North Penn Bridge News

Greetings to the

North Penn Bridge Community!

Week of 11/11/2024

Rank Achievements

Rank achievements for October have been posted. Click here to see the results.

Dates of Interest

This week:

Nov 13
Nov 16

Shuffle & Deal

Online robot - Charity Foundation

Future:

Nov 20
Nov 22
Nov 28
Nov 29
Nov 30
Dec 13-15

4 Is Enough

0-500 Swiss Teams

Closed due to Thanksgiving

District 4 online (starts at 3:30)

Wilmington sectional. Flyer.

Calendar

Click here to see a file you can enlarge.

Joann Glasson Zoom Lessons

The final lesson of the November series will be on Monday November 18 at 10 a.m. Click here for details.

Deal of the Week

by Andy Kaufman

Oh My! What A Difference A Lead Makes

Bridge is a great game with many facets such as: bidding, declarer play, defense, and our nemesis opening leads. Just when you think you are starting to get this game figured out, up jumps an opening lead problem that teases and perplexes us. The fact of the matter is that opening leads are not an exact science, and even the best of players frequently get this wrong. There are normally clues of what type of lead to make from the auction (i.e. aggressive, passive, short suit, long suit, supported honors or trumps), to name a few. There are some great books and articles around the “art” of opening leads but will not be covering this broad topic for this article. Instead, I am presenting in a two-part series, notable deals that I was involved with where the choice of opening lead made a major difference in the results for our side. Am asking the reader to review the auction for each example deal, then just looking at your hand to decide on your choice for opening lead before reading ahead. Would also want the reader to choose their top 4 leads along with their reasoning for making your lead choices. We will soon see that your choice of opening leads will have a drastic impact on your results. Good Luck!

Deal #1: This first deal occurred during the Sunday Swiss event at the Allentown Sectional. To set the stage, I was playing with Mike Shuster sitting E/W with or side being NV and our opponents being VUL. Here is the auction and your hand sitting South to find the “killing” opening lead, or maybe not 😊. Please chose your top 4 leads with your reasoning, then we will look at the fruits of your endeavors. (Try to make your selections before reading on….)

So, what do you know from the auction? West is clearly preemptive with a long club suit (likely 8+ clubs unless highly distributional). Your partner doubled which is normally takeout in nature but also be based on power capable of defending 5Cx. If this had been passed to you, defending 5Cx would be appropriate versus bidding on. On the actual deal, East (me) decides to bid over the double to 5S which is subsequently doubled again by your partner. What does East’s action tell you, and how does this help your choice of leads? East must be very short in clubs (0 or 1) but also has a spade suit willing to try it out in this strain versus letting partner languish in 5Cx. If it was me, I would not lead a club since the ace may still be in dummy and the declarer may be void. This would give declarer an easy entry plus provide a possible pitch! Neither of the red suits appear particularly attractive since both may compromise partners holding and/or allow ruffs in the dummy. This leads me to what I believe is the standout lead, a trump! Even though this could compromise partners spade holding, it will cut down on any potential ruffs in dummy. So, let’s see how you made out with your choice of opening leads….

But first let’s see what happened at our table during the Swiss match. With the South hand, they chose to lead the Jack of Hearts! Unfortunately for them this led to a result of -750 which was 5Sx making 6!

Results:

If you chose a spade, you will be able to score +300 setting the contract by 2 tricks.
If you chose a club, you would survive as well with the layout and score +300.
If you chose a diamond, this would allow declarer to make 5Sx exactly for -650.
Finally, if you chose the heart J, then you would suffer allowing declarer to make 6, -750!

So here is the full deal for your review...

*Note: If East had passed the initial double, South should elect to defend since unclear if bidding 5H would be correct lacking values or extra distribution. As you can see with this hand if you would bid 5H, it would be doubled and down 4 on a high diamond lead! Usually right to take a “sure” plus. Considering the pull to 5S and subsequent double, North is more likely to be strong and balanced, additionally pointing to a trump lead.

I will hold the second example deal for the next installment of this article in a future North Penn Bulletin.

Tidbits

Bridge tip from Eddie Kantar

“If you and partner lead Ace from Ace-King be forewarned that it is a trick one strategy only. After trick one the king is led from ace-king combinations. Also, the king is led from the ace-king in any supported suit or in any suit partner has bid, supported or not. It is also led when defending contracts at the five level or higher. The reason for this is that the ace is often led without the king at such a high level.”

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.

Partnership

If you need a partner for a Monday, Wednesday or Thursday Open game, please email northpennbridge@gmail.com. We will do our best to match you with others who are looking for someone with whom to play.

Requests for Tuesday limited games should go directly to Rose Wartman at wartmanr61@gmail.com

Requests for Friday limited games should go directly to Mitch Snyder at bridge4all@comcast.net