Some of the Story – page 3

Here is a hand from the Spingold Final in 2014:

6 diamonds

What would you lead as North?

To me the bidding calls for an aggressive lead. You would need less in spades (the queen being enough) to set up a trick. Here a spade lead would be an even greater success as you hit your partner with the ace to defeat the contract.

Ron Schwartz chose a heart from four small and declarer had 13 easy tricks. His reasoning? “It’s dangerous to lead away from kings against a slam”.

Another peculiar lead in my view came in the quarter final of the same Spingold (Board 23, Open room):
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My take on the situation is that your biggest chance to set the contract is an immediate beat in hearts. You sure need to be lucky with the layout in hearts for this to succeed, but you need to be even luckier with the layout in other suits for those leads to be right.

Ron led a club, which you can see hit his partner really well, but the patient died as declarer had plenty of tricks in diamonds and spades. “Why did you lead a club?” I asked. “I have to lead my partner’s suit,” he responded. Your partner’s suit, I was thinking. Opening 1 club might be as few as two cards in your system (and even 3+ wouldn’t make it “partner’s suit”). So how did he know it was his partner’s suit?

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