[JLilly]

debrose, on 2013-February-05, 10:48, said:

Correction - Michael-Zia don't (didn't) make an exception when leading partner's suit in their partnership, and Michael doesn't with other partners. The exception would only be the obvious - when having already denied a doubleton, one leads high. There is no case where Michael, playing MUD leads, would lead low from xxx.

When I first played with Michael, it took a while for him to convince me to give MUD a try. Since then I played it for years in two other regular expert partnerships, and have become very comfortable with it (though one of those partners did insist on low in partner's unsupported suit, the exception suggested in the above quote and by others).


Edited: Here's a link to a Bridgewinners article where Michael made a few comments on why he prefers 4th best w/ MUD to 3rd/5th: http://bridgewinners...c-why-question/

I'm pretty sure he's written more about this elsewhere, including the falsecarding potential with MUD, but can't say where right now.

Rosenberg offers his thoughts on MUD here: http://bridgewinners...onvention-ever/

[Wainfleet]

I am a novice/improver so this forum is above my pay grade, but its very interesting.

Andrew Robson is not a MUD fan. He does not teach it as such. From what I can gather, with most of his partners he won't ever play it vs a No Trump contract, and vs a suit contract he will take a nuanced view on which card to play from three spots depending on auction and the cards.

Vs No Trumps he will usually lead the highest spot. From 863 he will lead the 8. If he leads the 6, partner might assume its 4th highest to an honour (and maybe apply the Rule of 11).

Vs a suit contract with 873, 874, 875 in an unbid suit he will lead the 7 (which happens to be MUD), but with 852, 842 or 843 he will lead the 8, so as not to suggest he is leading low from an honour. His priority is to get across his dislike for the suit.

I hope I have not misrepresented him - but that's the gist of what I think he replied when I asked him.

[jillybean]

I’ve been looking for information on MUD and found this old thread interesting.
The question now should be, Is anyone good still playing MUD?

[mikeh]

I haven’t played against MR for years as certainly playing mud back in the day. I had to laugh when I read that 2012 BW thread. One of the posters said that he liked 3rd and low because sometimes declarer thinks that you’ve a doubleton when your next card is lower than your lead. Why laugh?

Go back a couple of decades and I’m playing against Zia and MR. I held Kxxx in hearts, defending a spade contract. These days I’d probably not lead a heart but I did. Dummy had AQxx, MR 10xx. He played low, partner won his Jack and switched. MR took a losing trump finesse into me and I returned the heart 2. Convinced that I held a doubleton, he flew with the ace and used the entry to take another losing finesse, not in trump, into my hand. Since I knew, from the play of the Jack, that MR still held the 10, I cashed my king and led a fourth round, allowing partner to uppercut in trump. MR took only one heart trick, lost two! And lost an extra trump trick as well. Had I played his leads, he’d have taken two more tricks.

As for your question, I think MUD leads are unpopular at the higher levels.

[jillybean]

Good story, great memory!

I sometimes get questions from players who are trying to establish or improve their signalling and MUD is often what they are interested in learning.
It's simple to understand and implement, unlike 3rd-5th leads but I hear the usual frustrations and the confusion when they are not leading from a 3 card suit.

Due partners playing it, I played it briefly and dropped it almost immediately. Now that I'm being asked, I didn't want to reject it due to my own bias but it seems clear that its not a worthwhile diversion.

[P_Marlowe]

MUD is a variant of 2/4 leads, it works in combination with leading low (even 3rd) from Hxxx or Hxx.
The main problem is not the leading from 3 low ones, but the lead from suits headed by an Honor.

To a certain degree the MUD lead system combine length information with attitude information, in contrast
to purely length based lead systems, ... and yes, playing 2/4 leads, it is common, to play the 2nd from
a worthless 4 card suit.