The Sunday Morning Star – 22 Oct 1939
By the Four Aces:
David Burnstein, Merwyn D. “Jimmy” Maier, Oswald Jacoby and Howard Schenken
Jack Dreyfus, young stock broker of New ‘York, plays a great deal of bridge for recreation. Recently he submitted to us a new convention of play which we have been testing out for some time.
It looks quite good, but before officialy adopting it for our own use, we would like to submit it to our readers and get their opinion. The basis of this convention is as follows:
For years the general rule in defensive play has been: lead the highest of equals: but when third hand play the lowest of equals.” Thus, suppose a player holds Q-J-10—x of apades. If it is his lead and if he decides to open that suit, he plays the Queen. But if his partner leads a low card in that suit and if second hand plays low, the player now plays the ten.”
In the Dreyfus convention the player plays the second highest—not the lowest—of a sequence. The advantage of this convention, as explained by Mr. Dreyfus, is that the player who has led receives very specific information which he would not get under the old convention.
Thus, the opening lead against a three notrump contract is the three of spades from A-9-8-3-2. Dummy goes down with the singleton four-spot of spades, which is played. Third hand plays the ten and declarer wins with the King.
Under the old convention the player on lead does not know whether his partner holds the Queen—Jack—ten and Declarer is playing the King because it is the only honor he has, or whether declarer holds the King and Queen or conceivably even the King Queen and Jack.
With the Dreyfus convention, however, the man who led knows from the play of the ten spot that his partner cannot have the Queen, and may or may not have the Jack. If he now suspects his partner has the Jack, he tries to get him in so that he may lead the Jack through the Queen, which he definitely knows is left in Declarer’s hand.
This represents the distinct advantage of the Dreyfus convention over the old fashioned one.