[CSGibson]

I have not played Rusinow leads yet, so cannot comment on their effectiveness.

I like playing the jack denies lead convention. While it is true that it helps declarer, it should help partner as much or more. Defense is harder than declarer play because you cannot see your side's combined assets. Alerting partner to where those assets are or are not early in the play has got to pay dividends in the long run. After all, that's why people have extensive defensive agreements. If it was better in the long run not to have informative agreements for fear of helping declarer, there wouldn't be such a large number of these conventions out there.

I also like journalist leads in situations where there is Qxx in dummy, partner leading through declarer to your Axx, as it clarifies the position much better.

[Free]

Does anyone have experience with Slavinski leads (played by Fantoni and Nunes)?

[broze]

fred, on 2007-December-31, 11:42, said:

I have a lot of experience with both Rusinow and Standard versus notrump. I think Rusinow is definitely superior there.

I have a lot less experience with Rusinow versus suits, but those experiences I have had were not good ones. I remember one particularly painful hand when part led a stiff Queen and I had the Ace...

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

I have greatly enjoyed playing Rusinow leads versus suited contracts. My partner and I decided that after the lead of an Ace (which at game contracts and below will almost always be a stiff, from AK tight or where leader has no other good lead) we would play that third hand gives suit pref so that he might get in and return the suit for a ruff.

However, twice the system has cost us dearly. Once like Fred where p led a stiff Q and I ducked, the other time when he lead Q from KQx and I overtook with the Ace costing us a trick. The ambiguity is so annoying that I'm considering giving it up.

Wasn't the leading system of the Blue team similar to Rusinow? And how did they manage to make it work?

[blackshoe]

Hm. I may be misremembering the book, but as I recall it, Rusinow leads vs. NT were specifically deprecated, I think on theoretical grounds. Of course, experience trumps theory, so perhaps the book is wrong. IAC, I'll have to dig it out and review that part.

[JLOGIC]

Rusinow is definitely better against NT. Many experts followed this trend:

Standard leads were A and Q ask for unblock, K asks for attitude. Thus, you lead the king from AKTx as well as from KQ9x. This caused many issues when partner had the jack and dummy had 2 small and he didn't know whether he should encourage or not. This was a big issue.

At some point, many experts started to play K is the unblock lead, and A and Q are for attitude. This solved the jack issue as KQ9x led the Q, and AKTx led the ace. It created a new problem that partner do with the ten. This was better, but imo the obvious thing to think at that point is why not play rusinow with king as the power lead. It makes things so much easier. If you don't like journalist (I don't) then I highly recommend playing that way.

I like rusinow vs suits also, but I also bang down aces more than almost anyone. In fact, I prefer old fashioned king lead rather than A from AK if I don't play rusinow. I also rarely lead Hx in a random suit, so I am probably the ideal style to play rusinow vs suits. If you lead lots of random Hx's and never bang down aces, it's probably a bad thing to play.

[blackshoe]

Maybe I should try to learn Vinge again. Last time I read the book I decided it was too complicated.

Nah. I doubt I could convince anybody else to try it anyway.

[akhare]

Free, on 2008-January-02, 04:41, said:

Does anyone have experience with Slavinski leads (played by Fantoni and Nunes)?

Yes -- pard and I really like them.

However, for spot cards we use the approach recommended in original book:

http://www.ugcs.calt...ment/slawinski/

From what I recall F-N combine the parity count in case of spot leads as well (something that was a foot note in the book).

IMO, it works very well in conjunction with obvious shift...

[Lurpoa]

Walddk, on 2007-December-31, 09:21, said:

I assume you are referring to North America because in continental Europe (except France) udca is "standard". As far as NA is concerned I believe that most top pairs play udca too. At least that's my impression from watching numerous vugraph broadcasts.

As to Rusinow and attitude, it's a bit more complex than choosing between "standard" and udca carding. The latter is simply the reverse of "standard" whereas Rusinow and attitude have more added to it and therefore more difficult to remember.

Roland

♥♥♥
With all due respect....and I know you have seen much, much more than me....
"UDCA, Standard in Europe" is an overstament. Besides, there is no reason they should be... Some experts use them, but at least as many, and more, do not use them.

As for those special lead agreements... They are definitively superior.... but really needs expert partnerships to take full advantage of their use.
♥♥♥

[Free]

akhare, on 2011-December-07, 17:03, said:

Yes -- pard and I really like them.

However, for spot cards we use the approach recommended in original book:

http://www.ugcs.calt...ment/slawinski/

From what I recall F-N combine the parity count in case of spot leads as well (something that was a foot note in the book).

IMO, it works very well in conjunction with obvious shift...

Wow finally an answer, after almost 3 years! By now I also play combine leads, but leading with small cards is still 3/5. Is it worth to change that to Slawinski as well?

Note: still nobody who has page 39?

[akhare]

Free, on 2011-December-08, 04:54, said:

Wow finally an answer, after almost 3 years! By now I also play combine leads, but leading with small cards is still 3/5. Is it worth to change that to Slawinski as well?

Note: still nobody who has page 39?

I think so -- pre-alerting "we lead low from doubletons against suits" alone is worth price of admission ...

[akhare]

<Removed duplicated post>

[MickyB]

I'm not a fan of the spot-card leads Slawinski advocates. His analysis, that "proves" that they are best, ignores that not all spots are created equal - in isolation, you'd rather not lead the nine or ten from low cards or from Hh9x. I've been playing odd-even mixed leads [lowest even card from an even number of cards without an honour or an odd number of cards headed by an honour; without a pip of the right parity, we lead our highest pip]. I wouldn't swear that it's better or worse than other methods, but it's good fun trying to explain it to oppo. It is strictly superior to Fantunes leads, as, on average, the same information is transmitted, but we burn fewer high spot cards.

At about the same time, we changed our honour leads vs NT -

A from AK
K for unblock/count

Rusinow from four or more cards, standard from three or fewer [but Q from KQx].

This one I am a big fan of, there have been no situations that I remember where we've had to guess whether partner has led from JTx or QJTx.

[akhare]

MickyB, on 2011-December-08, 13:18, said:

I've been playing odd-even mixed leads [lowest even card from an even number of cards without an honour or an odd number of cards headed by an honour; without a pip of the right parity, we lead our highest pip]. I wouldn't swear that it's better or worse than other methods, but it's good fun trying to explain it to oppo.

I always wanted to try this out -- does this require time to process in third seat based on dummy's holding and the bidding or is there a shortcut?

[akhare]

MickyB, on 2011-December-08, 13:18, said:

I've been playing odd-even mixed leads [lowest even card from an even number of cards without an honour or an odd number of cards headed by an honour; without a pip of the right parity, we lead our highest pip]. I wouldn't swear that it's better or worse than other methods, but it's good fun trying to explain it to oppo.

I always wanted to try this out -- does this require time to process in third seat based on dummy's holding and the bidding or is there a shortcut?

[MickyB]

If you can easily tell whether partner's card is supposed to be "odd" or "even", it's usually best to start by assuming partner has led from an honour. If you can't easily tell then it can take a bit longer.