[32519]

Can anybody supply more info on Journalist Leads?
1. What are they?
2. When do you use them/not use them?
3. Pros
4. Cons
5. Do they clash with Rusinow Leads or are they an improvement on Rusinow Leads (see other thread)
6. Which is better? Rusinow or Journalist and why?
7. Maybe neither in favour of something else? Then what is the something else?
8. How many experts play Journalist Leads?
9. Anything else to add which can help?

[Zelandakh]

Journalist leads are a system of opening leads and apply only on opening lead. Against a suit contract the method uses Rusinow, that is leading the second highest from a sequence, together with 3rd and 5th spot leads. The more interesting system is against NT contracts. The scheme effectively breaks down according to what partner needs to do:

A = unblock or give count, from solid or semi-solid suits
K = give attitude, shows the A or Q
Q = unblock the J or give attitude, shows the J or from KQT9x(x)
J = weak, shows the T but denies a higher honour
T = strong, shows the J or 9 and a higher non-touching honour (this allows partner to overtake and lead back through declarer)
9 = weak, shows the T but no higher honour
spots = Busso (attitude)

I have played Journalist honour leads quite a lot, sometimes with Busso spots and sometimes with count leads. It is a good method but most modern experts prefer a strong king lead and to be able to safely lead an ace out without fearing partner will unblock.

[sfi]

If only there were a tool to help someone sift through the collected published wisdom on the Internet and find out whether answers already exist somewhere...

Hey - maybe someone could invent one! Probably wouldn't be able to make any money from it though.

[32519]

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-23, 02:07, said:

Against a suit contract the method uses Rusinow, that is leading the second highest from a sequence, together with 3rd and 5th spot leads.

Can you give some more detail on the 3rd and 5th spot leads? When leading 3rd, what does it mean to partner? When you lead 5th, what does it mean to partner? What is partner expected to do?
4th lead (the old Rule of 11) isn't part of this.

[PhilKing]

32519, on 2012-October-23, 07:18, said:

Can you give some more detail on the 3rd and 5th spot leads? When leading 3rd, what does it mean to partner? When you lead 5th, what does it mean to partner? What is partner expected to do?
4th lead (the old Rule of 11) isn't part of this.

If you lead a two, it means you have led 3rd or 5th or maybe top of a singleton (of course a serious player will alert when he has led fifth highest, so you can use the rule of 10). And as a rule of thumb, partner should seriously consider winning the trick, or investing a card for the same purpose but with delayed gratification.



As an aside, I do not believe you exist.Sorry!

[hrothgar]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=journalist+leads

[Zelandakh]

32519, on 2012-October-23, 07:18, said:

Can you give some more detail on the 3rd and 5th spot leads?

The idea behind 3rd and 5th leads (a misnomer, it is 3rd and low in practise) is to give faster count information to partner than 4th highest. Basically, if you ply low-high you are showing an odd number while if you play high-low you have an even number. Contrast this with low-high in Standard which could be from either Hxx or Hxxx.

[32519]

PhilKing, on 2012-October-23, 07:24, said:

If you lead a two, it means you have led 3rd or 5th or maybe top of a singleton (of course a serious player will alert when he has led fifth highest, so you can use the rule of 10). And as a rule of thumb, partner should seriously consider winning the trick, or investing a card for the same purpose but with delayed gratification.

If you lead the top of a singleton, leading the bottom of a void is probably also part of your agreements.

PhilKing, on 2012-October-23, 07:24, said:

As an aside, I do not believe you exist. Sorry!

Is a cukoo bird, cuckoo?

[blackshoe]

Zelandakh, on 2012-October-23, 02:07, said:

Journalist leads are a system of opening leads and apply only on opening lead.

This is not entirely true. "The Journalist" did discuss leads later in the auction, and how and why those leads should differ from opening leads.

Re: the "rule of 11". This is actually a consequence of the "rule of 15", which is that if your partner is leading his Nth highest card, you should apply the "rule of 15-N" to the rank of that card. So with 4th highest leads it's rule of 11, with 3rd highest it's rule of 12, and with 5th highest, it's rule of 10. One problem: although people call it "3rd and 5th" it isn't. It's "3rd and lowest". Which means if partner has a seven card suit, he's leading his seventh highest card and you should apply the "rule of 8". Side benefit: if he has an odd number of cards, and you can figure out which rule actually applies, you'll know how long his suit is. OTOH, his bidding may have already told you that, in which case his lead will tell you the appropriate rule. Another note: if his lead is third highest, all you'll know is that he has an even number of cards (or 3) but not how many. You can usually figure it out from other info, though.

[32519]

After reading Zel's post above again, in conjunction with the Rusinow thread, it would appear as though Rusinow Leads have "adopted" Journalist Leads against NT contracts. The distinction between the two is starting to blur.

If my understanding here is incorrect, then please help clarify it for me.

The Rusinow thread has some nice examples of actual experiences at the table using it. Does anyone have some actual experiences to post here using Journalist Leads? That is the sort of info one doesn't readily find on the net.

Thanks.

[Zelandakh]

Lots of experience - am playing the honour leads vs NT with my current partner in fact. The main times you gain are when partner leads the ten, dummy has no honour and you know to overtake and lead back through declarer; and when partner leads the jack or nine and you know not to play your honour. The main loss is when the J/T/9 lead is more helpful to declarer than you; you also lose if your natural lead would be an ace but this will be too difficult for partner to read and they might unblock.

Rusinow against NT is quite different to Journalist. I gave Journalist above. Compare that with:

A: from AK combinations that do not want unblock and Ax
K: asks for unblock
Q: shows the king [KQJx, KQTx]
J: shows the queen [QJTx, QJ9x, AQJx]
T: shows the jack [JT9x, JT8x, AJTx, KJTx]
9: shows the ten [T9xx, AT9x, KT9x, QT9x]

which is the most basic form of Rusinow. You can see that the differentiation between interior sequences has gone but the ace lead has been enabled for more productive purposes in the modern leading style. This seems to me to be the main reason for the changeover - when JL were created it was just very unusual to lead an unsupported ace against a NT contract whereas now you see it quite often (especially on BBF!). Note also that you can switch over to standard leads from short suits whilst playing Rusinow, so for example the Q from AQJ bare but the J from AQJx or longer. This makes for a flexible leading style but is (imho) more complex than Journalist for intermediates.

[Flem72]

32519, on 2012-October-23, 23:35, said:

Is a cukoo bird, cuckoo?

In view of this comment, some uncharitable soul might claim that you've really put the "u" in cuckoo.