Balancing
I'm afraid I'm not going to say much very positive about balacing bids. I think it's the most overrated bid in bridge, and about the best I can say of them is that if you try enough, they're bound to work sometimes. Yes, I know experts praise them as part of their repertory and Mike Lawrence has written a book on balancing bids, which in fact I have on my bookshelf, but I still have a very sour picture of them. I don't believe I've ever seen one highlighted as the clever bid that carried the day in a big tournament, or even a small one, and as for the book, well, you have to rememer one thing about writers: they know the outcome of a hand before they set pen to paper, so naturally all of Lawrence's examples come out hunky-dory. Further, giving the devil his due, maybe they come out fine more because he's a fine player than because he's describing bids that should be in the repertory of the general run of players.
I find even the theory more than a little flawed and the practice so flagrantly counterproductive that I keep asking (silently), "Isn't anyone noticing?" When the bid was first explained to me, the explainer said that when the bidding was ready to die at the one or two level, she could then deduce that her partner had some stuff and so enter the bidding. It sounded very sophisticated at the time, but I now find this unconvincing as a reason to pop into the bidding after 2 or 3 passes by your side for several reasons.
The first is that it's not a partcularly startling insight to deduce that your partner has some stuff. We're always presuming that! We open the bidding with 13 points, about a third of the deck, contracting for a majority of the tricks! People have been known to overcall with as little as seven points. We have certain protections against disaster in so doing, one of them being that we rarely find our partner with no help at all, a second being the scoring system. It's part of the system that we presume our partner will at least have enough to make our one bids safe far, far more often than not.
But that's not all. I have two more objections to the theory. One is that even if you can correctly surmise that your partner has some stuff, that does not mean there's still a productive bid open to you. Just because they stop at the two level (call it two spades), that doesn't mean there's a viable three level bid open to you. Nor does it even mean you could make eight tricks in your best suit.
Another is that you don't know the opponents have bid to the limit that their strength would allow. I think it a questionable practice to base our bidding on what they tell us. And I guess this is as good a time as any to move from theory to practice and give an example:
For years I would go to any regional or sectional within driving distance, playing with pick-up partners, and I almost always had good luck and enjoyed myself and even won a regional with a pick-up. Then I got burned -- it's chore enough driving into the Big Apple without spending your time with someone who doesn't even know the bidding system -- and I must have gone ten years without doing so. Then one Wednesday morning, I thought I'd give it another try and settled with this partner who . . .
Well, the bidding went one diamond on his right, pass, two diamonds, pass, pass.. and he decided it was incumbent on him to balance. Now, it might have made a semblance of sense if he had held two rather good-looking four-card majors and about 10 hcp's. He's a little too weak for a takeout double and doesn't like overcalling 4-card suits and I'm bound to have a bid for the two level. Okay. But he "balanced" with five clubs on a jack-high suit, without the ten! He would have had to lose four tricks in clubs alone! That would have booked him and any tricks the opponents won in the other suits would have been pure gravy. Indeed (if doubled), every side-suit trick alone would have cost more than what they could have made in two diamonds if they took all the tricks! We would have been down about 8 or 11 hundred. An opponent saved us with a three diamond bid -- actually the one with A K Q 10 of clubs! -- and it later became apparent that they'd missed their no trump game -- twice!
So much for surmising just how much your partner has from the opponents' bidding. But wait! That's not all! My partner saw nothing wrong with his bid! I just can't explain how putting a partnership in harm's way to the tune of 800 or 1100 points against 2 diamonds and giving the opponents a second chance to find their no trump game constitutes a perfectly reasonable bid. But I have my supposition, which is that this is "balancing" and gee, "sophisticated players balance, don't they?" So how can it be wrong? I never went back there or anywhere else for another pick-up partner.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong with a balancing bid, and only a couple of things that can go right. To be sure, the number of things that can go wrong is secondary to the frequency with which things go right or wrong. But I personally feel the balancing bid -- among the general run of players, not those at Mike Lawrence's level -- is a loser far more often than not.
The two things that can go right are that you nudge the opponents into a one-level higher bid that they can't make, and that you do find a comfortable spot. Okay. But here's what can go wrong:
(1) You give the opponents a chance to find a better resting spot. The bidding goes one spade, pass, pass, 2 clubs (or double, or whatever, on 7 or 8 hcp's), two hearts, pass, Oh, you have hearts partner? Well, 3 hearts, and on to four. Making. Or maybe the opener's partner is still too weak to bid, but at least they've found a more productive trump suit.
(2)You give them another shot at a makable game, as in the hand just related above where, to be sure they didn't take advantage of it, but the next guys might suddenly come to life. I've seen it happen that the opponents suddenly find their makable game.
(3)You are plain and simply overbid. I was the victim of what must have been the most idiotic balancing bid in bridge history. I opened the bidding a club, a spade on my left, pass, two spades, pass, pass.. . I was very comfortable letting them have their two-spade partial when my partner now came in with 3 hearts, double like a shot out of a gun on my right, and down 1700. To keep them from that 2 spade partial! I had the A K of clubs and A of hearts for her, and she still only picked up three tricks! Now that's sophistication, huh?
I was also the beneficiary of an ill-advised balance by the director of a club one evening. My partner bid a no trump (15-17 hcp's), and I suppose I had 8 hcp's. Taking a tip from the theorist who said 25-pt no trump games are feasible if the imbalance is no worse than 15-10, I chose to pass. Double on my left, pass, two clubs -- I had 4-4 in the minors -- double by me, two diamonds on my left with another double to come by me. Dummy came down with about 12 hcp's! My partner knew somebody had lost his marbles, and almost surely thought I was the one, but I knew we had the clear preponderance of points and that every point dummy had was one my LHO didn't have.
She was down three when we were only going for a partial! More sophistication, huh? She could surmise that her partner had some points, and by golly, she was right! The only problem was that she didn't have very many herself! Now my partner, a little amazed at the turn of events, asked the tactless question, "How many points did you have?" (I think she held either 4 or 5), to which the director answered, "Oh, it doesn't matter. I just didn't want to defend that hand." That's another sophistication one often hears. Tentative neophytes don't say, "I didn't want to defend". Sophisticated players do. But I've never quite grasped the logic of "not wanting" to defend. Is that the rationale for overbids?
A week after my first draft here, playing on the computer I had another illustration of a counterproductive balancing bid. I had a better than minimum opener, call it 16 or 17 points, not enough for a jump shift, certainly. I opened a spade, my partner bid a no trump, I bid two hearts, pass, pass and now came 3 diamonds, the first bid by the opposition. I passed, pass on my left, and now my partner bid three hearts. Well, now . . . I'd heard his preference, of course. But preference isn't the same as a positive liking for a suit. When I heard that, when I heard a downright fondness for hearts, I chanced game, which made. My partner and I had both held better hands than we'd indicated, and when my partner was able to show that by competing to three hearts after passing two, I was now able to show that I also had a better hand than I'd been able to convey.
Here's one I saw on OKBridge t'other day. Indeed, it was what reminded me of my feelings on balancing bids, which I'd just about forgotten.
|
 Q 2 |
|
 K 8 5 |
|
 K Q 10 3 |
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 K 9 8 7 |
| K 9 8 6 4 |
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A 10 7 5 |
| A Q 9 2 |
|
J 4 |
| 6 4 |
|
8 5 2 |
| A J |
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Q 6 3 2 |
|
J 3 |
|
|
10 7 6 3 |
|
|
A J 9 7 |
|
|
10 5 4 |
|
I was kibitzing, looking at all four hands, and now when after a couple of passes and the bidding was about to die at two spades, North bid 2 NT, alerted, evidently for the minors, and N-S found their best denomination in 3 diamonds. Anyway I could see that declarer was headed for a two-trick defeat, which, vulnerable, even undoubled would be worse than the opponents' two spades . But when it was up to West, and he paused, I kept yelling, "Double! Double!" which he finally did for 500 points. Why did I want him to double? I knew none of the people involved personally, but yes, I wanted another illustration of what's wrong with balancing bids, and so I wanted a sound minus 500 to block a spade partial rather than a namby-pamby minus 200. The former is so much more dramatic.
You might note that the balancing bid did everything a balancing bid is supposed to do except improve that partnership's score, sort of like "The operation was a success but the patient died." N-S found their 8-card fit, N correctly deduced S had "some stuff" and they got a miserable score. I might also point to my twenty-point principle. If the bidding goes one spade, pass, two spades, and we're presupposing reasonable competence on the part of the opponents, which balancing is based on, then isn't it clear that the points are evenly divided? And if they're evenly divided, do you really want to go for nine tricks to their four? It's perhaps worthy of note that those other guys can make three spades, a level beyond which not many people would be balancing. Indeed, they can make 3 spades with two simple finesses being off! But they didn't tell you they could make three spades, did they? Were they spozed to?
Ultimately you've got to trust the person whose observations and common sense you can trust the most, and that person is YOU! You've got to do your own observations and be your own expert on this matter. You've got to look out for the balancing bids that work and those that don't work, as well as taking notice of those that should have proved costly but didn't.
When the observations and discoveries are your own, you will have a much sounder foundation and much more confidence in your decisions. If you want a more upbeat outlook on balancing, then by all means seek out Lawrence's book and read it. In the meantime, while you're observing enough hands to form your own generalizations, I would offer a couple of suggestions. I would keep away from balancing against the opponents one no. (I'm speaking of balancing now, bidding because the opponents let the bidding die. I am not inveighing against bidding over their no trump for positive reasons, bidding because you feel you can compete on the basis of what you see in your hand.). I would avoid vulnerable balancing, except maybe if your partner has at least two suits he might choose at the two level. And I would avoid balancing that will surely or even probably throw you to the three level. The three-level balance is about ten times as likely to go bad as a two level owing to the synergistic effect of two factors: when the points are evenly balanced, you're far more likely to go down at the 3 level than at the 2, and you're far more likely to be doubled.
In the last hand given, for instance, if we reverse the suits, keeping everything else constant, the opponents could then make 3 diamonds for 110, while you'd be down one at two spades. Since you're vulnerable, a double would make that more costly than their 3 diamonds, but you stand a better than average chance of not being doubled on so close a contract. So a 2 spade balance would at least be in the ballpark. Shrug your shoulders if you do get doubled. You're going to make a few of those doubled bids anyway, and you won't always be vulnerable.
I might add one thing on the above hand, which is more in the nature of a personal preference than a cut-and-dried bridge principle, but I would far rather venture a takeout double over one spade on my right than to come in over two spades. It's not a good takeout double, I'll grant. North has 13 hcp's but only 3 hearts and the queen of spades might prove useless. I can well understand and appreciate a style that would regard that as substandard for a takeout double.
Neverless, balanced against the disadvantages, I offer the following: your partner after all could have five or even six hearts and failing that might bid a minor suit, and certainly not least, you'll be inviting your parter to bid at the two level -- or decide not to enter if E bids 2 spades. Here, South was trapped. I personally feel this is a far safer style. Or to put this another way, I think North should make his decision early, and I could respect either a pass or a slightly daring takeout double. But if he chooses to pass at his first opportunity, I think it foolhardly and contrary to common sense to let the opponents' bidding lead to his decision.
By golly, I must announce it: a totally inviolate and unimpeachable balancing bid by . . . the computer! When you try to devise a hand where a balancing bid works, it's near impossible, because you either wind up with a hand that should have bid immediately or a bid too weak to sustain a double and best defense. One can only grab them when they surface, and so I'm happy to display this one. Two spades is cold and though the non-vul opponents might have improved their score with 3 clubs, N-S landed into a positive score with the bid.