Bridge

You can’t win ’em all Opening lead — three of clubs.

It is well-known that more contracts are won or lost on the opening lead than at any other stage of the play. Of course, some players are more gifted than others in choosing the opening lead, but the fact is that the batting average of almost every player suffers severely when the effectiveness of his opening leads is compared with the rest of his game.

As an illustration, take this deal played in a rubber-bridge game. It was reported to us by West, who was upset by the result.

After three passes, South opened the bidding with five diamonds. West was tempted to double but chose the more conservative course of passing. He then had no clear-cut opening lead and, after much thought, selected his fourth-best club.

This was not very successful, because declarer won East’s king with the ace, played the ace and another heart, ruffing in dummy, and discarded his last heart on the ace of spades. South then led a diamond and lost two trump tricks to make exactly five diamonds.

Disturbed by the outcome, West later polled 10 top experts to see what they would have led against five diamonds.

As usual, where an opening lead is involved, there was a lack of unanimity among the experts. Seven of them agreed with West’s opening lead of a club. Two favoured a low heart lead and one said he would lead a low spade.

Remarkably, they all struck out! Not one found the only way to defeat the contract, which was to lead the ace of diamonds and continue with the queen! Against this defence South is helpless and, in fact, goes down two tricks!

It just goes to show that even the experts can’t achieve perfection when it comes to opening leads.