Friday, August 18, 2006 10:17 PM

Ask Questions

PITBULLS:

The rules of Bridge are against non disclosure . You are entitled to the same information as the opponents have announced with their bidding. Your opening leads depend on their bidding and sometimes your bidding depends on their system. Professional players ask a lot of questions about your bidding. Do you think they are just interested in what system you are using ? They want to have all the available information before they lead or bid & so should you !

My partners and I have different understandings after a strong NT depending on whether their 2♣ bid or double is artificial. If both bids are artificial , we just ignore them and systems are on including transfers. We have a special understanding over their artificial 2♣ that a double is Stayman.

The meaning of XX changes , depending on whether the double is penalty or artificial. If artificial , the XX retains the standard meaning of a good hand so let me at them. If the double is penalty , the XX shows a single suited run out. In other words , you have no idea what is going on unless you ask questions.

BJ Trelford was on lead against an opponent who had their own meaning of a 2NT rebid. The auction went 1♣-P-1♠-P 2NT-P-4♠-P and you are on lead with ♠Axxxx ♥AQxx ♦x ♣Qxx . You ask what the 2NT bid means and it is explained as long clubs with as many as 16 HCP. You have 12 HCP so partner is limited with very little. Where is the heart king ? The odds that it is in declarers hand is miniscule so partner or the board has that card. How are clubs behaving for declarer ? They look good so a blind lead is not recommended. Leading a singleton blind when partner is marked with very little points and you have 5 trump is silly. You will just find a queen for them and allow declarer to retain control of the hand with a bad trump break coming their way. Anyway BJ leads the heart Ace and the board hits with ♠void ♥Jxxx ♦AQJ ♣AK109xx . I encourage in hearts and BJ continues and declarer ruffs. Declarer had 6 spades so he is now down to the same length as BJ. BJ ducks the spade Ace and takes the next one and declarer has lost control of this hand. Declarer finesses the diamond and I win the King and declarer goes down 3 vul getting no diamond tricks with his 6-5 in spades and diamonds.

Opening leads are bidding dependent. You translate the bidding into patterns and you get a good idea where all the HCP’s are via the 40 HCP’s in the deck rule. Your opening leads are a result of asking the opponents questions . If the opponents give you wrong information that result in the incorrect opening lead , there are rules & laws to handle those situations. Silence is not golden when opening leads are concerned. Be sure the opponents have let you in on their bidding secrets.