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Deal Analysis
by Andy Kaufman
Oh My! What A Difference A Lead Makes - Part 7
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 Sectional Swiss Team event. 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. One is an example deal and the other occurred during a recent Swiss Team event. In previous articles we reviewed opening leads at matchpoints and then specifically versus Notrump contracts. So let us first review a few opening lead pointers at Swiss/imps contests.
- In general, the same lead advise reviewed in prior articles is still applicable whether playing matchpoints or imps. (See earlier installments)
- The biggest difference is at matchpoints you want to make the “best” lead based on all the information from the auction, with objective of not making it easy on declarer and not giving up any overtricks. At imps, you may want to consider making a riskier lead providing the best chance of setting the contract most usually against a game or slam contract only. This is true since the risk versus reward of setting these contracts at imps outweighs the potential of giving up overtricks.
- One must consider carefully when to diverge from the “normal” indicated lead.
- A common example is leading of and Ax or Kx holding versus a suit game contract. This may give best chance of getting a ruff(s) in the suit before declarer has time to draw trumps. Still be mindful that is usually best if from an unbid suit or one that partner has bid in the auction. You should avoid this lead when holding natural trump tricks (ie. Q10xx behind declarer), since now your Hx lead is more likely to give away tricks.
Deal #9: Let’s look at an example hand where you decide to lead your Kx against a 2H partial contract versus your “normal” lead. Here is your hand as West and the auction…….
What is your choice of leads at imp’s and why? Decide before reading on.
♠10983
♥J83
♦K6
♣A982
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