This Week At North Penn

All games are Local Charity

Mon, 11/17

Tue, 11/18

Wed, 11/19

Thu, 11/20

Fri, 11/21 AM

Fri, 11/21 PM

Open

0-1500

Open

Open Handicap Swiss Teams

0-750

Open Pizza Game (pizza at 6:00, game at 6:30)

You can make a difference!

Our landlord, The HOF law group, is hosting a Toys For Tots collection

running now through Saturday, December 6.

New, unopened toys can be dropped off in the white collection box

located in the main lobby of the building at the club.

Cash donations may also be made here.

Rank Achievements

Congratulations to the following members who advanced in rank during October:

Diane Basilie

Devika Chakraborty

Ellen Luchette

Regional Master

Life Master

Silver Life Master

Education

Joann Glasson's next Zoom class will be held on Monday, November 17 at 10:00 a.m. See flyer for details.

Deal Analysis

by Andy Kaufman

Oh My! What A Difference A Lead Makes - Part 8

Hope all your opening leads have been going well since my last article😊. As you have probably figured out by now, nobody gets their opening leads correct on every hand! Hopefully this ongoing series has provided some good science and advice to at least give you a leg up on your competition. Of course, there is still a bit of “art” and luck when it comes to opening leads. Today I am presenting two new deals from recent Matchpoint events. As previously discussed, one always must consider many factors including: the auction, vulnerability, strength of opponents and form of scoring (matchpoints vs. imps).   One must always stop to think and consider your opening lead based on all information available, which will continue to improve your results. In previous articles we reviewed opening leads at matchpoints, imps, versus suit contract and versus Notrump contracts. So let us briefly review a few opening lead pointers at matchpoints before reviewing the problem hands that follow.

• The same lead advise reviewed in prior articles is still applicable whether playing matchpoints or imps. (See earlier installments).
• In general, 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.  Of course, you would still like to defeat declarer if they are in a potentially speculative game, slam, and especially a doubled contract.
• Usually make your “normal” honor lead or sequence lead in an unbid suit. Leading partner’s suit is usually ok unless you have a better lead. Leading singletons is often right when trying to score ruffs unless holding natural trump tricks. A trump lead may be right if trying to avoid ruffs in dummy especially when holding good cards in declarers second suit.  Leading or underleading an Ace is usually a losing proposition except under special circumstances. This topic will be covered further in future articles.
• One must consider carefully when to diverge from the “normal” indicated lead.

Reasoning & Results:   First question to ask is whether you believe this contract is a “normal” landing spot or potentially speculative. Unfortunately, you can’t determine this for sure from the auction, but possible alternate contracts might be 6C and those not bidding slam. Based on strength of field, what percentage of the field will be in a slam? So back to the opening lead question; what did you choose? If you decided as my partner did that the opponents were in a common contract and may have 13 tricks unless you lead your diamond ace. If you did so, this lead ensured the 12^th trick and a tied for bottom 17% result on this board.  Many players like to lead aces in an unbid suit versus a slam to ensure one trick on defense at matchpoints. I have sympathy at matchpoints for this action, but at imps one should try to set the contract. On this deal, since there is potential alternate contract of 6C and likelihood that some will not bid any slam, it seems best to lead one of your majors through dummy’s strong hand.  As you can see below, any lead but a diamond will set 6N played by South for a 100% matchpoint result. The defense will require ducking the diamond ace once after the run of the clubs unless West found an original spade lead. Others in 6N played from the North hand. In practice those in slam made their contract at this event.

Analysis: This hand provides some implications when reviewing the auction prior to deciding on your opening lead.  What do we know? The opponents appear to have pushed to 4S since neither North nor South took invitational action. We also know partner made a responsive double showing both minors and values to compete in the auction while implying <4 hearts. Partner subsequently doubled 4S now showing decent holding in spades and therefore very short hearts (likely 1 or 2).  There is a lot to learn from the auction on this deal, so what lead did you choose to make? Since you are not leading a spade, two of your suits are headed by the ace, so normally might think to avoid leading these suits, but is this one of those “special” circumstances?

Reasoning & Results:   Partner must have been thinking about the general rule to not lead unsupported aces defending a suit contract, so led his low diamond.  If you also chose this lead, you would be -790 and a 0% matchpoint score ☹️.  If you had done your analysis of the auction and determined partners likely hand shape (3145, 3154, 3055, 3244) and having good spades with trump control (ie. Axx, KQx), seems that leading the heart Ace is the “best” lead, and has advantage of looking at dummy.   You will see South’s hand in dummy with the good minors, so should now cash your ace of clubs on which partner with play the J (suit preference). So then playing a heart at trick 3 ensures the one trick +200 set and a 92% matchpoint result. Actually, continuing any card once you’ve cashed the club ace will result in a set as the cards lie, but the heart would have been required if partner’s holding was the KQx versus the KQ10.  Oh My, what a difference a lead makes!  Below is the full deal for your review.

Until next time, happy leading!

70% Club

Mon, Nov 10

75%

Bruce Schwaidelson & David Cohan

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.

November Birthdays

Dick Abell

Nancy Adelman

William Bauer III

Pat Cieslinski

Christina Dowling

David Ellison

Kay Garrity

Steven Gewirtzman

Alan Meyers

Sandra Salasin

John Shulman

Betsy Smith

Vivien Soo

Lee Stanley

Leslie Tolles

Jackie Zelle