[bixby]

ACBL club game. West, on lead against South's 2♦ contract, leads the ♥7. South asks for an explanation of E/W's leads. East says, "Standard, fourth best from length. We do lead top of three small." It later comes out that West led from the ♥Q87. South was unhappy and thought that the possibility of leading small from three to an honor should have been disclosed.

Was East's explanation sufficient?

[FrancesHinden]

Yes

What else was South expecting East to say?
If the 7 of hearts had been top of a doubleton, would South also have been unhappy?
If the 7 of hearts had been a singleton, would South also have been unhappy?

[lamford]

bixby, on 2016-June-03, 15:04, said:

ACBL club game. West, on lead against South's 2♦ contract, leads the ♥7. South asks for an explanation of E/W's leads. East says, "Standard, fourth best from length. We do lead top of three small." It later comes out that West led from the ♥Q87. South was unhappy and thought that the possibility of leading small from three to an honor should have been disclosed.

Was East's explanation sufficient?

Most of my opponents insert a period after "standard" (when they play second and fourth). West's response was more than sufficient.

[blackshoe]

Full disclosure would be something like "the ♥7 could be a singleton or top of a doubleton, or top from three small. It could be fourth highest from length, or third from three." But nobody practices full disclosure of carding agreements.

[barmar]

"fourth best from length" means that if the length is at least 4, you lead the 4th best. It does not mean that if you lead low it must be a 4-card suit -- if you're leading from a 3-card suit, you can't lead the 4th best.

If you're trying to make inferences, your assumption that a low card is from a long suit is more likely to be correct if you're playing NT rather than a suit, simply because trying to set up a long suit has higher priority when defending against NT. But it's still hardly assured, since there could be other factors preventing you from leading your long suit (e.g. declarer showed length in the suit).

However, I've sometimes thought that this standard lead should be described as something like "3rd and 4th from length" (by analogy with 3rd-and-5th leads).

[blackshoe]

I'm not sure the analogy holds up. Playing "fourth highest" you lead fourth highest from six. Playing "3rd and 5th" you lead third highest from six. Actually, when I have played "3rd and 5th" it's actually been "3rd and lowest" — leading the lowest card from an odd number and 3rd highest from an even number. "3rd and 5th" is a mis-description. (NB: I am not saying that no one plays "3rd and 5th".)

[wank]

did south think the opps never got dealt 3 card suits [or doubletons, or singletons, or sequences]?

[bixby]

Thank you all. I was West. Just wanted to check that our explanation is sufficient.