the right thing.

[johnu]

PrecisionL, on 2022-March-04, 06:44, said:

Jack Denies, Ten Implies" is a lead agreement whereby the lead of the jack always denies a higher honor, but the 10 or 9 "implies" two higher (non-touching) honors. This convention is also known as '0 or 2 Higher' leads, or coded 9's and 10's.

American expert Larry Cohen, however, is less enthusiastic:

"This is very good against weak players as you give your partner a useful piece of information. Meanwhile, a poor declarer won't appreciate the inferences available. On the contrary, against good players, this is a horrible method. It gives way too much of an advantage to a decent declarer.

The OP was not talking about opening leads but was talking about 2nd trick leads by RHO.

[pilowsky]

Is this what Rodwell (p 169 of 'the files') refers to as "middling"?

Quote

Middling is a play where the middle card of a holding is led, usually by defender in order to be able to run a suit. Middling is an unblocking play...

He gives examples of leading 9 from K9x

---

---

If the person leading holds 4 cards he calls it the "Reese play"

[sfi]

johnu, on 2022-March-09, 01:41, said:

The OP was not talking about opening leads but was talking about 2nd trick leads by RHO.

I've played "Jack denies and 10 and 9 show 0/2 higher" in the middle of the hand, even though we weren't playing them on opening lead. They definitely had their moments, but the best part about them was partner liked them and I didn't mind one way or the other. So they worked well for the partnership.

[johnu]

sfi, on 2022-March-09, 07:13, said:

I've played "Jack denies and 10 and 9 show 0/2 higher" in the middle of the hand, even though we weren't playing them on opening lead. They definitely had their moments, but the best part about them was partner liked them and I didn't mind one way or the other. So they worked well for the partnership.

I played on a team where my teammates played Foster Echo. Occasionally I would play with one of them and they would invariably ask if we played Foster Echo. I always answered that I had to study it before I played. Strangely, I never got around to "studying" well enough to add it to our card. Strangely enough, the ACBL convention card has a checkbox for Foster Echo although I can' recall anybody else having that box checked.

[sfi]

johnu, on 2022-March-09, 15:15, said:

I played on a team where my teammates played Foster Echo. Occasionally I would play with one of them and they would invariably ask if we played Foster Echo. I always answered that I had to study it before I played. Strangely, I never got around to "studying" well enough to add it to our card. Strangely enough, the ACBL convention card has a checkbox for Foster Echo although I can' recall anybody else having that box checked.

You might think that it's simply an Australian convention asking if partner wants a beer. But nobody drinks Fosters here so a high card would mean exactly the same as a low one.

[blackshoe]

TV ad in the US, ca mid-eighties: "Foster's! It's Australian for 'beer'!"
Australian colleague: "No. It's Australian for 'Budweiser'".

[mycroft]

I mean, it's better than (American) Budweiser. At least when brewed in Canada by Labatt's. It's not as good as Labatt's own brand, Blue, though. But we're still working with the faintest of praises here.

[mikeh]

On the topic of the OP, my view is that there is nothing magical or special about ‘second highest’.

But it is useful to play that a high spot denies interest in the suit while a low spot implies interest. However, everything is situation-dependent. For example, yo7 may lead high from a useful holding if you want a switch rather than a continuation should partner win the lead. Also, you may lead high from something like K92 when you want declarer to reject the finesse. And so on.

[bluenikki]

PrecisionL, on 2022-March-04, 06:44, said:

Jack Denies, Ten Implies" is a lead agreement whereby the lead of the jack always denies a higher honor, but the 10 or 9 "implies" two higher (non-touching) honors. This convention is also known as '0 or 2 Higher' leads, or coded 9's and 10's.

American expert Larry Cohen, however, is less enthusiastic:

"This is very good against weak players as you give your partner a useful piece of information. Meanwhile, a poor declarer won't appreciate the inferences available. On the contrary, against good players, this is a horrible method. It gives way too much of an advantage to a decent declarer.

In "Journalist leads," by Rubens et al, they are adamant that whatever agreements you have about interior sequences, you must violate them frequently.

[Gilithin]

There certainly used to be an article online illustrating the concept and describing what to look for to make this play. It was not specifically about leading the second highest, just about defensive surround plays more generally, but it did finish with the conclusion that the second-highest card always seems to work. Unfortunately I think the site that had this article, as well as several more that I found quite interesting, is no longer available. It is possible that a bridge player somewhere in the world saved it but sadly the chances of getting it back at this point is not high, particularly as I deleted my obsolete bridge link list and cannot even try it in Wayback Machine. Good luck though - if you do manage to find the article in question, please feel free to add a message here with a link to it.