[Kaitlyn S]

Winstonm, on 2017-July-08, 22:17, said:

This has always been somewhat of an Achilles' heel for me, in that, especially in club games, when the opponents went out of their way to indicate their weakest suit and afterwards still bid NT, I tended to mentally give them a holding that justified their bidding, which was usually wrong. Over the years, this led to my partner, Bob, introducing me to a lot of different opening lead approaches ( ) including attitude leads, 3&5, etc.

Perhaps Kaitlyn has had the same problem as I remember her introducing leads into the thread.

Actually I think it was you that inspired me to introduce leads into this thread. You mentioned a Bols bridge tip which made me think about the card partner would have led in each scenario that mattered.

Winstonm, on 2017-July-03, 10:03, said:

When these problems come up I always am reminded of Bob Hamman's Bols Bridge Tip:

Quote

‘If you ever to amount to anything at this game, you must build up a picture of the unseen hands. The idea is to know what the problem is before you try to solve it.’

When I saw this, I realized that I had to create my example consistent with my partner's lead, as that is one of the unseen hands. I came to the (apparently erroneous) conclusion that partner wouldn't lead the ♥3 when it was right for me to play diamonds.

However, Kit Woolsey led the ♥3 (or ♥Q) on BridgeWinners. If I'm playing with him, I would have a really hard time telling hi that I failed to beat 3NT because he made a terrible lead! But nonetheless, your tip was quite valuable as I was not imagining partner's hand but only declarer's, and that's just bad bridge.

Timo brought up another reason to consider partner's hand - he eschews the diamond switch because partner should have overcalled 1H when the diamond switch is right.

So ironically, this thread might have been much shorter if you had not mentioned that Bols Bridge Tip which caused me to stir up a hornet's nest.