[32519]

Can anybody supply more info on Rusinow Leads?
1. What are they?
2. When do you use them/not use them?
3. Pros
4. Cons
5. How many experts play Rusinow Leads?
6. Anything else to add which can help?

[Zelandakh]

Rusinow leads apply only to the opening lead. The method involves simply leading the second highest from a sequence instead of the highest; nothing else changes from Standard. The advantage is that an ace lead specifically denies the king, or is from AK bare. The disadvantage is that the 9 becomes an honour lead and can be difficult to disentangle from 9x doubleton.

[the_clown]

1. Lead the second from touching honors unless you are leading from a shortness.
2. Do not use them in partner's suit.
Rest What Zelandakh said.

[32519]

 the_clown, on 2012-October-23, 02:23, said:

1. Lead the second from touching honors unless you are leading from a shortness.

Is there any way that partner can differentiate between the two? Dummy and partner's holding in the suit are possible clues?

When you lead second from touching honours, how many cards are you promising in the suit? My guess would be at least four (especially against a NT contract).

This stuff is new to me, so please show some patience if my questions appear to be stupid.

[Zelandakh]

The situations are analogous to Standard leads. If you were making a Standard lead of highest from a sequence then you now make the second highest, regardless of whether you have 3 or 7 cards in the suit. With a doubleton you make the normal lead, highest. There is no difference between differentiating between the jack lead in Standard with the ten hidden from a jack lead in Rusinow with the queen hidden. Usually the bidding provides some clues as to the expected lengths in the suit for partner and declarer, plus additional clues suc as the type of lead that might be appropriate or whether a trump honour is likely to be held.

This is what I meant in post #2. Make the same lead as Standard except for leading from top of a sequence, then the second highest in the sequence. For this purpose, JT bare is not a sequence but rather a doubleton and similarly for other combinations. As the_clown points out, it is also normal for Rusinow to be off in partner's suit - instead 3rd/5th and Standard honour leads are recommended.

[32519]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-23, 02:10, said:

Rusinow leads apply only to the opening lead. The method involves simply leading the second highest from a sequence instead of the highest; nothing else changes from Standard.

I would interpret leading the second highest in a sequence as an attitude lead. How does partner respond to the lead, regarding a) count in the suit, and b) attitude in the suit? Which of the two gets preference, count or attitude?

[Zelandakh]

You respond to the lead exactly as you would to a lead of the card one higher in Standard, that is the lead of the queen in Rusinow is identical to the lead of the king in Standard. For the majority of players, this means that attitude is the most important signal but each pair is free to make up their own preferences in this regard.

[ArtK78]

 Zelandakh, on 2012-October-23, 02:10, said:

Rusinow leads apply only to the opening lead. The method involves simply leading the second highest from a sequence instead of the highest; nothing else changes from Standard. The advantage is that an ace lead specifically denies the king, or is from AK bare. The disadvantage is that the 9 becomes an honour lead and can be difficult to disentangle from 9x doubleton.

I have been playing Rusinow leads for about 35 years. I find no disadvantages to them and the ability to distinguish AK from KQ on opening lead can be huge (for those who lead K from AK), as well as the ability to distinguish an unsupported Ace lead from a lead from AK (for those who lead A from AK).

The fact that a lead of a 9 can be from T9x(xxx) or 9x has never been a problem in my opinion.

More important points:

1) Rusinow does not apply when leading partner's suit (this was mentioned).
2) Rusinow does not apply above an agreed upon level. Some players limit this to slams (no Rusinow leads against slams) while others choose to say that Rusinow leads are off against 5 level contracts and slams.
3) When I started playing Rusinow leads, they were limited to leads against suit contracts. I find that a number of players now play Rusinow leads against notrump contracts as well. I still limit Rusinow leads to leads against suit contracts except when I am playing with one of a handful of players that I know who like to use them against notrump contracts.

I cannot recall a single incident where Rusinow leads ever cost, and they have been valuable a number of times. The same can be said for upside down carding vs. standard carding - the only times that upside down carding ever cost was when a singleton was led that would be clearly marked as a singleton if one were playing standard carding but was ambiguous playing upside down carding. But these are random occurrences - sometimes the opposite is true.

[32519]

I found this thread titled Rusinow Leads; like/dislike started on 22 March 2010. It received 12 replies and 287 views.

After reading this, it seems as though there is a lot more to Rusinow Leads than what has been posted here so far.

[32519]

Here is another thread I found on this topic; Rusinow, journalist leads. Why aren’t they popular?. Rusinow leads against a NT contract got a fair amount of support. The thread got 34 replies and 1934 views. It was started on 31 December 2007.

So I haven't given up yet on trying to understand this style of leading. I'll go through everything again and decide whether I want to experiment with it or not. The information in this thread is highly unlikely to be available in a general description of what Rusinow Leads are anywhere else on the web.

[SteveMoe]

 ArtK78, on 2012-October-23, 08:07, said:

I cannot recall a single incident where Rusinow leads ever cost, and they have been valuable a number of times.

Well stated and agree completely.

Wanted to share one instance where opponent's Rusinow approach created a losing option for them. LGO led a Rusinow J and RHO saw K10xxx while holding A9xx. I held a stiff x and called for low from dummy. Righty flew with the A and a doubled game came home - seems their agreement was that the J was the lowest rusinow card (i.e. 10 would be top of nothing). RHO was "sure" partner was singleton or that I held the Q. Moral: be clear where the break point is and what the auction implies as to partner's length.

I'd add to look into the complete system of Journalist Leads for additional perspective.

[blackshoe]

Ideally, find a copy of "Journalist Leads", by Rubens and Rosler. It has the complete description of the methods, and is based on the original articles in The Bridge Journal, which Rubens and Rosler wrote under the nom-de-plume "The Journalist".

[ArtK78]

 SteveMoe, on 2012-October-23, 19:17, said:

Well stated and agree completely.

Wanted to share one instance where opponent's Rusinow approach created a losing option for them. LGO led a Rusinow J and RHO saw K10xxx while holding A9xx. I held a stiff x and called for low from dummy. Righty flew with the A and a doubled game came home - seems their agreement was that the J was the lowest rusinow card (i.e. 10 would be top of nothing). RHO was "sure" partner was singleton or that I held the Q. Moral: be clear where the break point is and what the auction implies as to partner's length.

I'd add to look into the complete system of Journalist Leads for additional perspective.

I don't see what the lead of the J had to do with the 10 being this partnership's "swing card." Since the J was not a possible top of nothing lead, it was either a singleton, a doubleton Jx or from QJx(x).

This is an unfortunate position for a Rusinow leader.

[SteveMoe]

 ArtK78, on 2012-October-24, 13:59, said:

I don't see what the lead of the J had to do with the 10 being this partnership's "swing card." Since the J was not a possible top of nothing lead, it was either a singleton, a doubleton Jx or from QJx(x).

This is an unfortunate position for a Rusinow leader.

Absolutely unfortunate. They led J from QJ..., J10..., Jx, and J!

[JLOGIC]

Rusinow vs NT is just automatic imo(with king asking for unblock) if you don't want to play coded or something like that. "Standard" honor leads are pretty hopeless vs NT since you are leading the K from KQTx and AKTx etc so partner has a signalling problem when he holds the jack that is basically unsolvable (sometimes whatever he does might not work). This led a lot of people to switch to K being the unblock card with A and Q being attitude, but still, you lead the Q now from KQ9x and QJ9x and this gives partner a signalling problem with the ten, and may lead to some ambiguity that needs clearing up later in the play. This is much better, but the obvious extension of this is to lead the J from QJ and then the T from JT and then the 9 from T9, aka rusinow.

I feel there is basically no loss to playin this. Some people prefer zero or two or whatever, I don't but that is fine, but just in terms of standard honor leads vs king is the power lead vs rusinow if you don't want to do the zero or two stuff, I think rusinow is clearly better with basically no loss.

You should not play them in partners suit where you will often lead Hx, and you should not play them imo when you preempt and lead a side suit (where you will often be leading Hx when you lead a side suit honor). I also prefer to play them not in dummys suit, since an honor lead (depending on the auction) will often be unsupported like Qxx or QTx.

So those are my 3 exceptions.

I personally also like rusinow vs suits, but this is more controversial and most good players I know do not like it. I think it suits my style well since I lead more unsupported aces than almost any good player, so the ace denying the king is useful for me, and ace from ace king causes issues. I also don't ever randomly fire out Qx or Jx so I'm not worried about that.

Still, leading the ten from JTx *could* cause issues when dummy has Qxx and partner has AKxx(x) and has to guess whether to play you for Tx or JTx. So far this hasn't caused an adverse swing for me (and I have played rusinow vs suits for a long time in my regular partnerships), but it could and a couple of times my partner has had to guess right.

T9x is an issue also, I just lead low from that but actually last week I had T98 and I led the 9 and was nervous about it (the 8 seemed equally confusing). When I have T98x I feel that partner will be able to not play me for a doubleton, he might have to guess but having 4 I feel like he will guess right a large majority of the time rather than get my shape wrong by 2 cards.

So I like rusinow vs suits also but if you never lead unsupported aces or if you often lead Qx or Jx it's probably not for you. I will say that if you have a known long suit, you should definitely be playing rusinow vs suits because these issues go away (and indeed, this is what eg meckwell play).

I use the same exceptions (dummys suit, partners suit, or preempt and lead a side suit).

[lalldonn]

 JLOGIC, on 2012-October-24, 16:07, said:

Still, leading the ten from JTx *could* cause issues when dummy has Qxx and partner has AKxx(x) and has to guess whether to play you for Tx or JTx. So far this hasn't caused an adverse swing for me (and I have played rusinow vs suits for a long time in my regular partnerships), but it could and a couple of times my partner has had to guess right.

On board 3 in this session in the Toronto LM pairs I opened 1♠, partner bid 2NT gf, I bid 3♣ any min, he bid 4♠. LHO led the singleton ten of hearts playing rusinow and there was basically no way RHO could get this right IMO so I made instead of going down. I asked around and the same thing happened at multiple tables where they were playing Rusinow, where even if south showed club shortness instead it was very hard for the defense to get right.

But obv sometimes those random positions gain for the defense too, like in that same tournament they led the J against a suit contract, I covered from dummy's Q9x with Kxx in my hand, they won the ace and returned the suit, and I blew to JT doubleton. So I'm not sure what to conclude.

[JLOGIC]

Yep, looks right. Like I said, most people I know dislike rusinow vs suits, but I have played it for quite a while and have found it to be plus, albeit in a limited and biased sample. I doubt it matters much, the more important thing to me is that people who play standard leads or king is the unblock vs NT should be playing it for sure.

[blackshoe]

 JLOGIC, on 2012-October-24, 16:07, said:

Rusinow vs NT is just automatic imo(with king asking for unblock) if you don't want to play coded or something like that.

[snip]

I personally also like rusinow vs suits, but this is more controversial and most good players I know do not like it.

I am bemused. It's been a while since I read Journalist Leads, but ISTR their argument was just the opposite: Rusinow vs. NT not good, Rusinow vs. suits good. But I don't remember the details. I wonder if "The Journalist" has changed his mind in the last thirty years or so.

[ArtK78]

 blackshoe, on 2012-October-25, 08:19, said:

I am bemused. It's been a while since I read Journalist Leads, but ISTR their argument was just the opposite: Rusinow vs. NT not good, Rusinow vs. suits good. But I don't remember the details. I wonder if "The Journalist" has changed his mind in the last thirty years or so.

This is most certainly true. As I mentioned previously, I have been playing Rusinow leads since the 70s against suits only. At the time that I adopted Rusinow leads, literally no one played them against notrump contracts.

I was trying to remember where I first learned of Rusinow leads, as I was not a subscriber to the Bridge Journal. Journalist leads were new when I first started playing (1972). One of the first systems that I learned was the CC Wei version of Precision. Is it possible that Rusinow leads against suits were included in that book?

[SteveMoe]

 ArtK78, on 2012-October-25, 09:03, said:

I was trying to remember where I first learned of Rusinow leads, as I was not a subscriber to the Bridge Journal. Journalist leads were new when I first started playing (1972). One of the first systems that I learned was the CC Wei version of Precision. Is it possible that Rusinow leads against suits were included in that book?

Wasn't in the C. C. Wei book covered by Charles Goren (Red cover paperback).
Seemto recall it was Ewens book on Opening leads about that time...