[Knurdler]

With less than 6 scattered points, what do I lead against a suit contract?
Partner did not bid and I have no singelton.

After a straw poll at my club in favour of second highest from a four card suit without an honour I lead the 7 from 9753. I think our results have been poor. We do not know if it is the start of a high low or it is rubbish.
The author William Root suggests 4th highest, with or without an honour.

However, I do like to have a lead that says “this lead does not promise anything, so do not bother returning it”.
Comments/suggestions?

[jillybean]

With a bad, flat hand and no indications of a lead, I lead top of nothing. Low from honour in partners bid suit.

[apollo1201]

Avoid leading under one of your honors. Preferably the longest suit. Or your smaller honor. What card is as per agreement but determining the suit is much more important than the card in the suit.

Trump under 3 small is very good if you think dummy will score ruffs.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

after the opening lead, partner should use the 40 point abacus to determine, how strong / weak you are,
and looking at dummy / his own holding and the bidding, he will also quite often understand, if you have
lead from something worthwhile or not.
It is usually not a brilliant idea to lead low from an unsupported honor in an unbid suit, but other may
and do disagree.

The recommendation by Root was related to which card to select, not which suit.
There are agreements like Top of Nothing, that indicate a worthless suit, this is done at the cost of reducing
the information about the length holding in the suit the opening lead has. I prefer length oriented leads, by
a fair margin.
If you agree to lead 4th best, you can lead 2nd best from a worthless suit, this still retains the lead information
for the most part.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[AL78]

It frequently comes down to how the auction has gone. If dummy has shown a side suit you hold rubbish in or a finessable queen or king, you may want to consider an attacking lead i.e. underleading an honor in an attempt to establish tricks before declarer can draw trumps and throw losers on the side suit. In the absence of this situation top of a doubleton, MUD from three rag, top or second top from four or more rag, a trump from two or three rag or if you hold unsupported honors in the other suits and any other lead could blow a trick. It will also depend on what they have landed in and what you can infer about partner's strength. For example, if you are holding a bust and they have refused a game invitation, you can infer partner is sitting there with an opening strength hand, which combined with their lack of bidding might help in picturing what they are likely to hold.

[Knurdler]

I know this forum cannot give me a 100% correct best lead that books and Google cannot. But it does help me untangle my thoughts. Thanks.

My reading agrees that suit choice comes first and generally do not lead genuine suits opposition bid.

Assuming a weak hand with no shortage, I think the only attacking lead I can make is trump. I would like to exclude trump for the purposes of this topic. I have not forgotten that, me being very weak, partner will be stronger and top of a doubleton might work.

Off topic but also a source of confusion to me is BOSTON which is simple and catchy but I read conflicting opinions. It appears to be contradicted by “never away from an unsupported A”. It is also contradicted by Bird and Anthias who suggest that leading away from unsupported K is also poor, away from unsupported Q slightly less poor and away from unsupported J the least bad honour (or much the same as passive).

My reading also agrees that generally a longer suit is better (safer) than a shorter suit. I think Apollo and Marlowe support this.
So I return to the question: which card from 9753?

[Douglas43]

The back of the EBU scorecard says second highest (and I do the same with 10xxx). Maybe whichever of you is in third seat could draw more deductions from the bidding? Sometimes you can think, if partner has led from a doubleton, declarer has 5 cards in the suit. Is that consistent with the bidding?
I gave up on 4th from 10xxx after some futile attempts to establish partners suit.