Correct Opening Leads In Contract Bridge

This is a comprehensive treatment of the most important single aspect of contract bridge - the opening lead. The advice is presented by the use of illustrated games, backed with the reasoning behind each move.

"The opening lead is often the most crucial of the 52 cards played in any hand, and often the success or failure of a contract depends on it. However, the opening leader has less information to go on, being able to see only his own hand when making the choice. The additional information which must be used to indicate the choice of lead is the auction, which invariably gives extra clues from both the calls that were made and the calls that were not."--Back cover

Winning Notrump Leads was a ground-breaking and very well-received book that used the power of computers to determine which opening leads work best against a variety of auctions at notrump. Using enhanced software, the authors now turn their attention to suit contracts. They generate millions of random deals, retaining those that match the chosen auction, for example 1S-2S-4S. By playing these deals automatically against each of the 13 possible opening leads from a given hand, they are able to discover which lead is most likely to beat the contract (also the best lead at matchpoint pairs). The authors provide insightful commentary to each result, answering timeless questions such as: When should I lead a trump? When is a doubleton a good opening lead? Should I lead differently against a partscore? Should I make an aggressive or a passive lead? Should I lead an ace against a small slam? Which leads work best against a grand slam? By using the number-crunching computer power available nowadays, there is no longer any need to rely on general opening-lead guidelines passed down by our ancestors. We think you will be surprised by many of the discoveries made during this investigation! DAVID BIRD (top) and TAF ANTHIAS were contemporaries at Cambridge University, both reading mathematics. They carried out research and development on software systems for over 30 years at IBM's UK Laboratories. In the 1970s they formed a successful bridge partnership, winning a number of national events. David is now one of the world's top bridge writers with 116 books to his name. Taf moved on to the USA, where he became a vice president of Cisco Systems. They have joined forces on this ground-breaking book.

The opening lead can be the most difficult lead in the whole game - and the most critical. When you are choosing your opening lead, you have only thirteen cards to contemplate and the auction to guide you, whereas for every other lead more than twice as many cards are known. A shrewd opening lead may provide a greater chance of successful defence than any card played at a later stage. This superb book shows how to predict the way the play will probably develop and what, therefore, is likely to be the best opening lead. The authors' consistent aim is to encourage the player to gather all the threads of information helpful in deciding what may be the crucial card to lead. And, for good measure, this guidance is amplified by a generous number of expert tips unlikely to be known to most players.

"Thinking about learning bridge but don't know the basics? Want to be able to play a social game? Collings need to know? Bridge starts from scratch to teach you how to play and enjoy the ever popular game of bridge."--Back cover.

Covers leads, signaling, second- and third-hand play, and discarding, and includes practice hands and quizzes.