[smerriman]

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You probably wouldn't have expected to be making this after the spade lead.

Plain (un)lucky, or is there a case for leading the 8 even if playing 4th best?

[shyams]

Unlucky, in my view. There is no way North could have foretold the layout and adapted their opening lead specifically for this split of the spade suit.

[AL78]

What a shame they weren't playing 3rd and 5th best leads.

[Cyberyeti]

You wouldn't make it against me, we treat H98 as an honour holding and lead the 9

[johnu]

AL78, on 2020-September-14, 09:47, said:

What a shame they weren't playing 3rd and 5th best leads.

Most only play 3rd and 5th best leads against suit contracts. The sound reasoning behind this is that in NT the 4th round of a suit is frequently important so you don't want to squander a high spot card on opening lead. For suit contracts, frequently only the 2nd or 3rd round is important with the exception of declarer running a long side suit.

This type of blockage is very rare compared to the times when you need to keep your high cards for later rounds of the suit.

[johnu]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-September-14, 10:09, said:

You wouldn't make it against me, we treat H98 as an honour holding and lead the 9

Do you play top of nothing leads? Many, maybe most expert players do. If so, declarer may end up with 10 or 11 tricks after South switches to a heart at trick 2.

[nige1]

Smerriman "You probably wouldn't have expected to be making this after the spade lead. Plain (un)lucky, or is there a case for leading the 8 even if playing 4th best?
+++++++++++++++++++++
Matter of style. If you play 4th highest, then on many hands leading the 8 or 9 would confuse partner.
At both suit and notrump contracts, some of my partnerships started to lead
-- Top of doubletons and sequences,
-- Third from even and interior sequences, otherwise
-- Bottom from odd
So far, this agreement seems to reduce doubt and work well.

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[Cyberyeti]

johnu, on 2020-September-14, 14:31, said:

Do you play top of nothing leads? Many, maybe most expert players do. If so, declarer may end up with 10 or 11 tricks after South switches to a heart at trick 2.

Nope, 98x(any number of xs) we lead the 8. Top only of doubleton, so 9 is 9 or 9x (unlikely in this auction with me marked with some values) or H98(any number of xs)