[inquiry]

As you know, the BBO seriously frowns on public accusatations of cheating. You simply are not allowed to make them publically. Write to abuse at bridgebase.com or report them in private to your TD and move on. Here is an interesting hand where such a public allegation was made (all four players will remain nameless)...

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

 1♣    Pass  1♥    Pass
 1♠    Pass  2♥    Pass
 4♥   

what do you lead? Which lead do you think is most likely to get you accused of cheating if it turns out marginally well? Which least likely?

---

After we ponder this situation, there will be a part two.

[JohnnyH7]

I would lead a trump.

I think the SQ or the CK would be most likely to get you accused of cheating if it worked.

I think a red suit would never get you accused of cheating.

[hrothgar]

JohnnyH7, on Mar 29 2006, 07:23 PM, said:

I would lead a trump.

I think the SQ or the CK would be most likely to get you accused of cheating if it worked.

I think a red suit would never get you accused of cheating.

I agree with Johnny that a trump lead looks best.
I also concur that a leading either red suit seems very unlikely to case a complaint.

As for the cheating accusation:

I prefer a Club to a Spade. Either lead could work if partner has a fitting honor. The club could also work if LHO has AQ and is forced to make an immediate guess in Clubs.

So I'd guess that a Spade lead produce the complaint.

[Al_U_Card]

I like a Diamond lead here. There is no reason to lead a black suit and a trump tends to make his life easy if pard has the stiff K or Q.....

[inquiry]

Al_U_Card, on Mar 29 2006, 11:40 AM, said:

I like a Diamond lead here. There is no reason to lead a black suit and a trump tends to make his life easy if pard has the stiff K or Q.....

Not to get involved in the discussion, but part of the title was about discuss auction. How many diamonds do you expect dummy to hold?

[mcphee]

I do not think a trump lead will be effective to be honest. I might try some Qs lead getting ready to say, sorry partner. A slow QS will get the accusations I bet, or the C king.

[whereagles]

inquiry, on Mar 29 2006, 04:42 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Mar 29 2006, 11:40 AM, said:

I like a Diamond lead here.  There is no reason to lead a black suit and a trump tends to make his life easy if pard has the stiff K or Q.....

Not to get involved in the discussion, but part of the title was about discuss auction. How many diamonds do you expect dummy to hold?

Dummy might have 2 in case opener has a 4324 balanced with 18-19 and couldn't stop bidding game

[inquiry]

 

Scoring: IMP


West North East South

    -     1♣   Pass   1♥
  Pass   1♠   Pass   2♥
  Pass   4♥   Pass   Pass
  Pass

Bidding is all "natural". I think we have gone far enough. Now for the rest of the story. The opening lead was a trump. On the hand, the worse lead is SPADE that allows two overtricks, any other lead it will make one overtrick.

---

Play
H3 H4 H6 HK
DA D4 D5 D6
DK D2 DJ D7
D9 D3 HT DQ
SA S6 S9 S2
SK S3 SJ S4
S5 S7 H2 SQ
D8 DT HA C4
S8 ST H5 HQ <<-- give up self trump promotion instead of a C pitch to make one overtrick.

The declarer here accused WEST of cheating for leading a trump, as in his view this cost him a trick (it reality it should not). So director is looking at the hands and trying to see if any evidence EW cheated in finding the trump lead. What do you think of South's preemptive attack on WEST on this hand and any other comments about this hand?

[Chamaco]

Choices, in order of preference:

a. trump
b. diamond
c. low spade
d. low club

[luis]

I would lead a spade here, the queen being a good option in case opener has a singleton jack.
Dummy is either 4-3-1-5 or 4-3-2-4, in both cases to defeat 4♥ I need to stablish some spade tricks before declarer can discard them in the clubs, the location of the club king seems to be very bad so an agressive lead is probably needed, a trump looks too passive with the club threat and might blow a trump trick while a diamond will be a waste of tempo when dummy has only 1.

I think:
A spade or the spade queen might be a good agressive lead
A diamond (unbid suit) is probably "defaultish" and can't lead to anything but it can be an option for some players.
A trump looks to be too dangerous but some people can lead it to stop diamond ruffs in dummy overlooking that with a singleton diamond dummy has 5 clubs and declarer's plan will be to stablish the club suit.

The only lead I would consider suspicious is a club. A club can only work when pd has Ax of clubs.

I will strongly hate to think somebody found the spade queen lead strange here because it makes a lot of sense to me, it is agressive yes, but has a purpose and a logic behind.

Luis

[Al_U_Card]

Sounds like slander to me. The most common hand shape is 4432. Opener could be 4333 but for sure he has at least 2 diamonds. Getting your tricks before they go away is a good practice. Giving up a trick is part of the game. Trump is a "no mental effort" type of lead so why even consider that it would be cheating?

[kenberg]

Most often I expect dummy to hit with 4-2-3-4 but of course 4-3-2-4 is also fairly common and good old 4-3-3-3 is possible. It's possible that a trump lead will cost a trick, but not likely. There is a serious possibility it will prevent a ruff.

So I lead a trump. I suppose leading the 9 and then the 3 might help partner with the count, but I am leading the 3.

I cannot imagine leading any black card. It is true that dummy might hit with a great club suit, and we find that we should have started a spade, but I am not doing it.

I am also not accusing anyone of cheating if they choose to do it.


There have been various odd occurrences at the table. Sometimes I look up how these folks do afterwards. Usually not well at all. Some people just do a lot of really odd things. Maybe I do some really odd things. Many years ago I was playing against some jerk who bid 4S after my parner had opened a weak 2. I led a diamond which turned out well for our side. He was dripping with sarcasm as he asked whether we played that a 2H opening bid asked for a diamond lead. This just isn't right.

On the other hand, I really would like to see opponents stop hesitating when they have nothing to think about. I have just about come to the conclusioin that if you are developing a suit and an opponent hesitates before playing, it guarantees a stiff. If folks wanted to stop doing that, it would be nice.

Ken

[hotShot]

I would lead:
a) trump
Because i don't want west to ruff something, and it is unlikely to help opps.
♠
Because there is a chance to promote partners spade
c) ♣
This might not be a real suit, but it is less likely to grant opps an extra finesse
d) ♦
West is short in ♦ if partner misses values, they are behind him. I don't want to help opps.

[kenberg]

My comment about doing odd things was before I saw that Luis led the Q of spades. indeed. Maybe he is right. It wouldn't occur to me to do it, but maybe it should. At any rate it is not grounds for accusing anyone of anything.

[david_c]

Perhaps Ben's point is that North-South is the pair whose actions look suspicious on this hand. It would be very reasonable to investigate them further, whereas the allegations against West are clearly unfounded.

And I would lead a trump too. Second choice a small spade. Third choice the ♠Q (I could never bring myself to actually do this).

[rona_]

Is 2 ♥ forcing? I would pass 2♥. Isn't the bidding a little strange?

[luis]

I agree the bidding is worth a serious investigation of the NS pair.

[Walddk]

Let me add two points here:

1. Declarer should accuse himself of not knowing anything about bridge. He rebid 2♥ on a 16 count.
2. When he has learned the basics, he can turn his attention to his partner for raising a weak rebid with a minimum.

And finally: accusing any opponent, in casu West, of cheating is a serious offence and is totally unfounded here. You'd better have some pretty good evidence before you accuse anyone of cheating! By the way, this view is also clearly outlined in the Rules of this Site.

Roland

[kenrexford]

In my job (criminal defense), the best street defense is to accuse the police of misconduct. Sounds like the street defense was used here.

[whereagles]

I guess NS complained because some people bitch just for the sake of it

If this was some appeals committee, I'd deem appeal without merit and assign NS a procedural penalty for undisclosed partnership agreements.