[DavidKok]

awm, on 2025-March-09, 06:57, said:

This brings to mind a study that I'm very curious about. A while back, a pair of books was written by Bird and Anthias, which analysed the effectiveness of various leads on a double-dummy basis. The main complaint about these books was that there are differences between double-dummy and real life declarer play.

I've been leaning more on Bird & Anthias' lead recommendations for a few years now, though I did not keep statistics. My impression is that, where conventional wisdom and Bird & Anthias disagree, the double dummy lead is much more effective single dummy than I expected based on their books. The main reason is that the active leads against trump contracts, and the can-be-short major suit leads against NT, are very difficult to read for declarer while being easier to read for partner if we hit their long and strong suit, and usually not mattering much at IMPs if we fail to hit partner's good suit. I've set a few 3NT contracts so far where my doubleton lead was read by declarer to be a long suit, causing them to take an entirely hopeless line in an otherwise cold contract.

Similarly, both the IMP (Dutch bridge magazine) and the local club magazine sometimes feature articles on choosing a lead. They somewhat regularly call simple leads in line with Bird & Anthias spectacular, incredible or 'impossible to find', and then follow up with expert analysis on why this might be a winning lead after all.

There's definitely a difference between double dummy simulations and single dummy play, but I'm not convinced the correct response is having lower confidence in these leads, all things considered. For me personally they've been scoring far better than the double dummy simulations suggested.

[awm]

DavidKok, on 2025-March-09, 08:30, said:

I've been leaning more on Bird & Anthias' lead recommendations for a few years now, though I did not keep statistics. My impression is that, where conventional wisdom and Bird & Anthias disagree, the double dummy lead is much more effective single dummy than I expected based on their books. The main reason is that the active leads against trump contracts, and the can-be-short major suit leads against NT, are very difficult to read for declarer while being easier to read for partner if we hit their long and strong suit, and usually not mattering much at IMPs if we fail to hit partner's good suit. I've set a few 3NT contracts so far where my doubleton lead was read by declarer to be a long suit, causing them to take an entirely hopeless line in an otherwise cold contract.

Similarly, both the IMP (Dutch bridge magazine) and the local club magazine sometimes feature articles on choosing a lead. They somewhat regularly call simple leads in line with Bird & Anthias spectacular, incredible or 'impossible to find', and then follow up with expert analysis on why this might be a winning lead after all.

There's definitely a difference between double dummy simulations and single dummy play, but I'm not convinced the correct response is having lower confidence in these leads, all things considered. For me personally they've been scoring far better than the double dummy simulations suggested.

In general I'm a fan of these leads as well, with some exceptions (unsupported ace lead seems overrated for example), but they met with a lot of skepticism from the broader expert community, especially in the US. It would be nice to have some actual quantitative data (from real play, not double dummy) to support the books (or refute them, or find conditions where they are right or wrong).

[mike777]

DavidKok, on 2025-March-09, 08:30, said:

I've been leaning more on Bird & Anthias' lead recommendations for a few years now, though I did not keep statistics. My impression is that, where conventional wisdom and Bird & Anthias disagree, the double dummy lead is much more effective single dummy than I expected based on their books. The main reason is that the active leads against trump contracts, and the can-be-short major suit leads against NT, are very difficult to read for declarer while being easier to read for partner if we hit their long and strong suit, and usually not mattering much at IMPs if we fail to hit partner's good suit. I've set a few 3NT contracts so far where my doubleton lead was read by declarer to be a long suit, causing them to take an entirely hopeless line in an otherwise cold contract.

Similarly, both the IMP (Dutch bridge magazine) and the local club magazine sometimes feature articles on choosing a lead. They somewhat regularly call simple leads in line with Bird & Anthias spectacular, incredible or 'impossible to find', and then follow up with expert analysis on why this might be a winning lead after all.

There's definitely a difference between double dummy simulations and single dummy play, but I'm not convinced the correct response is having lower confidence in these leads, all things considered. For me personally they've been scoring far better than the double dummy simulations suggested.

I just finished both of these books. At the table trying to remember the advice. Based on a very small sample size my first impression is based on the Fight Club movie.

The first rule of Fight Club is we don't talk about Fight Club.