This Week At North Penn

Club championships all week long. Extra points for no extra money.

Monday, 06/02

Tuesday, 06/03

Wednesday, 06/04

Thursday, 06/05

Friday, 06/06

Open, Evening Shuffle & Deal.

0-1500.

Shuffle & Deal, Open.

Open Handicap Swiss.

0-750.

Education

Deb Crisfield's 2/1 Lesson - Part II:

• Date: Friday, June 6th
• Time: 1:30 to 3:30
• Fee: $50
• Sign up with Deb at dwickcris@yahoo.com or 973-769-9619

Joann Glasson’s Monday morning zoom classes will resume in September. We will post the schedule when it is available.

Monday Evening Shuffle & Deal

Returns This Week

Start time: 6:00 PM

Fee: $10

Hand Analysis

By Andy Kaufman

Oh My! What A Difference A Lead Makes - Part 6

Continuing our series on the “art” of opening leads for Suit Contracts; as well as, for No Trump Contracts, I am presenting two deals from a recent on-line match.  As previously discussed, one always must consider many factors including: the auction, vulnerability, strength of opponents and form of scoring (matchpoints vs. imps). Hope those previous pointers have given you food for thought and improved your results at the table. Since opening leads are partly art and partly science one never gets this right on every hand. All to hope for is that stopping to think and considering your opening leads based on all information available will continue to improve your results. Today we will take a look at opening leads from two deals which occurred during my Spring Vichill Flight A team match held on BBO.

Deal #7: Playing with Mike Cassel in the on-line spring Vichill Flight A team event, we were up by 10 imps after the first half of the match. We were hoping for a good start to the second half, but unfortunately two opening leads versus 3N contracts on the first two deals put us in the hole by 11 imps which we were never able to recover. Mike and I were sitting N/S and my right hand opponent was on lead vs. a 3NT contract.

Analysis: This hand provides some implications when reviewing the auction prior to deciding on your opening lead.  This one appears straight forward and indicates that a heart is most likely to be the best lead since your side is known to hold nine hearts. A further consideration to ponder is whether opener has one or two stoppers in hearts? This decision unfortunately is mostly a guess.  Holding the diamond King, it may be imperative to knock out declarers stopper before they have set up their diamond suit. If you think declarer as two stoppers (ie. AQx), then will be best to lead something else to get partner in to lead a heart through declarer. In this case it would be a spade since both minors were bid by the opponents. If leading a spade, the 9 is clearest indication that you hold no interest in the suit and are looking for a shift to hearts. Partner is known to hold likely 4-6 HCP’s since you hold 8 HCP’s and opponents have likely 25-28 HCP’s for their game bid.

Reasoning & Results:   Either lead could be right on this deal. If you chose a heart lead, (which our teammates did at the other table), then you would be -600 giving declarer their 9^th trick. At our table, East decided I had two hearts stoppers and led a high spade, which worked to set the contract.  To add insult to injury, when West won the spade Ace and shifted to the 10 of hearts, I rose with the Ace of hearts to protect my Queen.  Now based on the auction I assumed that East likely holds both high diamonds for their vulnerable 1H overcall and partner’s pre-emptive raise.  Since I now had only 8 tricks available (1H, 2S’s, and 5C’s if they split), I decided that I had time to work to set up my diamonds protecting my Queen of hearts.  Unfortunately, West also held the diamond Ace and when the dust cleared, I was down -300 and lost 14 imps 😒. Here is the full deal….

Analysis: The spade lead appears imperative that we set up our long suit before declarer can set up their club suit since you also hold the club Ace. So, what spade should you lead? Appears that partner needs the Jack or can gain a quick entry to lead spades through declarer before the club ace is dislodged. Assuming that lead of an Ace is your power lead vs. NT (showing a running suit asking to drop an honor or give count), then I would lead the spade King here to look at dummy and get attitude signal from partner. Another choice would be the 8 (4th best) hoping partner has either Jx or Jxx.  Partner failed to double the 2S cue bid, which would normally show one of the top 3 honors in spades. A third choice would be to lead one of the red suits hoping to find a quick entry to partner so they can lead through declarer holding AJx, AJ or A10 also before the club Ace is dislodged.  So, what did you choose?

Reasoning & Results:  Our teammates, not unreasonably led the spade King which resulted in allowing 3N to make for -400 and a loss of 7 imps. Leading a small spade creates the same result of -400. As it turns out on this deal, the only winning lead is a heart, which finds partner with the Ace so he can then lead through declarers A10 before the club Ace can be dislodged. This would have led to down 2 or +100 and a 6 imp win instead.  Oh, what a difference a lead makes! Here is the full deal….

Ask the Expert

Email your questions, or a pesky hand, or something you’d like to know about bidding or playing to Toysie Walker. She will forward them to the panel, one will be chosen, and the question and answers will be printed in the following week’s newsletter.

June Birthdays

Catherine Arthey

Paul Baron

Rohit Desai

Josephine Ferguson

Tim Headley

Kathy Landay

Karen Maglaty

Richard O'Brien

Mary (Anne) Oglevee

Al Ronderos

Estelle Ronderos

Len Saffren

Tom Salter

Kenneth Salter

Donna Snyder

Roberta Steinberg

Marc Topaz