QUESTIONS I GET ASKED No 4752...

You are Not Vulnerable, while the Vulnerable opponent on your right deals and opens 1H. You hold...

J

AQxxx

Qxx

Kxxx

and I get asked "What should I bid? I was going to open (1H). Should I (A) double or (B) lie a little and bid 1NT?"

The question ought really to be not "what" but simply "should I bid?" And the answer is a resounding NOOOOO!!!

The opponents have bid a suit in which you are strong, so why tell them that. It's unlikely the bidding will end up in a H contract anyway, but careless talk costs lives (and tricks!)

(A) A double in this situation would be "for Take-out." It is NOT a penalty double. It would carry the message that you are happy for partner to bid any other suit than H's at whatever level they deem fit. This is not a message you want to send with this hand at all. PASS.

(B) 1NT as an overcall promises 15 - 17 HCP and a good (ish) stopper in their suit. You only have 12 HCP. Do not lie about this hand. PASS.

(C!) In a perfect, ideal, wonderful world of supreme happiness the auction would - you fervently hope - go like this:

1H - PASS - PASS - DOUBLE!!!

PASS - ???

Partner's double is for take out, as before, asking you to bid one of the other three suits. But before you reach for the 3C card have a think. Say you make 3C that's +110. Say you end up in 3NT and make +400. All fine. Except what if you PASS again? They play in 1H Vulnerable and go 2 down for +500 to you? That's the perfect score isn't it? And that score is only a (remote) possibility if you PASS twice. if you try to bid in these situations you immediately lose the chance for the magical +500. Even 1 down for +200 could be the top score possible. Nobody knows. And nobody ever will if you try to bid with these hands.

The question you should really have asked is "WHY should I bid and WHY should I pass?" 9 times out of 10 my answer will be "What's the score?"

When the opponents bid your suit - PASS, unless you have a hand suitable for a 1NT overcall (15 - 17) If you have an even bigger hand (18+) you can then double as you will re-bid NT's - promising a hand better than an immediate 1NT overcall. On a slightly different note: when you do pass, pass smoothly. Do not dither. Do not hesitate. Do not by your demeanour let them or your partner know that you have this type of hand. If you do so you give the game away to the opponents, which is pointless. OR you give partner unauthorised information which is unethical. Be careful about this. In general try very hard not to hesitate and then PASS. To hesitate and bid is fine.

POINTS Vs SHAPE

I frequently get asked the question: "How many points do I need?" This is especially true when someone wants to overcall, but sadly the answer is not - necessarily - about points. It is also about distribution or "shape". It can also be about where your points are. Take a look at this hand:

KQx

Kxx

Kxxx

Qxx

A perfectly decent opening bid of 1NT. But if your Right Hand Opponent (RHO) opens anything you cannot bid. You cannot bid 1NT over a suit as you need 15 - 17 to do so; plus you have no 5 card suit to get into the auction with. Nor should you bid if they open 1NT themselves. So now you must - reluctantly - PASS. On the other hand you might have fewer points BUT in a more shapely hand:

K

xxxxxx

Qxx

Axx

I suppose some people might overcall with this hand - good luck to them! Swap the points round, though, and things change radically:

x

AKQxxx

xxx

xxx

Now you should bid, even though you have fewer total points than the 13 count above. What you lack in HCP is more than compensated by the "shape". When your RHO opens 1C or 1D you can make a weak jump overcall of 2H! And even if they open 1S or 1NT you are still entitled to bid 2H. You might steal the auction and you also give partner a good indication of what to lead if you subsequently lose the auction.

Remember - Points are good but Shape is better. SB4P

This is why there are so many conventional overcalls to show specific shapes before showing the point count.

Shape. If you got it - flaunt it baby...

PLAYING TO THE SCORE

At Pairs and teams scoring a Non-vulnerable game is worth 400/420. A Vulnerable game is worth 600/620. It follows that if you can somehow give away less than either of those two scores you will have returned an actual plus for your side. If the opponents contract to play 4 Hearts Vulnerable they will make 620. If your side is not vulnerable you can go 3 down doubled for a score of -500, an actual profit of 120. However - be careful. The loss of 500 is only worth it if the Vulnerable game can actually make! And even if it can, you must hold your losses to that -500 mark, as if you go down for -800, you just turned the loss from 620 to 800 instead. This is not good. Don' be fooled into thinking that all sacrifices are necessarily the correct thing to do. It is probably as true anything can be in this game that if you are the Vulnerable side and the opponents are Not Vulnerable, then to sacrifice is almost never the correct thing to do.

The crucial point I am making is that how far you bid will depend not just on what cards you hold, what partner bids and what the opponents do but also what the score is. This applies to all forms of the game - Rubber, Duplicate and Teams. This concept also applies to the part-score battle, when both side have roughly an even number of points. This is particularly true at Duplicate, rather less so at Teams or Rubber. The maths is the same: if they contract to make 2 Hearts for -110 to you, then you can go for -100 in 3 Clubs or Diamonds (say). This profit is so marginal that at teams scoring it is a flat board, but it's very important at Duplicate, where the size of the profit is not an issue. if you beat all the other pairs by 10 points, you get the same Matchpoints if you beat them all by 1000.

However - Rubber Bridge players should beware the siren song of the sacrifice. Do not be lured unthinkingly to those rocky rocks. Let us assume a rubber score where you are not Vulnerable, but they are Game and 60. If they get this game they get a 700 rubber plus their Game and overtrick scores and any other scores above the line you might have gifted them on the way. So. Thinks. If we can sacrifice for anything less than 700, you think, apparently rationally, then we are quids in. WRONG. Ok let's say you duly sacrifice in this dubious enterprise and go for -300. Aha! you might think, saved 400! WRONG. The reason is that when the dust has finally settled they will STILL be Game and 60 and will gratefully receive the 300 you just donated to them. Now, having invested that 300 in trying to save the rubber, will you now protect your investment by sacrificing again and again until you finally do get a game? And how will you feel if, in this extended rubber, your opponents find a slam, thus giving them another 1000+ points into the bargain? Initially you were worried about chalking up a -900 rubber but now you find yourself scoring about -3000 instead. The way to avoid this common pitfall is to know when to give up. Minimise your losses by getting out of the rubber as cheaply as possible and move on to the next when hopefully your luck will change. Do not flog dead horses. Cut and run.

This is why - before you even look at your cards - you must check the vulnerability. Your cards don't really matter. The Vulnerability is utterly crucial.

When ‘Rules’ Are Made To Be Broken – 20 Jan 2011

The basement bridge group meets every Wednesday evening for ‘supervised play’ at the Princess of Wales in London NW1. Date given in each headline is the date this posting was mailed out to the basement bridgers. Check the blog for past info on transfers, cue-bids, doubles and so on … New players are always welcome and partners are found for all players. To be added to the mailing list, send an email to bridge@ruffclub.co.uk with the subject ‘Basement Bridge’.

An evening of weird distributions was evidence that sometimes the rules don’t seem to apply and you just have to fly by the seat of your pants, stare down the opposition and see who buckles first. Even the last hand of the night was a treat. A perfectly sound 6D was bid and the play could cater for a 4 - 1 trump break but was finally defeated on the 5 - 0 break. Which you can do nothing about 90% of the time. Hey ho… Another chronosynclastic infundibulation… which brings us to the subject of:

“Rules”

There are many of these so-called “Rules” in Bridge. They are designed to assist the average player make decisions in certain repeating situations. But be warned! None of them are sacrosanct or 100% cast iron.

The problem is that if you follow a rule blindly you will stop thinking clearly about the hand you actually hold in the deal you are actually playing. For instance – as I've said before – most of the time it is not a good idea to lead from a suit headed by just the ace or just the king against a suit contract. This is not a RULE. It is “Advice To Players” (ATP)

The same is true of the Rule (!) “2nd hand plays low, 3rd hand high” when you are defending. Most of the time these ATP will hold good but not ALL of the time. So you have to think about the situations where these ATP do NOT apply.

The opposition bid as follows:

1S - 2D
3D - 3S
4S - P

You are on lead and you hold a diamond suit like this: Axxx.

Looking at the auction - and thinking about it - you can tell that the opposition have an 8 card fit in both the diamond suit and the spade suit. Well, if they have eight diamonds and you have four then partner has … er … ONE! So – in this case – you must lead the ace of diamonds and then give your partner the expected ruff.

Similarly if, after a competitive auction where you and partner bid hearts but the opposition bid on to 4 Spades, partner leads a small club. Dummy wins the ace and a small spade is led from the table. What do you now play with this hand?

Axx
AJxx
KJ
Jxxx

The ATP is that 2nd hand plays low. But Stop! Think! Why has partner not led a heart – the partnership’s known best suit? Partner is either a dang dumb fool OR knows exactly what needs to be done and wants you recognise the fact. What if the club is singleton and that’s why partner led it?

Now you have to ignore the ATP “2nd hand plays low”, dive in with the ace of spades and give partner the club ruff before declarer has a chance to draw trumps.

The Rules in bridge (ATP) that you will hear about and read about are not rules. They are percentage plays or bids that probably succeed more often than they fail. What you have to be aware of is the slightly smaller percentage times when the ATP do NOT apply. There is only one Rule in bridge: NEVER STOP THINKING…

Have fun
Kit

2-Suited Overcalls - The Contessa Bids Michaels 12 Jan 2011

“You have to get in there whenever you can,” breathed the Contessa.

As she laid them gently on the table, I was rather amazed to see what she had. The bidding had started on my left:

1H - 2H! - 4H - 4S
Dble - P - P - P

I alerted the Contessa’s 2H and when asked said it was a Michaels Cue bid showing a weak hand (5 - 9) with at least 5 Spades and a 5 card minor.

In fact the Contessa’s dummy was a lot less in points than expected and my heart sank when I saw it:

Q87642
3
9
106542

I held:

AK93
762
A53
K87

I didn’t expect to make 4S but knew we had a double fit and just wanted to be awkward. 16 points between us didn't seem enough for game (!) but I soldiered on. Luckily the ace of clubs was on my right and the suit broke 3-2. I got away with losing 2 clubs and a heart to make my daring doubled game.

It was always exciting when the Contessa let me play with her. “You see? You should never be shy when you have a good shape, no?”

I swear she winked at me…

For more on this, check the blog at: http://basementbridge.blogspot.com/2010/05/two-suited-overcalls-part-2-michaels.html

Have fun
Kit

Freak Show – 12 Jan 2011

Something like 70% of hands fall in to the category of “Bread & Butter” hands. The rest can be almost anything. Tonight we had:

Qxxxxx
-
-
QJxxxxx

This is not a hand you will find in textbooks. Basically you have to do whatever you think is right and make it up as you go along. Partner opens 1NT and the bidding – I arbitrarily decided – should go along the lines of:

1NT - 2H!(transfer)
2S - 3C
3S - 4S

Well.. who knows? It went down, but on another day you might make an overtrick!

Everyone Loves Big Ones – 5 Jan 2011

However much you may want to, you won’t hold one of these very often. So it’s crucial you know what to do when you get a handful…

A Big One is defined as hand of 20+ HCP. As there are 40 points in the pack you hold half or more of the total, so game can be on opposite less than 6HCP. So. How do you tell partner about your wonderful holding?

Balanced Big Ones

• 20 - 22 HCP BALANCED = 2NT
• 23+ HCP BALANCED = 2C - THEN RE-BID NTs

Ok. So that’s all the big balanced hands taken care of. In all the above cases you want partner to bid when they hold LESS than the normal responding hand of 6+ HCP.

Shapely Big Ones

But what about the UNbalanced hands where Game is on opposite less than normal responding hands? These will be hands of 20+ HCP where a NT bid or re-bid is not suitable:

6
A Q 5 4 2
A K Q 8 6
A Q

21 HCP. You need almost nothing from partner to make game and with a a couple of Kings over there, slam could on. The point count is right for 2NT but the shape is NOT. If you open 1H you will be VERY cross when partner passes with nothing but the King of Hearts and 4H rolls in.

The solution is to open such hands with the BIG BID - 2 CLUBS! This bid does mean you have 23+ with a BALANCED hand but it also means 20+ with an UNBALANCED hand.

2C followed by a suit re-bid is unconditionally forcing to game. It cannot be passed by a shy responder! Note that the hand above has only 3 losers, but that 2C can be bid on hands of 4 losers. Also if you add in the Length Points for the 5th cards in each red suit you do have 23 points.

See you all soon
Kit

Talking of Big Ones, how about Squeezes! For those of you with an enquiring mind about the finer intricacies of declarer play, you might like to glance at books about the Squeeze: a slightly esoteric but nonetheless important part of declarer’s armoury. Here’s a few to look at:

• A Bridge to Simple Squeezes - Julian Laderman
• Squeezes Made Simple - David Bird, Marc Smith
• Squeeze Play Made Easy - by Terence Reese and Patrick Jourdain