Bridge books reviewed - 57

To discover which opening lead is best from a given West hand against a particular auction ending in a No trump contract,, the authors use computer software to generate 5000 deals that match the North-South bidding. (The West hand remains the same and the other three hands are chosen randomly.) The software then plays these deals automatically, seeing which of the 13 possible opening leads works best at both IMPs (rubber bridge/Chicago) and match-point pairs. By analysing the results, the authors pass on to the reader the secrets of finding the best lead against notrump contracts on a wide range of different auctions. Suppose the bidding goes 1NT - 3NT and you have to find an opening lead from

♠J86 ♥96 ♦KQ72 ♣KJ72

You may be surprised to hear that the ♠6 is the best lead at both pairs and IMP scoring and the ♥9 is the second-best lead!