Friday, February 09, 2007 12:23 PM

Playing the Vulnerability – Leads

PITBULLS:

Meckwell play the vulnerability more than most experts. My partners & myself are “terrorists” only ¼ of the time. Evidence from many tournaments indicate that Meckwell are terrorists ¾ of the time as far as pre-empts & opening bids are concerned . Vul vrs nv they are very quiet. There are many hands when they trusted their partner and led his suit for disasterous results.

Eric Murray playing with Sammy Kehela was an early “modern bidder” . Kehela said numerous times & only half jokingly “I just believe the opponents 100 % of the time playing with Eric” . Playing with undisciplined partners , you must rely on the opponents to know what really is going on. In the long run , this is losing strategy as the opponents are not around for your benefit & you will lose more often that you win. Bridge being a partnership game gets really tested.

This terrorist style begs the question. If you subscribe to terrorist tactics ¼ of the time ( nv vrs vul ), should partner believe the opponents rather than you for opening lead purposes ? I held ♠xxxx ♥Axxxxx ♦x ♣Kx and noting that the opponents were vul and I was nv in 1^st chair , I opened 2♥. BJ & I subscribe to disciplined weak 2’s where a half decent suit is required. However , on the terrorist vulnerability, we prefer to revert to “modern bidding” .

After I opened 2♥ , LHO jumped to 3NT and all passed. BJ was on lead with ♠KQJx ♥Jxx ♦xxx ♣Qxx & had I not bid , his natural lead would have been a spade which beats the contract one. On this vulnerability do you consider that partner made a “non bid” and believe the opponents ? Would it help to know the 3NT bidder was a modern bidder ? Being relatively new to terrorism , I have no answer. Comments ?