Journalist Leads

The first part of this book is about opening leads in contract bridge. Defense is by far the most difficult part of contract bridge and the first lead - which must be made without sight of the dummy - is the most difficult part of defense. There are two aspects of opening-lead skill: (1) improving your judgment as to which suit will be the best lead; (2) maintaining, with your partner, the most effective set of conventional understandings as to the information conveyed by your leads. To those interested in improving their lead judgment we strongly recommend Bob Ewen's Opening Leads (Prentice Hall, 1970). It is an informative, accurate and complete work which will be enjoyed by players on all levels. We do consider judgment and give numerous lead examples, but we address ourselves primarily to methods that is, to the agreements between partners regarding the meaning of the opening lead. As late as the early sixties, there was a firmly entrenched tradition of opening-lead conventions, the so-called ' 'standard table of opening leads. " This table was held almost sacred. Every so often a slight modification was suggested and adopted by a few players, but by and large everyone followed the standard table. Why? Certainly not because they themselves had considered the alternatives and selected the one that seemed to them best. Rather, it is because of the lazy attitude that what has been done in the same way for so many years must be pretty good, otherwise people wouldn't keep doing it. But traditions are not necessarily for the best. Our everyday life is full of traditions so ingrained we do not give them a second thought, yet so inane that a visitor from Mars, observing them, could conclude only that our world was being run by a bunch of nincompoops. Just a few examples should suffice. English spelling and pronunciation are irretrievably snarled, to no gain whatsoever be pronounced in over a dozen different ways.