Winning Suit Contract Leads [Bird/Anthias]

This book continues the computer-based analysis of the best opening leads first discussed in Winning Notrump Leads.

David Bird and Taf Anthias generated thousands of random deals and looked at those that would match their chosen auction, for example 1H-2H-4H. Their computer would then play these deals automatically based on each of the 13 possible opening leads from a given hand. From this data they have been able to discover which lead is most likely to beat the contract and which is the best lead at Matchpoints.

The sorts of questions the authors hope to answer are:

• When should I lead a trump?
• When is a doubleton a good opening lead?
• Should I lead differently against a partscore?
• Should I make an aggressive or a passive lead?
• Should I lead an ace against a small slam?
• Which leads work best against a grand slam?

You'll be surprised at the answers Bird and Anthias come up with. There are a lot of unconventional ideas but the authors back up their claims with a lot of data.