Twenty high card points represent half the deck, of course. That doesn't mean you can't win more than half the tricks, and indeed, if you have the privilege of naming trump, we would expect you to take the majority with half the deck. With wild distribution, you might even have slam on 20 hcp's. This isn't an everyday occurrence, but it shouldn't surprise us when it does happen. And drawing back a little from "wild distribution", I would even grant that a 9-card fit should usually (not always) make a 3-level bid reasonably safe.
So 9-card or better fits are beyond the pale here. I'm referring only to hands of 20 or fewer hcp's where there is no known fit, or at best an 8-carder. And my position is that in such cases, the 2 level begins to get risky (except on a known 8-card fit) and the 3 level downright dangerous. Yet, people embark on that danger and get slapped down for it all the time. Let me give you the worst example of this foolishness I believe I ever saw, and this by a four-figure Life Master:
Q 7 5 3
10 8 4
8 7 6
A 8 6
The bidding went, starting at this LM's left, one spade, double, redouble, pass, pass, two clubs, two diamonds, 3 clubs ! ! ! ! I don't recall which opponent doubled. She not only went for 1400, but one defender pointed out to her partner how she'd cost their side a trick! I'm not kidding.
That was pure madness. The queen of spades is almost surely going to be worthless, leaving this player with 4 effective hcp's opposite what might be 12 or so, with no particularly good fit. And she wants to go for 9 tricks to their four! I wondered later if she got confused with another bid: For a rebid after a takeout double opposite a partner who has promised nothing, you should have a better than minimum takeout double, at least 16 points. But on one spade, double, redouble, pass, the doubling side could easily be in a peck of trouble. You can't let 'em play it there, for it would almost surely be a disaster. You've got to escape. So the two club bid in no way indicates a stronger than minimum takeout double, and when her RHO bid two diamonds, this LM should have been resisting an impulse to say "Thank you", for that would be extremely rude. But she should have been thinking it. Let 'em play it in what may or may not be a misfit, for heaven's sake. Let 'em have their partial, let 'em try for game if they would like, and if they make, you can congratulate them on their fine play or blame your partner for giving up a trick, as is your bent. But the one thing you can't do on that balanced hand with only one good card to offer your partner is compete at the 3 level!
When this disregard of 20 hcp's surfaces, it is almost invariably in competitive situations. People who have an adequate knowledge of how many points they need to make a response at the one level, or in a new suit at the two level, or in a fit at the two level just seem to lose all common sense in competition. They bid not once, but twice on a point count that wouldn't justify the first bid. I see it all the time and am thinking of starting a collection of instances.
I was a victim of one such case on OKbridge. I couldn't remember the early bidding, but in light of what I'm sure of in the later, it must have been one spade by me, two hearts on my left, negative double by my partner. For I do remember I was going to have to pick a minor, and I had three cards in each which didn't look like a particularly good fit for the 3 level. But my RHO bid three hearts and I passed with pleasure. It didn't help, though, because my partner now came in with four clubs, and I need hardly tell you it was a disaster.
Like the 3 club hand above, we were saved temporarily by a kindly opponent only to stick our neck back in the noose. And her high card count? Seven. Seven! If the bidding had gone one spade, pass, she's not strong enough for the two level and (I'm guessing) probably would have recognized that. But when the opponents into the bidding, she goes to the four? And I'm offering no more encouragement? Nor is this the only illustration I could give, but the two above, I will grant, are the worst two I ever saw.
In 1982, I published a dissertation on this figure 20 in the ACBL Bulletin. Ever since then, the local expert has always taunted me -- for 15 years now! -- with the jocular question, :"Does the Rule of 21 apply here?" or some close variant. I guess he's referring to that article and that he first came across this basic principle as a "Rule of 21", or maybe he just happened to remember (falsely) that I'd used that phrase. And I presume -- though I'm not sure, for I never asked -- that his point is that this is old hat, and too tame a subject to write about. If so, i.e., if that's his point, I can only say he's mistaken. Perhaps this is true of the circles he travels in, but I can assure him that this is not only common, but probably as common as it was 15 years ago.
I went back to that article and decided it withstands the test of time and was going to start reproducing it here, but on second thought decided to make that a separate entry, which I will get to shortly as Part Two. So for the moment, lemme just restate my basic proposition and warning: When your side doesn't have a clear preponderance of the points, when, for instance, you have 7 hcp's (forget distributioin for the moment) opposite an opening bid and your partner either passes at his next turn or makes a minimum rebid (particularly if forced to rebid), when indeed, your side might have less than half the hcp's, and you have no known good fit, then the two level is risky and the three level ranges from dangerous to insane.
Of course you'll get by some of the time. You don't need to tell me that. But the disasters not only tend to wipe out the good times and then some: they also have a very detrimental effect on partnership relations.
Q 7 5 3
10 8 4
8 7 6
A 8 6